15 20 545 https://historysoa.com/files/original/5/455/1893-10-02-The-Author-4-5.pdf 8134e4d4f5b2ffcdfda390c24a0604ea PDF Text Text ������������������������������������������ Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Author Subject The topic of the resource <em>The Author</em> Description An account of the resource A digitised run of the Society of Authors' monthly periodical, <em>The Author</em>, 1890<span>–</span>1914, made available together for the first time.<br /><br />Currently users can browse issues and <a href="https://historysoa.com/items/browse?search=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Index&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;tags=&amp;exhibit=&amp;date_search_term=&amp;submit_search=Search+For+Items&amp;sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CTitle">indices</a> (not available for all volumes). Full text search for all issues, and other additional search functionality, will be added in 2022. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1890–1914 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context The-Author-Issues Publication Date The date of an event (in YYYY, YYYY-MM or YYYY-MM-DD format) 1893-10-02 Volume 4 Issue 5 Pages Page range in volume 149–188 Ngram Date Version of the date in YYYYMMDD format for use by the Ngram plugin 18931002 Ngram Text Version of the text with no HTML formatting for use by the Ngram plugin The Huthor. (The Organ of the Incorporated Society of Authors. Monthly.) CONDUCTED BY WALTER BESANT. Vou. IV.—No. 5.] OCTOBER 2, 1893. [Price SIxPENCE. CONTENTS. i PAGE | PAGE Warnings and Notices was Be ase tee eae hes see LOL Correspondence (continued)— Literary Property— 3.—Rash Conclusions ... ae es ace 5 ane So d0 . —Transfer of Contracts ee . 153 4.—Publishers’ Work ... ‘ ae nee is seca: —Advances on Royalties ee ec Loe 5.—The Extension of our Language ace oer ae ae ded a Tribute Gee . . +. 153 6.—The Novelist as Topogrs apher os wee ee eee ces tL 4.—Their Charges me ee : .. 154 7.—Editorial Ethics .. 172 5.—The Lady and its Contributors sat : - 154 | 8.—‘ Free Lance” and Nature - 172 6.—The Law and the Press : : se LDA) 9.—Géorge Eliot and Respectability 173 7.—The Law of Libel ... : + 156 10.—James Defoe.. ae one ae ca wee te 8.—Norwegian Copyright L: aw ‘ -. 156 11.—Retention of MSS... oss oa oe ee ioe ee hie Zola on Anonymous Journalism . es + 156 oo Poetry 175 Thackeray’s Women.. : «. 158 —Publishers’ Readers 175 So-So Sociology ae we 15S 5 Books of 1892... eee 176 Contributor versus Editor. “By a Contributor . 159 | What the Papers say—_ Notes and News. By the Editor. : «« 161-4 1.—The Book that Failed (Punch) ... ae eee eee pe LEE Feuilleton— | 2.—A Literary Beginner (The Globe) ee avs Bee Seek: 1.—The Very Best Advice... ae. tee ve ae soe 168 2} 3.—On the Literary Life (The Asclepiad) ... bas a Lee. 2.—The Poet’s Choice .., eee ane ae ae ME obs 4 4.—Reading in the Workhouse (Westminster Gaz 12) 05 soe dee Correspondence— 5.—* Flavia” (Manchester G uardian) aes Ree ae oto. 1.—Delicate ana Subtle tos ae De en a wee 170 ‘* At the Sign of the Author’s Head”... a Sh Sas setae 2.—Reviewed Books .,. ei See oe saa vee tee gD Books Published ae ie se ae — vee 182 BLISS, SANDS. AND FOSTER. i, CRAVEN STREET, Dates of Publication. OCT. Ist. OCT. 6TH. OCT. 1st. OCT. 15TH. OCT. 157TH. OCT. 15TH. NOV. Isr. | LIBRARY. VOLUME TWO. NEW BOOKS AND NEW EDITIONS. ae A LIFE AWRY. By Percival Pickering. INS VOLS. DR. GREY’S PATIENT. By irs. G.S. Reaney. THE ART OF PLUCK. By SCRIBLERUS REDIVIVUS. New Edition, royal 1émo., cloth extra, gilt top, 2s. 6d. QUABBIN : The Story of a Small Town with Outlooks upon Puritan Life, By FRANCIS H. UNDERWOOD, LL.D., U.S. Consul at Edinburgh. Large crown 8vo. Numerous Illustrations, 7s. 6d. THE ATHENZAUM says: ‘His story is exceedingly well | OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES says in a letter to the written, and is extremely interesting. - . . Hehas written | Author: “I congratulate you on having made an admirable a most interesting book, in which there is not a superfluous | BLOTYs 2.3 the beautiful and thoroughly characteristic page.” illustrations which haye called forth my genuine admiration.’ BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 220 POD ios MAN: RECOLLECTIONS AND APPRECIATIONS OF JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. Feap. 8vo., artistically bound, gilt top, 4s. 6d. THE - VOLUME ONE. ™ LATTER DAY ROMANOR. MODERN By MRS. MURRAY HICKSON. . THE WORLD’S PLEASURES. By CLARA SAVILE-CLARKE. Paper, 1s. 6d. ; Cloth, 2s. OTHER VOLUMES ARE IN PREPARATION. Small crown 8vo., eee we 150 ADVERTISEMENTS. The Society of Authors (Sncorporated). PRESIDENT. GHORGEH MEREDITH. i COUNCIL. Str Epwin ARNOLD, K.C.1L.E., C.8.I. Tue Haru oF DESART. Lewis Morris. ALFRED AUSTIN. Austin Dosson. Pror. Max MULLER. J. M. Barrie. A. W. Dusoure. J. C. PARKINSON. : A. W. A BreckeTT. J. Eric Ericusen, F.B.S. Tur Eart oF PEMBROKE AND Mont- es Ropert BATEMAN. Pror. MicHart Foster, F.R.S. GOMERY. i Str Henry Berens, K.C.M.G. Richt Hon. HERBERT GARDNER, Sir FrepeRicK Poniock, Bart., LL.D. WALTER BESANT. M.P. Water HEerRRIES POLLOCK. AvUGUSTINE BrRRELL, M.P. RicHaRD GARNETT, LL.D. A. G. Ross. Rev. Pror. Bonney, F.RB.S. EpMuND GossE. GEoRGE AUGUSTUS SALA. Ricut Hon. Jamzs Bryce, M.-P. H. Riper HaGeaRD. W. BaprtisTE ScOONES. Hatt Oarne. Tuomas Harpy. G. R. Sirus. EGERTON CasTLs, F.S.A. JeRomE K. JEROME. S. Squire SPRIGGE. P. W. CLAYDEN. RupYARD KIPuine. J. J. STEVENSON. EDWARD CLODD. Pror. E. Ray LANKESTER, F.R.S. Jas. SULLY. W. Morris Cougs. J. M. Levy. Wiiiiam Moy THomas. Hon. JoHN COLLIER. Rev. W. J. Lorrie, F.S.A. H. D. Trart, D.C.L. W. Martin Conway. Pror. J. M. D. MEIKLEJOHN. Baron HENRY DE Worms, M-P., F. Marion CRAWFORD. HERMAN C. MERIVALE. FE.RS. OswaLD CRAWFURD, C.M.G. Rev. C. H. MippLETon- WAKE. Epmunp YATES. Hon. Counsel—E. M. UNDERDOWN, Q.C. Solicitors—Messrs. FrnLp, Rosco, and Co., Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Accountants—Messrs. OscAR BERRY and CARR, Monument-square, H.C. Secretary—G. Huppert THRING, B.A. OFEICES: 4, PortueaL STREET, Lincoun’s Inn Frexps, W.C. PUBLICATIONS OF THE SOCIETY. . The Annual Report. That for January 1892 can be had on application to the Secretary. The Author, A Monthly Journal devoted especially to the protection and maintenance of Literary Property. Issued to all Members. The Grievances of Authors. (The Leadenhall Press.) 1s. The Report of three Meetings on the general subject of Literature and its defence, held at Willis’s Rooms, March, 1887. . Literature and the Pension List. By W. Morris Couuzs, Barrister-at-Law. (Henry Glaisher, 95, Strand, W.C.) 3s. 4 5. The History of the Société des Gens de Lettres. By S. Squire Spricex, late Secretary to 6 o ne the Society. Is. . The Cost of Production. In this work specimens are given of the most important forms of type, size of page, &c., with estimates showing what it costs to produce the more common kinds of books. Henry Glaisher, 95, Strand, W.C. 2s. 6d. 7. The Various Methods of Publication. By S. Squrre Sprices. In this work, compiled from the papers in the Society’s offices, the various forms of agreements proposed by Publishers to Authors are examined, and their meaning carefully explained, with an account of the various kinds of fraud which have been made possible by the different clauses in their agreements. Henry Glaisher, 95, Strand, W.C. 33. . Copyright Law Reform. An Exposition of Lord Monkswell’s Copyright Bill now before Parlia- ent. With Extracts from the Report of the Commission of 1878, and an Appendix containing the Berne Convention and the American Copyright Bill. By J. M. Leny. Eyre and Spottiswoode. 1s. 6d. . The Society of Authors. A Record of its Action from its Foundation. By Warter Busan (Chairman of Committee, 1888—1892). Is. co o  Che #Huthor. (The Organ of the Incorporated Society of Authors. Monthly.) CONDUCTED BY WALTER BESANT. Vou. IV.—No. 5.] OCTOBER 2, 1893. [PRicr 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. T= 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. es AGREEMENTS. ie 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. Doe. WARNINGS. EADERS of the Author and members of the Society R 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. SERIAL RicutTs.—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. VOL. Iv. 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 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 1IT.—Remember that an arrangement as to a 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. LirERARY AGENTS.—Be very careful. Yow 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 or Pusiisuers.—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 Worxk.—Never, on any account whatever, bind yourself down for future work to anyone. 8. Royatry.—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. g. PrERsonat Risk.—Never accept any pecuniary risk or responsibility whatever without advice. 10. REJECTED MSS.—Never, when a MS. has been re- fused by respectable houses, pay others, whatever promises they may put forward, for the production of the work, 11. AMERICAN RiautTs.—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. n2 152 12. Cusston or CoprricHt.—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. 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. oes HOW TO USE THE SOCIETY. K 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. THE AUTHOR. 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. “9, 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 booking fee is charged to cover postage and porterage. 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. _ g. 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. NOTICES. HE Editor of the Author begs to remind members of the Ty 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,  THE AUTHOR. 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 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. Ofcourse, 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. Deo 153 LITERARY PROPERTY. I. ATTEMPTED TRANSFER OF PUBLISHING ContTRACTS. AM glad to learn from the communication of “J. ON.” in the Author for August, p. 30, that a French court has unconsciously followed the good example set by the English Court of Chancery many years ago in a well-known case of Stevens v. Benning. Ever since that decision English authors have been safe enough on the point which “J. O’N.” appears to think unsettled. F. Pontocx. [The Secretary of the Society will prepare a resumé of this case for the next number of the Author.—Ep. | II. ADVANCES ON ROYALTIES. There is, perhaps, no point of detail which gives rise to so much disagreement between author and publisher as the amount of advance which the former is entitled to on royalties. It is now universally conceded that every author who has “ captured his public” is entitled to an advance which varies in amount directly with his popu- larity. Equally universally, however—or, to avoid being accused of exaggeration, as a general rule— author and publisher hold very different views as to the degree of popularity the former possesses. Hence sundry asperities on a question of commer- cial detail. I suggest as a meaus of obviating so invidious a difficulty, that royalties should be pay- able in cash on a day to be named on the number of “subscribed copies.” This is readily ascer- tained. It includes no ‘ returns.” It represents, I understand, cash to the publisher. Obviously, a considerable period must elapse before a pub- lisher can furnish an account of sales. Obviously, too, few authors are in a position to wait for the conclusion of that period before they can touch their money. W. Morris Coes. ITI. A TRIBUTE. The Society of Authors deserves credit for one very valuable quality, which has not, I think, received adequate recognition. Jt is eminently businesslike. I have had occasion to resort to its good offices once or twice this year, and nothing could exceed the promptitude and precision with which it has acted. For instance, after having been long trifled with by the editor, or rather the proprietor, of a certain journal to which I had been a contributor, I requested the Society to 154 THE apply for payment. I wrote, I think, on a Monday; the same evening I received a repl from the Secretary intimating that he had communicated with the delinquent; and the next evening (Tuesday) I received a cheque for the amount in default. With all due respect to the numerous legal establishments in the neigh- bourhood of Portugal-street, I very much doubt whether they would have achieved a similar result. An APPRECIATIVE MEMBER, IV. “THEIR CHARGES.” The following extract from a printed circular has been forwarded to a member of the Society by the Publishers whose names stand at the head of it: Messrs. A. and B.’s charges for printing, paper, stereo- typing, binding, advertising, insurance, and all expenses connected with the publication of the work are due and must be paid by the author on completion of the work and before publication. It will be observed that the publishers— whether they mean it or not—appear to claim the right of charging whatever they please for the “printing, paper, stereotyping, binding, advertising, insurance, and all expenses connected with the publication of the work.” ‘Their charges” have to be paid before the book is taken in hand. What are “their charges”? Are they the simple charges of printer, paper maker, binder, &e.? If so, why not say so? Or are they some other charges? And, if so, what other charges ? We are by no means imputing the intention of anything at all dishonourable against this Firm. It must, however, be pointed out that the clause as it stands is one that leaves the door open to secret profits to any extent. Readers are there- fore advised either not to sign such an agreement, or, at least, to have an estimate for printing, &c. —“their charges ’’—placed in their own hands and to get it properly examined before signing. Let us see what might be the effect of such a clause in dishonest hands: I. (As it should be.) True cost of a book : & ad. Printing and binding, paper, advertising, 80055 BBV es ios ie ls peut cee gen a Cees 100 OO Publishers’ per centage, 15 per cent. on BalGe oases 19 139 Author's profit (Gs eae Il 113 £131 50 £ sd. By sales, say, 750 copies at 3s. Od. ......... 131 50 £131 AUTHOR. IL. (As it should not be.) £4. da. Actual cost of book ............:ccccccssececosses 100 00 Publishers’ charges (25 per cent. on the true Price) 2s acs ce ae 125 00 Publishers’ commission ............:0ccseeeeees 19 13 9 £144 13 9 & ad: Bales 665 sldccsiie us bee a ee 131 50 Alleged loss on boOK............ceecec cee cee eeu ees 13 89 £144 13 9 Messrs. A. and B. will probably say that they do not intend to add 25 per cent., or anything at all per cent., to the cost. But the point is, that the clause in the agreement allows them to charge whatever they please. Vv. Tur “Lapy” AnD 1ts CONTRIBUTORS. [Copy of Agreement offered to contributors. | Address in full. Date 18 Srr,—In reply to your letter relating to my manuscript entitled I request that you will retain that manuscript and will publish it in the Lady at any time and in any manner you deem fit. I undertake not to require any payment what- ever for this manuscript unless it is so published; I acknowledge that I neither have nor shall have any claim in respect thereof on the proprietor of the Lady until after it has been so published; and, in the event of its publica- tion, I accept payment for it at the rate usually paid by the proprietor of the Lady for similar matter. I fully understand that you may find it necessary to postpone the publication of this manuscript for a long period, and that you may even find it impossible to publish it at all; and it is on this understanding that I agree to leave the manuscript in your hands, without holding you to have assumed any responsibility whatever, either for its publication or for its safe custody.—Your obedient servant, (Signature) To the Editor of the Lady newspaper, London, W.C. The editor or proprietor is quite within his rights in making what stipulations he pleases. We are within our rights in advising our readers not to accept these stipulations. The agreemen is a printed form. VI. Tue Law anp THE PREss. At the late meeting of the British Association, Mr. J. A. Strahan, M.A., LL.B, barrister- at-law, read a paper on the Progress of the Newspaper Press, and the need of a consoli- dation and reform of the laws affecting news- papers. He said that, on the principle of calling an age by its most salient feature, the present times might be called the newspaper age. Not  THE AUTHOR. only is the dominance of the newspaper their most notable characteristic, but to that domi- nance all the other characteristic phenomena of the age have not merely contributed, but are necessary. The advances in mechanical skill, in scientific discovery, in popular education, and in popular government have all worked together to put the newspaper of to-day in its present posi- tion. Statistics might be given to show the enormous progress of the Press within recent times. In 1695—the year of the lapse of the censorship of the Press---the first daily paper in England—the Postboy—was started. In 1712— the year when the stamp tax on newspapers was first imposed—the yearly circulation of news- papers in England was about 2,000,000. In 1755 it was about 7,400,000 in 1767 about 11,300,000 in 1801 about 16,000,000, in 1811 about 25,500,000, in 1820 about 29,500,000, in 1831 about 37,700,000, in 1836 about 39,400,000. In 1837 the stamp tax was reduced from 3}d. net to a penny, and the circulation that year rose to nearly 54,000,000. In 1841 it had increased to about 60,000,000. In 1854—the last year of the stamp tax—it stood at 122,000,000. Since 1854 estimates of circula- tion must be largely conjectural and approximate; but the great increase in the number of news- papers, from 493 in 1840 to 1817 in 1882, and to 2200 in 1893, and the even more marked increase in the number of persons connected with journalism, as shown by the census—for example, of “authors, editors, and writers,’ from 1528 in 1861 to 3434 in 1881, and of reporters from 636 in 1861 to 2677 in 1881—show that newspaper production must have increased enormously. Other figures point the same way. There are now 29 daily papers—morning and evening—in London. Taking the average daily circulation of each as about 100,000 copies, the annual circu- lation of the London dailies alone must approach 1,000,000,000. The 170 provincial dailies must have at least an equal circulation. The yearly circulation of daily papers alone then must reach 2,000,000,000. It wasimpossible to form even a rough estimate of the circulation of the 2000 weeklies. Some of these have circulations approaching a quarter of a million a week. Legislation affecting newspapers had _ been neglected. For 150 years after the first daily paper was started in London practically there was no special legislation for news- papers. During the last fifty years numerous statutes have been passed affecting them, some statutes specially applying to them. But the legislation had beeu largely haphazard and piece- meal and ill-considered. The time had come when it should be thoroughly recast and reformed and made a consistent system of law. The 159 advantages which would result from codifying the law affecting newspapers are the following :—(a) The law would be made more intelligible. At present it is extraordinarily confused. The common law, and no less than thirty-one statutes altering and muddling it, now applies to news- papers. This the author considered a disgraceful thing, especially when it was remembered that newspaper law, as a rule, had to be applied by the editor commonly without time or opportunity of getting legal advice. (6) The law would be made more effective. At present the law fre- quently fails to carry out the intentions of the Legislature. For example, the Newspaper Libel and Registration Act, 1881, fails altogether to secure reliable registration of newspaper owners. It fails to secure journalists against vexatious and frivolous indictments for libel where the magis- trate has dismissed the charge against the jour- nalist. (c) It would preserve the liberty of the Press. Recently the Court of Chancery has begun to grant interim injunctions to restrain the publication of libels or what it holds to be libels. This is a very dangerous jurisdiction. If it is to be permitted to exist at all it should surely be limited and fixed by express statutory enactment. Consolidation of the law of the Press would pro- bably lead to reform of it too. The reforms most necessary at this moment were two. The first was with respect to vexatious actions for what are only technically libels, or for what are not libels at all, by persons who, when defeated, are unable to pay costs. Itis suggested that in these cases a judge in chambers should, on summons, decide whether the libel is serious or not, and if he believed it to be trivial he should have power to stay the action until the plaintiff gave security for costs. The second point on which reform is necessary is with regard to newspaper owners’ sole liability for defamation appearing in accu- rate reports of speeches publicly delivered. It is suggested that where a speaker knew that re- porters were present to report his speech he should in any action for defamation contained in the report of the speech be joined with the news- paper proprietor as co-defendant, and the jury should have power to apportion the damages between them. Possibly, another result of con- solidating the Jaw would be to establish a legal profession of journalists, with a standard of pro- fessional culture and of professional honour. To do this it would only be necessary to enact that no newspaper could be published save under the editorship of a legally qualified journalist. The privilege of making rules of admission to the pro- fession might be conferred on the Institute of Journalists or some similar body, and a person once admitted to the profession should only be 156 expelled from it by order of the Queen’s Bench on proof of conduct unbecoming his position. VII. Tue Law or Lipset. In a paper read before the Conference of the Institute of Journalists, Mr. Fisher found four special grievances. He objected to the distinction between oral and written libel, which enables the speaker of the slander to get off scot-free, while the newspaper which innocently publishes his remarks may be mulcted in a heavy penalty. Secondly, he complained that in matters con- cerning privilege of Parliament and contempt of court, the journalist is tried and condemned by the parties aggrieved. Thirdly, he was strongly against the recent practice of the Chancery Division in granting injunctions against the publication of libels alleged to be injurious to property, so that a society like the Liberator might altogether escape criticism. Lastly, he thought that the power of the Post-office officials to decide what is or is not “ news””—with a view to transmission under newspaper rates—‘‘a pre- posterous anachronism.”—Manchester Guardian. VIII. Norwecian Copyricut Law. [Translated by JULIAN CORBETT.] LAW OF JULY 4 CONCERNING LITERARY AND ARTISTIC COPYRIGHT. This law supersedes the laws of June 8, 1876, and May 12, 1877. An author has the sole right of publishing his writings, nor may any person read them in public provided the same is expressed to be forbidden upon the title-page or in the preface of the work. In the same manner an author has the sole right of publishing an oral lecture, &c. With regard to translations, the law provides that without the author’s consent they may not be made from the original language into any of its dialects—Norwegian, Danish, and Swedish being considered in this behalf dialects of the same language—or from one foreign language into another, where an authorised translation is issued in the course of a year. On the expira- tion of ten years without any such lawful trans- lation appearing in the course of a year, the right of translation is free. Infringements of authors’ rights are punish- able by fines to the amount of 2000 kroner, and in certain cases damages and confiscation may be demanded. The law enumerates a class of cases which are not to be deemed infringement of copyright, and amongst these may be noted THE AUTHOR. the copying or translation in newspapers or periodicals of single articles or communications from other newspapers or periodicals, unless express reservation against piracy has been made. In every case the source from which the matter is taken must be duly given. Copyright runs for the author’s lifetime and fifty years after his death—in the case of anony- mous and pseudonymous works for fifty years from the date of publication. Public reading of a work—where the right has been reserved—is permitted after three years. The law comes into operation Jan. 1, 1894, and applies to all works of Norwegian subjects as well as to works of foreigners published through a Norwegian house. Upon the principle of reciprocity this law may be extended wholly or in part by Royal proclamation to the works of foreign subjects, even when they have not been published through a Norwegian house. An author has thus full proprietary rights (ejendomsret) in his labour. So long as it exists only in manuscript it cannot be published by the creditors either of himself or of his heirs. On the other hand, if the author has published it, it falls like any other piece of property into his assets, and at his death it becomes subject to the general rules of the law of succession. It should, however, be noted that the creditors upon the author’s death have priority in authorising a new edition of an already published work. When an author has assigned his right of pub- lication, the assignee, in the absence of any agreement to the contrary, is not entitled to pub- lish more than one edition, and that must not exceed 1000 copies, except in the case of news- papers. So long as an edition is not sold out, the author is not entitled to authorise the issue of a new edition. ec ZOLA ON ANONYMOUS JOURNALISM. g WISH to speak of anonymity in jour- nalism. This is a question by which I have been much struck: and if you con- sider an English newspaper, in which not a single article is signed, and a French newspaper, in which everything is signed—down to the miscel- laneous paragraph sometimes,—you will find yourself, I believe, confronted by the two races, with all that the national temperament, the manners, and the history of the last hundred years have made them. It is very certain that. the British Press owes to anonymity its power, its unquestionable authority. For the moment I will confine myself to the political articles, the  THE AUTHOR. 157 portion of the journal embodying its policy. Thus viewed, a political newspaper in which the individual disappears, is nothing more than the expression of a party, the daily bread of a crowd. It gains in power what it loses in personality, for it has no object but to satisfy an opinion, to be the exact representation of that opinion. It follows that for such a newspaper to meet a social want it must have behind it a devoted public, reading it alone, and perfectly contented so long as it sees reproduced in print every morn- ing its own ideas, ideas which it expected to see. Observe that it is just this public which, in your country, has made the Press what it is—a public that has not been broken up into fragments by revolutions, that is still divided into only two great parties very nearly equal in importance, a public that has no feverish desire when it gets up in the morning to go through ten or a dozen newspapers, but of whom every reader sticks to his own paper, which he reads from beginning to end, asking nothing more than that it shall think as he himself thinks. Under such condi- tions anonymity is necessary. It is no longer this or that leader writer that matters; it is the opinion of the newspaper as a whole. It may even be said that the unequal value of the writers, their personality, if they signed their articles, would destroy the unity of the whole. In France, as you are aware, a different state of things prevails. We have had anonymity in the case of political articles, and certain of our journals, like the Débats and the Temps, still appear without any signature on their front page. But these are the old-fashioned habits of venerable sheets which, in spite of themselves, are constrained to make some small sacrifice every day to the new requirements of our public; they grow young again, publish signed articles on current topics, and sacrifice to the lighter forms of humour. The truth is that we are a turbulent nation, and that the ancient soil of our monarchy has been in one century broken and turned up incessantly by revolutions. If anonymity is disappearing from our political press, it is because our nation will have nothing more to do with it, because new wants are springing up. After so many shocks, parties, naturally, have crumbled away—we have now no great parties, distinct and definite ; this explains why our newspapers have a smaller circulation than yours, and why in our country new journals swarm, ephemeral, born in the morning to expire ere night. As soon as individuality overflows, triumphs to such a point as this, it is evident that anonymity in journalism isatanend. Signing secures success, so articles are signed. It may be that you see the whole race here, in this craving to fight in the front VOL. Iv. rank, the face uncovered, and in the glory that its therefore to be won by hurling one’s name into the midst of the conflict. I am well aware of all that may be said against the political press that signed articles have given us. It has lost its authority; it has completed the destruction of parties; it is as often as not a mere brawl, in which the great interests of the community are lost sight of amid abominable personal squabbles. The spectacle, truly, is at times heartrending ; it must convey a frightful impression on us abroad; and you would not have to press me hard to force me to the conclusion that anonymity alone would restore honesty and disinterestedness to our political newspapers. Anonymity constitutes the power and authority of the British Press, and the British Press will be extremely wise to preserve it. I do not think, moreover, that it is depen- dent upon the will of individuals; the Press is only what the nation desires it to be. At the same time, I confess that if I recognise the neces- sity for anonymity in political matters, I am none the less surprised that it can exist in literary matters. Here I entirely fail to grasp the situa- tion. I refer especially to articles of criticism, judgments pronounced upon the play, the book, the work of art. Can there be such a thing as the literature, the art of a party? That disci- pline, average opinion, should prevail in politics is certainly wise. But that a literary or artistic production should be adapted to suit the views of a whole party, that a scythe should be used to cut down everybody to the same level, that all should be mixed up ina common herd, in order to politely please your public, this Iconsider to be dangerous to the intellectual vitality of a nation. This sort of regimental criticism, speaking in the name of a majority, can only end in producing a mediocre, colourless literature. Moreover, if the critic does not sign his articles does he not renounce all his personality, as well as all his responsibity? He is the voice crying out in the crowd when no face can be distinguished. He chronicles and sum- marises. He loses all boldness, all passion, all power even. In the field of letters and arts you must admit that talent is individual and free, and I cannot imagine an impersonal, anonymous critic sitting in judgment upon original and living productions. What adds to my surprise in considering this anonymity in your news- paper criticism is that there is certainly not in the wide world a literature that has been more proudly free, that has displayed more dashing and unbridled originality, than English litera- ture. Your history comprises an admirable series of superb works, in which the genius of your writers has asserted itself in a superlative manner. I know of hardly any finer fruition of QO 158 THE AUTHOR. free human personality. How comes it, then, that you still adhere to this anonymous news- paper criticism, which, to me, is one of the symp- toms of the regimental system in letters, indi- cating the want of a middle literature, yood for the masses—* for the million”—very honourable, no doubt, but intolerant of bold and out-of-the- way productions? There is evidently here a social point which I cannot discuss now. I con- fine myself to the subject before me, and, natu- rally, if I am astonished at your anonymity in matters of criticism, I am still more surprised when I come across in your newspapers a descrip- tive sketch or a study of manners or history without a signature.”—From the report in the Manchester Guardian. re THACKERAY’S WOMEN. ET me make one thing plain at the outset. 7 Thackeray is to me the great master in fiction. He can interpret, as no other, the tenderest and profoundest experiences of our human nature. Were I condemned, by some despot, to read only one novelist for the rest of my life, Thackeray would be my choice. Yet, loving this great author as I do, I am going to quarrel with him. Tamawoman. Thackeray has said the most chivalrous things of us women. But he has not understood us. Was it the fault of his day, with its restrictions and conventionalisms; or was he unfortunate in his experience of women? Anyhow, his women are narrow, unreasonable beings; very different, I hope, from the living article. Justice and generosity are always denied them. They are angels of kindness, affection, constancy (except when they ‘are quite the reverse); but to think calmly and dispas- sionately on a subject seems beyond them. Take for instance, Amelia Sedley’s attachment to George. In its commencement this is admirable, and we love her for it. She is young, and blind faith in her idol seems only natural at her years. But surely time, to say nothing of the slights of the honeymoon, would have roused her far sooner from that worship of a shadow than Thackeray permits? In real life I have known women who, like Amelia, gave their hearts away unworthily. They were loving, faithful, but not blind. Lady Castlewood is, I suppose, the most care- fully worked-out of the good heroines. But with all her grace and charm she is, to me at least, not lovable. Her jealousy of both her daughters is unnatural and repellent. She is hard to her blundering husband; unjust for years to Esmond, As to her dislike to have pretty faces near her, I should like to quote a truer saying from a modern novel, “ Comin’ thro’ the Rye:” “ One really beautiful woman is never jealous of another.” Why does Thackeray lavish all the talent on his bad heroines—the Beckey Sharps and Blanche Amorys? Clever women are as often sweet and lovable as not. Why could he not give us a feminine counterpart of Major Dobbin, tender, true, and just and sensible? But perhaps no one else will be found to agree with my sentiments towards these dear, familiar friends of ours. I should like very much to hear some one else’s opinion on the subject. NINGUNA. EE ——— $0-SO0 SOCIOLOGY. (Continued from p. 137.) 62. LATTERY easily passes for sympathy. K 63. Patience is virtue or vice, ac- cording to manner and motive. 64. Uncertainty is as characteristic of hope as of anxiety. 65. Chivalry, like duty or necessity, can show no cruelty. 66. Wit may be due to wantonness, wickedness, wisdom, or wine. 67. Recklessness of manner often passes for robustness of mind. 68. Personal venom sometimes poses as public virtue. 69. Humourlessness may become a personal power, as well as be a mental want. 70. Unsteadiness of eye is oftener due to weak- ness than to wickedness. 71. Baldness popularly passes for brain-power and. benevolence. 72. Mere memory is no sure measure of men- tality. 73. Loudness of tone is oftener due to weakness than to wantonness. 74. Feminine mannishness is too often con- founded with strong-mindedness. 75. The petty soul frets when its pet fads are not welcomed as divine decrees. 76, Selfless sorrow is an educative luxury to the insanely miserable. 77. Pluck, not luck, rules the whole world. 78. Suicide is oftener due to defeat of control than to defect of courage. 79. The philosopher comes to realise his own ignorance, which the hopeless fool uever does. 80. Youth is oftener an explanation than an excuse.  THE AUTHOR. 159 81. The present is the focus of all the tenses. 82. Ancestry is the time for sowing, imma- turity for growing. 83. Self-denial may strengthen, but only self- sacrifice can ennoble. 84. Forbearance is easily mistaken for weak- ness. 85. Will is in bondage to antecedent and to nerve-quality. 86. Only the wise can know how best to bide their due time. 87. Self-interest is less akin to selfishnsss than to self-sacrifice. 88. Fidelity is only virtuous on behalf of virtue. 89. Virtue always personally pays, whether it popularly pleases or not. go. Absolute truth existed before Man ; rela- tive truth persists through him. gi. There is always more novelty in ideas than variety in ideals. g2. Misanthropy is always an affliction, and often an affectation. 93. Love is the feminine of genius. 94. The people’s heart is generally far sounder than its head. 95. Conceit of class too often poses as reverence for race. 96. The highest function of the educator is to duly teach true self-education. 97. The true reward of virtue lies in the due growth of soul. 98. Death is a re-focussing of life. 99. The virtue of bigotry lies in its veracity, its vice in its vanity. 100. Sensitiveness differs from sentimentality as sympathy from selfishness. 101. Exception proves the imperfection, or human origin, of a rule. 102. The wise man’s lamb is shorn to suit the tempered wind. 103. Better a philanthropic pessimism than a selfish optimism. 104. Love is the best, and sorrow the com- monest, of the various cures for the common curse of selfishness. 105. Wit is a force of head; humour, a grace of heart. 106. The art that disgusts may be didactic, but must be inartistic. 107. The fool searches for happiness in selfishness, and grasps only the empty shadow. 108. Begrudged praise is one main mark of a mean soul, 109. Optimism is too often only a popular name for ostrich-ism. PHINLAY GLENELG. (To be continued.) VOL. IV. CONTRIBUTOR VERSUS EDITOR. (From a ConTrisutor’s Point or Virw.) CAREFUL perusal of an article which recently appeared in the Bookman upon the subject of existing grievances between editor and contributor—* From an Editor’s Point of View ”—has made it clear to me that the real (or chiefest) grievances of contributors have either inadvertently or purposely been overlooked or avoided. To none of the statements made in the article in question can I, a contributor to a large number of papers and magazines, take exception. The “ case” for the editor, so far as it goes, is stated with praiseworthy fairness and moderation, but it does not go far enough. The trials of an editor are not altogether un. familiar to me, numbering as I do several editors and ex-editors amongst my most considerate and valued friends. But these “trials of the flesh ” are, in part, the penalties attaching to greatness and omnipotence in literary matters. They exist but to be borne. Following, then, somewhat similar lines to those adopted by the contributor-editor [ shall endeavour to state the “case” for contributors with equal fairness and clearness. By the “con- tributors ” I mean those who have entered upon the literary eareer as a means of obtaining a livelihood, and who will have taken some little care at least to have mastered the initial require- ments which go towards ultimate success. The weakness of the other writer’s “case” seems to me to exist in the selection of the “evidence ” brought to support it. Many of the so-called *contributors”’ cited can, indeed, scarcely be classed as such. They are persons who have clearly mistaken their calling, and have to suffer the penalty. Their “grievances” are of small importance or weight; their opinions little more so, unless we are prepared to accept the dictum “that the best critics are those who have failed.” What we as contributors have, I contend, a right to expect is : 1. That all papers and magazines should clearly state that they will or will not undertake to return MSS. sent unsolicited. Most editors are glad to consider outside con- tributors’ MSS. in the hope of now and again discovering a nugget amid the quartz. But is it reasonable to expect that an author will send in an article or story, which has cost him either time or money in the mere copying, on the “ off- chance ” of acceptance, if he is uncertain of ever seeing it again either in printorin MS.? I think surely not. Let it be distinctly stated that “ MSS. will in no case be returned whether stamps 02  160 are enclosed for that purpose or not,” and the author at once sends at his own risk, and should the contribution be put into the editorial waste-paper basket he can have no grievance. This intimation is not to be found in several of. the better class periodicals which do not return rejected contributions. A very well-known monthly magazine contains no “notice” to this effect, and the only hint | received that such was the rule with the publication in question was a stereotyped letter (in answer to my inquiry as to the fate of the MS. sent five months before) stating that “all rejected MSS. are destroyed. And to this rule no exception can be made whether stamps for return are enclosed or not.” The result of the omission to state this in the magazine itself being, in my case, the absolute loss of no less than ten days’ hard work. Surely I had reason 1o feel aggrieved. 2, That even unsolicited MSS. should be dealt with as speedily as may be, and should be returned, when rejected, promptly. Is it unfair to expect this? In other walks of life a man offering to sell a chattel would not be expected to keep it on offer for an indefinite period. A practised “reader” will be able to judge a MS.—almost at a glance—sufficiently to place it in one of three classes forthwith. That, namely, of impossible, possible, or certain. The MSS. in the first of these classes should be re- turned (subject to the terms of the “ notice to intending contributors”) without delay ; there can be no reason for retaining them. The second class MSS. present more difficulty. But even here the “test” reading should be undertaken at the earliest possible opportunity. This is mere justice and right dealing, and should not be taken as “an act of grace” upon the part of the publisher or editor. 3. (a) That accepted MSS. should be given as early an insertion as possible. (6) More especially when dealing with a “‘ topic” liable to get out of date. There are two excellent reasons for this conten- tion: (a) A writer is not fully remunerated even when payment for a contribution has been made. Publication is necessary to all of us to ensure success. The mere appearance of a story or other contribution in a magazine of standing is in itself of very considerable value. Indeed, editors have been known to urge this as an excuse for non-payment. I have a note from the editor of a leading monthly now in my possession, which runs in part as follows: “I regret, however, that I cannot see my way clear to offer you payment for‘. .’ We seldom remunerate any save the leading writers. The appearance of an article in our columns being in THE AUTHOR. itself a valuable advertisement, which partakes of the nature of remuneration. . . . We not infrequently have MSS. offered us by able writers gratuitously for this reason.” The policy of the magazine in question may have altered now. The letter from which I quote bears a date five years back. (6) With reference to the second clause of contention (3), no man likes to “ appear a day after the fair.” And for this reason articles upon current topics should have early insertion, and precedence of other matter. _ This is good policy from both points of view, and will obviate the too frequent non-publication of MSS. which from delay in insertion have become “ out of date.” 4. That MSS. should be returned fully stamped where sufficient stamps were forwarded for this purpose, and that in such cases they should be returned in the manner sent. These may seem “ points” of small importance, but the non-observance of them may be the cause of great and unnecessary annoyance. I have frequently hai to pay double postage on under-paid letters, although sufficient stamps were enclosed with the MSS. for their return. The practice is, strange as it may appear, by no means confined to publications of the lower class and impecunious publishers. With reference to the other point. On my table at the present moment is a MS. returned to me in a halfpenny wrapper, although 23d. in stamps was inclosed for its return. The result is that, owing to insufficient protection, the MS. has been so damaged (by dirt and tearing) in transit, thatit must be re-copied. At least three and a half hours’ hard work. 5. (a) That payment should be made for pub- lished MSS. within a reasonable time. (6) That, where it is found inexpedient to state in the pub- lication itself the rate of remuneration offered, upon the acceptance of a contribution the writer of it should be informed of the amount which will be paid for it. A case taken into court some three years ago has settled that some payment must be made for published MSS. in default of an understanding to the contrary. This disposes of the absolutely non-paying editor. If he has any money, you can get it. (qa) It is in literature alone that pay- ment for “ goods bought and delivered’’ is inde- finitely postponed. What is the cause of this ? Why should this be? And yet this is often the case. Half the agreed sum to settle being the policy (I am speaking from personal experience) of more than one magazine of good outside repute. Cannot some rule be adopted by at least all respectable publications, by which payment will and can be made, either on publication or at three months from the date of the acceptance of  THE AUTHOR. MSS.? Contributors would be saved many an anxious hour, and la lutte pour la vie made less hard if this could be so. (6) Tn no other calling is it expected of the worker that he or she labour “for what you please.” But this is so in the “noble profession of letters. ’ Years ago I wrote an article, and sent it to a certain paper. It was accepted. I was asked to write more. I was not “up to things” then, and did so without asking the amount of remuneration offered. After writing articles for thirteen weeks, LTasked for payment. It was made me promptly, at the rate of 3s. 6d. a column of 1200 words, and of original matter, too. The paper boasts of a circulation of 60,000-80,000 copies. It was as much then. A stereotyped letter, telling the writer the amount offered for the contribution accepted would bea boon, and would cause a very small amount of trouble to the editor. In conclusion, 1 haye endeavoured to state “the other side,” and to do it fairly. I have also suggested remedial measures which would, if carried out, lead, I am firmly persuaded, to an entente cordiale between editors and contributors beneficial to both. C. H. Do NOTES AND NEWS. N another column will be found a report of M. Zola’s paper on Anonymous Journalism, read before the Conference of Journalists. That anonymity in political matters largely con- tributes towards the power and the authority of our own Press is a point in which one is pleased to find M. Zola in agreement with most of us. Yet it is not anonymity alone which gives authority in such matters to the Press. The political articles—generally snappy paragraphs —in the American papers are anonymous, and yet the American Press asa rule possesses nothing like the authority of our own. But why, asks M. Zola, preserve anonymity in criticism? ‘Can there be such a thing as party in literature and art?” There is very little, I suppose, to be said in defence of anonymous criticism. But there is something. The old Quarterlies, itis argued, have furnished the world with a good deal of admirable anonymous criticism, together with some that has not been quite so admirable. But, whenever a good paper appears in one of them, a paragraph runs round the “ literary columns” of the Press, stating the name of the author. And even in the early days of Macaulay’s brilliant papers, every- body interested in the matter knew perfectly well who was the author. Again, there are papers like the Atheneum, the Saturday Review, the 161 Spectator, the Guardian, whose criticism in literature and art will surely be allowed to carry the greatest weight. Yet they are not only anonymous, but the authorship of the articles is not known except to the Inner Ring, and is never announced by the newspapers. Speaking as a general rule, it is quite impossible for an outsider to find out who wrote any given article in one of these papers. Would their criticisms, their judgment, gain in authority if they were signed? [think not. Again, the articles in the Academy are signed. Are they, therefore, more weighty than those in the other four papers? I think not. Sometimes papers in the Academy are written and signed by the same writers who also contribute to the other papers. Trained and scholarly criticism, you see, is not too plentiful. As regards the daily papers, there are some whose critical columns will, as a rule, stand comparison with the articles of these four or five weeklies. But I should rejoice to see the custom of signing criticisms in literature and art become general, for several reasons. First, because it would instantly, I believe, demolish the flippant smart- ness and insolence with which some papers allow their columns to be disfigured—smartness which disguises the fact that the critic knows nothing of his subject: it would force the writer at least to read the book: it would put an end to the “reviewing”’ (?) of books in the batch: it would make the young critic anxious to advance his own name as a writer who can deliver carefully-con- sidered judgment in the courteous language of a gentleman: this language he would study to preserve in his work, or to learn if he had never learned it ; and it would enormously raise the position and status of a critic in the eyes of the editor, as well as those of the reading public. That it would also rapidly advance the capable critic in his own profession may be taken for granted. My own theory on the general subject of reviewing—a theory which I do not expect to be universally accepted as yet—is this: ‘The work of a critic never ought to be entrusted to the first novice that is recommended to the editor. If an aspiring critic is as yet unproved by published work, he should furnish some proof to the editor of culture, reading, knowledge of standards, knowledge of the works of writers, living as well as dead, and of special qualifications and special knowledge, if he has any. For instance, Art criticism should not be entrusted to those persons who can neither paint nor draw, nor have madea special study of painting, sculpture, and drawing. I would go so far as to lay down the rule that study alone, without actual experience in Art, is  162 not enough ; but we should be thankful if we can get Art critics who know even the history of Art. Take another branch of literature—that of science —would one confide the review of a book on the Integral Calculus to a man because he had taken honours, however high, in classics? Why, then, expect a man who knows nothing of practi- cal work in the studio to criticise a picture’? Next, I believe that the highest interests of literature would be best advanced by serious reviews—not short notices—of only those books which are worth serious notice, and by suffering the worthless and the feeble to languish and die in contempt. This would not prevent the chastisement of actively mischievous books, either singly or as a class. It should be, for instance, a great distinction for a book to receive a review in a great paper. But then, what about the others? For there are many books which deserve some kind of notice. There might be columns such as those already published in some papers, of Comptes Rendus—not criticisms or judgments, because the writers of these para- graphs have no time to read the books carefully— but just an announcement of the books and a plain statement of their contents. Let us by all means give mention, even honourable mention, to as many respectably good books as we can. But let us abandon once for all the pretence of reviewing all the books—good or bad—that are issued ; let us abandon the practice of giving a judgment, ora criticism, in half a dozen lines to as many books in abatch. I can never forget the confessions of a reviewer, who told me that he had for some time reviewed, for a certain paper, a dozen novels in abatch every week. The whole lot were to be summed up in a column for which he got a guinea How much, do you think, could such a reviewer read of those books in the time? How much time could he afford to give to each? And what cruel injustice could be every week perpetrated by such a sham review of books, uncut, unopened even! Nor can I forget the fact that not so long ago, in a leading literary paper, a genealogical work was solemnly reviewed, and contemptuously dismissed, in half a dozen lines, as a novel, among the other novels of the week. Were these notices signed, so flagrant a crime could never be com- mitted without that critical impostor’s name being ruined for the short remainder of his miserable days. The Conference of Journalists, a full report of which will, it is hoped, be speedily published, has had its meetings, its discussions, and its festivities. It has received and entertained M. Zola; it has been the guest of the Lord Mayor; it has had a supper at Drury Lane; it has had a THE AUTHOR. ball at the Guildhall. In fact, the Conference has been a great success in every way. When the report appears we shall ask the practical question—W hat useful purpose this annual Con- ference serves for Journalism? The question is important as concerns ourselves, for many are asking whether we should not also have a Con- ference. Therefore, the question is not advanced in any harping spirit. Indeed, some of us are as anxious to hold a Conference as any of the Journalists can be. | The tragic death of the late Francis Adams, which startled and thrilled the world a few weeks ago, brought his name before many of us for the first time. He was quite young, under thirty ; he had acircle of devoted friends who knew and recognised his powers ; and he had already written successful stories, essays, and poems. Among his works are “ Leicester, an Autobiography ”—a novel; a volume of poems called “Songs of the Army of the Night,” and, I believe, magazine articles—much more than could be expected of one so young. Awriter of the highest promise has been taken from us; aman deeply loved by all his friends has been taken from them. Let us who were not privileged to call him friend sit still while they tell us what manner of man he was. I hope that someone, among his many friends, may be found to write a memoir of him. There has been a lively correspondence in the Globe—a paper to which we are much indebted for a succession of gratis advertisements of the Author and the Authors’ Society—on Literary Beginnings. Nothing, indeed, interests a vast number of young men and women more than a Pisgah view of the Land of Letters. How to get there? and How to live there? One or two of the writers are satirical. One of them speaks, for instance, of my “rollicking invitation to young authors to walk up and live in detached villas on the pro- ceeds of their pens.” It is hardly worth while to notice anonymous little pleasantries such as the above, but one asks in sheer wonder how such a notion got into this person’s head; that, the notion once there, he should have accepted it as a fact, scorning the slow process of verifying his quotation, need not surprise us. The corre- spondence was started by a certain person who wrote to the Globe, giving his experience as a literary beginner. He was successful ; he showed what his success had been, exactly ; how many - papers had been accepted ; what pecuniary con- sideration he received; and so on. He now explains, further, that he is not a very young man ; that he has special knowledge, and “some”  THE AUTHOR. —apparently a good deal—of miscellaneous knowledge; that he has been for some years an inventor, 7.e., that he possesses considerable intellectual activity; that he does not entirely depend upon his pen; and that he gives his best—his honest best—to all his work. Quite so. This is a man who is certain to succeed, if, as is now proved, he possesses, in addition to these qualities, the literary faculty. Unfor- tunately, the aspirants to literary success are too often young men and maidens who have no special knowledge and no miscellaneous informa- tion; who have no literary capacity, proved so far ; who are quite inexperienced; who know the world only from a provincial town or a London suburb; who are also penniless. To those one would say: “Do anything; try anything; but do not try literature until you have acquired knowledge and experience, and have proved your powers.” In last number of the Author I said that Godey’s Magazine, the oldest of all the American monthlies, does not cross the Atlantic. It appears that I was wrong. It has an agency in this country and a circulation. The editor of the English edition of Godey, Mr. Charles Rideal, wishes me to state that he is the English editor, and that the Record Press, 376, Strand, is the office of the London maga- zine. Another American magazine, then, in competition with our own! Yet, as I have stated elsewhere, I never found on American bookstalls or in American bookstores any of our English magazines in competition with the American. As to the question of uninvited contributions, concerning which certain editors have been writing with some irritation, it appears to me that nothing can be moresimple. The editor has only to follow the practice of those papers which state every week in plain terms what is their rule. The editor of the Saturday Review, for instance, neither asks for, nor refuses, commu- nications from outsiders or beginners; he only advertises that he will not return papers sent to him, and that he will not enter into correspon- dence with writers of rejected MSS. That is perfectly straightforward. No one, after such a notice, has any right to complain when his offering is not accepted or returned. One London editor, however, says that if editors are to be “ badgered ” they will give up receiving MSS. from beginners, I am quite sure they will do nothing of the kind. Itis a most tedious work, doubtless, to read MSS., mostly worthless; but here and there a new man may come along who is far above the average. 163 Then there is not only a good article secured but a good and fresh writer retained for the paper. Cannot editors perceive that all that is wanted is, first, a clear understanding between themselves and outsiders whether MSS. are invited or not; and then the ordinary courtesies which are observed in every other kind of business? As for the actual points in dispute, they belong either to common courtesy or to common honesty. As the editors of the leading journals are presumably gentlemen, what have these points to do with them? There are, however, editors or proprietors who make it their rule never to treat their unfor- tunate contributors with any courtesy at all; never to pay him until he sends a lawyer’s letter ; to pay him a miserable dole on compulsion ; and, in general, to treat him with the utmost con- tumely. Cannot editors of respectable papers make common cause with us in exposing these persons and interfering with their practices? I invite editors to read the “ Contributor’s”’ views on the subject. From time to time we have tried various methods of finding the number and the names of the popular living novelists. The following con- clusions are arrived at by examining and analy- sing the lists of a circulating library in a well- known watering-place—one visited chiefly by invalids, and only by persons of the rank and station, generally called “The Better Class.” The list contains the names of 174 novelists who have published, or are represented in this list by more than one work. ‘There are also about 150 more who are represented in this list by one work only, though one remembers that some of them have written more. Of the 174, twenty-one are dead ; of the remaining 153, eighty-four are women and sixty-nine are men. Of the second class, forty- eight can be pointed out at once as having written more than one book, some are dubious; single successes are eleven in number; most of the names are those of writers who have attained a certain amount of success: many of them are American, French, and German writers. These figures lead, in fact, to very nearly the same con- conclusions as were arrived at before; viz., that about 150 novelists are popular, more or less, and that another 100 are so far popular that their books carry no risk, command a certain sale and bring to their writers a certain return, These figures, of course, do not include the immense number of stories published by the religious societies, and those houses which purvey stories for schoolchildren and school girls and the like ; nor do they include the penny dreadfuls which are issued in such enormous quantities every week. 164 How many readers of the Author—who are all reading folk, literary folk, writing folk, and pub- lishers, whose chief interes’ is the world of letters—know the names of wr. Maurice Thomp- son and Mr. Hamlen Garland? How many can answer this question, “Which are the chief works of Mr. Maurice Thompson and Mr. Hamlen Garland?” We have, I believe, on the roll of membership about 1100. Are there a hundred among all these readers who know these names ? In putting these questions it is not at all intended to insinuate that these gentlemen are not excellent writers. The reason for putting it is that a writer inacertain daily paper has been professing indigna- tion at my ignorance—which he calmly assumes on no ground—concerning these two writers. As regards the former, it happens that I have known Mr. Maurice Thompson’s work for many years, because he formerly contributed to a Chicago paper called America, which was regularly sent to me. The latter I did not know—either by name or by any books belonging to the name— until I had the honour of meeting him personally about two months ago. What I said, however, had nothing whatever to do with my own per- sonal ignorance or my own personal knowledge. I said that the new writers of the West are prac- tically unknown to our people. There was a printer’s error in the name of a third writer which gave this journalist a chance to assume that he too, was unknown to me. Not that it matters, except that it is bad for journalism that these hasty assumptions and personal attacks should be permitted. But, as a matter of fact, I have known this poet, and his work as well, for some time. Very well; let me repeat the assertion. It is always the best answer when it is possible. I say, then, that most of the new writers of the West are unknown to English readers. And to this point I stick. But, this writer goes on, a “ professed critic ” ought to know when English editions of an American appear. (It-seems that a book by one of these two writers has been published here.) Ought he? This opens up another question altogether—two questions, in fact—(1) What is a “professed critic?” and (2) How far should he be expected to know what is published? I suppose that a “professed critic” is a critic by profession. Has this writer, I wonder, ever read. a very important essay by Mr. Saintsbury, called “Certain Kinds of Criticism”? I think not, because, if so, he would not, I think, be quite so ready to talk about the ‘professed critic.” In full agreement with Mr. Saintsbury, I cannot pretend that I am a “professed critic.” I dis- claim the title. It is true that I have on many THE AUTHOR. ’ occasions written “ Studies”’ or “ Appreciations ” of writers whose works I admire, and that I hope to go on doing so whenever I have something to say. But Iam certainly nota critic by profession. Criticism is not my profession, nor my occupa- tion, nor my means of livelihood, nor even my recreation. I am, like a great many others a simple man of letters. But I do not therefore claim any special power or faculty of criticism. Indeed, to be a true critic is to be born with a certain noble gift which must be cultivated : a gift of the gods which should be received with grateful humility and developed by mcst serious study. Nor do I claim, as so many men of letters still, unhappily, claim, the right to “slate,” sneer at, slander, and depreciate the work of other men of letters, simply because I also am a writer, good or bad. Not a “« professed critic” at all, if you please. But if one were a professed critic, how about the limits of his reading? Must he know every- thing that is published? Alas! poor shepherd! To him, as to all of us, the day has but twenty- four hours. As a professed critic, he must also write his judgments and give his reasons. He must keep abreast with the work of the greater writers—but these are not too many. Of the lesser—of the new men—how many in the year can be read? Suppose he reads 200 new books in the year out of the 5000 annually pub- lished, each taking him a single day to read, and only half a day to write about—which is a very moderate allowance both for reading and writing. That takes up his whole year, allowing for Sundays and holidays and a little time for old books. Of course, I do not cail the man a critic who “reviews ’’ a dozen books in a column for a guinea in a single afternoon. Considering these points, I think we should all be very shy of call- ing ourselves professed critics, and I think that we ought not to expect even the professed critic to know all the books that come out. The “reviewer” of the batch for a guinea—eighteen- pence each—will know, of course, but not the professed critic. In another column will be found a letter from “Ingénue” on the subject of Authors as Pub- lishers’ Readers. It is useful to have the venti- lation of all possible views on every subject connected with the craft, though one may not agree with them. For instance, I cannot, for my own part, agree with our correspondent at all. His view is that authors—does he not mean novelists only ?—would be better employed in production than in giving opinions on MSS. But a novelist cannot be always producing. Perhaps half a day, and that not all the year round, is as  THE much as any novelist can give, as an average, to his creative work. Why, then, should he not read for a publisker in his leisure hours? Because he is malignant and cannot bear the thought of a newrival? Well; there have been—there are still—spiteful and jealous persons in the ranks of literature. Writing—alas !—does not always ennoble; but surely one would not prohibit this kind of work altogether, because here and there may be found an envious and malignant reader. It is true that a reader has the power of causing a MS. to be rejected; but then some one must have this power. We cannot abolish this necessary exercise of power. Somebody must say—and it must be the publisher, on the advice of his reader, unless he reads for himself—whether a MS. is to be accepted or rejected. In practice there are many novelists, within my own know- ledge, who do read, or have read MSS. of novels for publishers; some of them are distinguished novelists; some are not; some may. make mis- takes; itis certain that many mistakes have been made. All those whom I know act, I am convinced, honestly, though perhaps not always with judgment, by the publishers for whom they work, and by the writers whose MSS. they read. Is there not here, as has been noticed elsewhere, a confusion of thought between the Art of Litera- ture and the commercial value of Literature? Our correspondent asks if Carlyle would read MSS. ? Well—but we know beforehand so much of Car- lyle’s temperament as to make it clear that he could not undertake such work. Otherwise, what is there in Carlyle that should enable us to acknowledge that he could not possibly read MSS. and give sound and trustworthy opinions on them? Absolutely nothing; nor does there seem any reason whatever why a writer in any branch should not be a critic, a good reader of MSS., and capable of forming a perfectly sound opinion, not only on the literary value, but also on the commercial value of a MS.—the two things not being commensurable Again, whether as critics or as publishers’ readers, one must engage the services of those who know the subject treated. Only a geologist can review a book upon geology, or advise upon a MS. on geology. Historians must pass historical works in review ; mathema- ticians, mathematical works; and so on. Why not novelists with novels? Butother qualities in addition to knowledge of the subject are de- manded. It is not every poet who can criticise poetry ; nor every novelist who should be trusted with novels; nor every geologist who can decide whether a geological MS. should be published as a matter of business. As regards general litera- VOL, Iv. AUTHOR. 165 ture, fiction, poetry, and bedles lettres, I would prefer that criticism should be in the hands of critics. But, alas! there are not enough critics by a long way to go round. The true critic is even rarer than the poet. What is publication? It is still a common article of belief that a book “published” in London is published for the whole world. I mean that the mere fact of a book being produced here—though it circulates to the extent of, say, three or four hundred copies only—is taken by the author as a public and world-wide utterance. It is not subscribed—except by the half dozen —in the cireulating libraries; it is not sub- scribed, except by the half dozen, by the trade; it is not taken at all by the free libraries which now form so large a factor in the dis- semination of knowledge and the circulation of books; nobody talks about it at dinner tables and places were people resort ; it is just bought and put away on the shelves ‘by a few people— three or four hundred people—not of a hundred millions. This is not publication; it is mere production on the chance of publication; such a book is as if it had never been produced; such a view of publicationis purely parochial. Of course the author may claim to represent, and to appeal to, only the very cream of culture. The very few very foremost men, he says, read his book. This view satisfies his vanity, but it is also a parochial view. What, then, is real publica- tion? It is when a book is placed upon all the shelves of all the free libraries and all the circulating libraries here and in America and in the colonies; it is when, in addition, people ask for it at the libraries, and buy it at the shops, and talk about it among each other—such a book, and only such a book is truly made public, or published. And here, you see, the author comes in, for no publisher can create such a demand or cause any book, by any machinery of his own, not even by procuring the roll of the judicious Log —to be so placed and so demanded. The pub- lisher gives the author his chance; it is the real service, apart from the machinery—the true service — which the publisher renders to the author; but the “publication” of the book in the only true sense depends entirely upon the author himself. Are we, then, to take popu- larity, or a place in all the libraries as the only test and proof of literary success—of literary worth? Yes, we are, after a certain time. The successes of the day quickly vanish; the books which are good remain and win their way and keep it. Some time ago it was shown in these pages that the popular demand for the really best P  166 books in our literature is steady and constant, and goes on increasing after a certain time. How long a time? I am not prepared to say. But this, I take it is the only true and infallible test of literary worth. Water Besant. ere FEUILLETON. i Tue Very Best Apvice Arrer ALL. “ 4&7 OU have called—Yes ”—the Senior Partner took a letter from a heap before him, and glanced through it—“ Yes—oh! yes—about a MS. called ‘ Rachel’s Revulsion ’— Yes—oh! yes.” He had a way of saying—“ Oh! yes’”’—while he considered what to say next— “« Well, my dear Sir, I am very glad to be able to announce to you that we have decided to take it.” “You have decided to take it?” The latter was a visitor, and rather nervous. He was not a new man, and he had already enjoyed a certain success, but into this work he had poured all he had of mind or soul, of poetry or fancy, of know- ledge or observation ; and he was anxious that the work should make a greater mark than anything he had done before. “ We have decided—my dear Sir, on the recom- mendation—after serious doubts—I own—oh ! yes —very serious doubts—of our most esteemed reader—to take it.’ He took a pile of MSS. from a chair and laid it onthe table. “ We find that it will make a good-sized one-volume work—we shall publish it, probably, at Easter, which is a very good time, as a six-shilling book. The MS. shall be sent to the printer at once, and the proofs shall be forwarded to you. I need not ask you, dear Sir, as no longer a novice, to be reasonable in your corrections.” ‘©Oh!” said the visitor, with a natural flush of satisfaction, ‘I am pleased —and—and — honoured by this decision. I hope the book will do well, and justify your reader’s good opinion.” “ Of that we cannot be certain. Still, we may hope—as you say. Oh! yes. But most books fail. Here and there, perhaps, a slight success. Do not form exaggerated hopes. Be modest. Still—you may hope. And now, dear Sir, as everything is settled, I need not take up your time any longer.” He half rose, and looked like holding out his hand. “ But nothing is settled,” objected the visitor, remaining seated. “Why, my dear Sir, what else is there to settle? I have told you that we take the book.” “* We have not yet settled the terms.” THE AUTHOR. “Oh! the terms—the terms. The agreement shall be sent to you, my dear Sir, in due course. Before the final revise. Oh! yes. Before the book appears.” “Not so fast, Sir. I am perhaps an unreason- able person, but I am not accustomed to suffer my property to go out of my hands quite so readily. There are forms even in the sale of a house. This book may be worth many houses. We will agree upon the terms, if you please, before the MS. is sent to the printer.”’ The Senior Partner leaned back in his chair, pressing together his finger-points. ‘‘ Very well. Oh! yes. But I naturally supposed that you would trust to the Honour of the House,” he said, with pain in his countenance. “T must have an agreement,’ the visitor persisted. “My dear Sir, you shall have an agreement. It only hurts me to find that you want your agreement first. Oh! there is a deplorable spirit abroad—most deplorable. Oh! yes. I hope, my dear Sir, that you are not infected with it. However, let us see. You want a sum of money down? You would probably prefer to capitalise your interest in the book.” “‘ Make an offer, if you please.” “JT will. That is indeed the proper way to speak. You have read Mr. Andrew Lang’s advice to authors, no doubt—in Longman’s Magazine for July. Excellent advice—beautiful advice, I call it—if only everyone would follow it! He says that all the author has to do is to say— just ‘too much’ or ‘too little.’ So true! and so beautifully simple!” “ How am I to know what is too much or too little P”’ “You feel it, my dear Sir. Any man of delicacy feels it. Coarse, common persons who buy and sell must have facts and figures before them. Your highly-strung nervous organizations feel things. That is the great advantage of being a genius. You will feed it in a moment, when I offer you too much. Oh! yes. Take Mr. Andrew Lang’s advice. Now, then, you are not, as yet, a well-known writer. Your name is, so to speak, half-finished; it is a most dreadful risk that we are running—hundreds of pounds— an outlay of hundreds. For my own part I do not see my way to get back the outlay. But in order to oblige our reader — and to keep up our name as ever disinterested patrons of litera- ture—come, my dear Sir, I don’t mind if I offer you twenty pounds down—twenty pounds — I will draw the cheque at once.” He opened his cheque-book, and took up a pen, and looked his visitor hard in the face. “Twenty pounds, dear Sir. Your book is not really worth half as much,  THE AUTHOR. but we have always had the credit of generosity towards our authors.” “ Damn your generosity, Sir! ’’ cried the author, hotly. “ Do you think I want your charity? ” ‘“Twenty pounds,’ repeated the publisher firmly, and ignoring the interruption, “ for the sole copyright of the work, including all rights. That is my offer.” “Stop there.” replied the author doggedly. “How much will it cost to produce ? “Hundreds — hundreds. I told hundreds.” “Give me the exact figures, and I will take advice upon them.” * “T cannot do that. There are the advertise- ments. You forget the advertisements. How are we to know beforehand what they will cost?”’ “You must give me the figures for everything. What do you expect to get for your fist subscrip- tion? How many will the libraries take? What do you receive for each volume ?” The Senior Partner sat upright with an injured air. “Do not, if you please, inquire into my private affairs, Sir.” “Pardon me. These are my affairs, since my book is concerned.” ““May I ask, Sir, whether you consider your- self so good a writer as Mr. Andrew Lang, that you venture to set up your judgment against his?” “No, I do not, I am not such a fool.” “Tam glad to hear it. Now, he most clearly lays cown the principle that all you have got to say is ‘too much’ or ‘too little.’ I confess I am hurt. Jam pained. I expected you to cry outat once—‘ too much—much too much.’ Only this morning a most promising poet - «“T will do so, perhaps,” the visitor interrupted, “when I have ‘got the figures before me. Are you going to give me those figures ?” - No, Sir. I am not. My private affairs, I repeat, shall not be made the subject of the questions of any author.” The visitor pushed back his chair and put on his hat. “Then you may send me back the MS.—or stop—you have it there—I will take it.” Now the Senior Partner had on the table a note from the esteemed reader; it concluded with the words “Secure this man at any reasonable price. The book will fly.’ “Stop, my dear Sir.” he cried, “ Do not be so impetuous, pray. Genius is always rash—rash and unbusinesslike. Oh! Yes, Can you not understand that the private affairs of the firm. . . Pray sit down again —pray sit down. Did you see the beautiful remarks of Mr. Robert Buchanan—ah! there is an ornament to Literature! such wisdom, you — 167 such good feeling! there, mdeed, is a man !— in a letter to a daily paper some time ago. They were on Literature and Lucre. I always have thought that the degradation of the authors in these unfortunate negotiations is so deplorable. I feel for you most deeply. Let me try to meet you another way. We will not buy the book. You shall preserve your copyright; you shall have a royalty—a royalty. Oh! Yes, “Will that content you?” “Tt depends upon what the royalty means.’ “There! There! Again, why not trust to the Honour of the House? What do you think ?”’ The senior partner laughed and rubbed his hands, but his eyes were very near together. “What do you say to a ro per cent. royalty— a Io per cent. royalty—r1o per cent. on the retail price—say 10 per cent. on 3s. 6d.—that is over 4d. a copy—4d. a copy—three copies will bring you in tIs., more than 30s. for every hundred—think what that will come to when the numbers have gone up to 1000 !—the royalty to begin after the first g50 are sold. There, Sir! Mind, if it were not for our reader’s favourable opinion, I would not dream of making such an offer. Get such an offer as this—else- where—if you can!” “ After g50. Humph! make on the first 950.” “Nothing. Positively nothing. heavy losers. Very heavy losers.” “Indeed? I am not so informed in a certain book called the ‘ Cost of Production.’ ” “Oh!” The Senior Partner turned very red. “Tf you go by that mischievous, lying, and mis- leading work, I have nothing at all to say. “Ts it wrong in its figures } ro “ All wrong. Quite wrong.”’ “ Yet I was told that a publisher who had the temerity to say so in public received an offer to carry on all his printing on those terms. How- ever—I repeat—give me your figures. Show me what, on those terms, you propose to make for yourself by the administration of my property compared with what you propose to give me.” “ The—the—administration of your —your— your property?” he cried. ‘It is,’ the Senior Partner gasped, “ my property—mine—and as for my private affairs— ” “Your property is it? Then I shall carry away your property with me.” He reached out his hand and took it. “Oh! It is—it is too much,” he stammered. “ After Mr. Andrew Lany’s advice and all— after Mr. Buchanan’s beautiful observations about filthy Lucre—Oh! It is a deplorable spirit indeed! What will become of literature if this should spread ?” Tell me what you will We shall be 168 But the author was gone. He went to a certain office where they advised him. And when he did place that MS. it was neither for £20 nor for a 10 per cent. royalty on the retail price after 950 copies should be sold. “TJ have now read Mr. Andrew Lang’s advice,” he said afterwards. “It is what the Senior Partner described it —admirable. All one has to say is ‘Too much,’ or ‘Too little.’ That is all. The root of the whole matter is there. I never knew or guessed before that he was so practical and so keen on the business side of letters. Only, you see, he forgot to remind us that we must first—which, of course, he has himself done long ago—before we can say either ‘Too much’ or ‘Too little,’ know exactly the preliminary facts in the case; for instance, what a book actually costs to produce; what it actually costs to advertise it, 7.e., what any parti- cular firm means to spend upon it ; and what it is sold for. With these figures one can make the necessary calculations, and then it is perfectly easy, without further argument, just to say ‘ Too much’ or ‘ Too little.’ And see how simple it is. T hear that some absurd persons have taken the advice to mean that you must say ‘Too much’ or ‘Too little’ without any knowledge of the figures.. That, of course, is ridiculous.” IT. Tue Porr’s CHorce. A poet sat with bowed head and folded arms, alone in a garret. He had been writing with his heart’s blood, and that is exhausting. More- over he was not happy, and that was the fault of certain evil Jinns who had hovered round his cradle when he was an infant and bestowed gifts upon him. “He is born a poet,” they said; ‘‘ we can’t help that ; but let us have as much sport out of him as possible. He-is born a poet. Therefore, his future should contain fame, love, and success. We will turn it into ignominy and failure.” Then they rubbed their hands with glee, and each prepared his gift. “T,” said the first Jinn, ‘ will endow him with poetical aspiration: to write shall be a necessity ; to him, and success the aim of his life: but I will leave out the element by which success could alone be attained,” and he laughed, for he knew the bitterness which his gift would bring with it. “* And I,” said the next, “ will endow him with a sensitive soul, with a man’s power todo and dare ; but without a woman’s power to suffer with patience,” “And I,” said a third, “‘ will give him a capa- city for love, which shall have only itself to feed THE AUTHOR. upon, for I shall give him also a reserve and shyness which will conceal his own heart, and keep other hearts away from it.” “ And I,” added another witha chuckle, for he knew that his gift added to the others would cause pain and torture unspeakable, “TI will give him so much pride that he will never stoop to ask a favour, and to receive one will be agony.” Then they laughed, for they foresaw a time of merry sport. They laughed, all except one who had not yet spoken, and who was moved to pity at the fate in store for the babe sleeping so peacefully in its cradle. e “T have not much to offer,” he said, sadly, “but what I have I will give. Let the child have a sense of humour.” But the others frowned angrily at the sugges- tion, and hurried their companion out of the room before he could bestow his gift, and so the child grew up without it. This was a pity, for it might often have helped him, but had it done so the Jinns would have been deprived of some of their sport. The Poet was aroused from his reverie by the arrival of the Cynical Observer, and in it, as he saw at a glance, was the review on which rested all his hope for his new poems. Now, had the last of the Jinns been allowed to bestow his gift, the Poet could hardly have read the article with- out amusement. It was so bright, so full of well turned phrases; it picked out and magnified little weaknesses of the poems with so ready a wit; it so played with isolated verses as a cat might do with a mouse, perverting their true sense; it was so determined to find nothing good in them: that a man with any sense of humour could not have read the article without shouts of laughter. But the Poet did not even smile. He read the article ~~ through, and as he did so his brow con- tracted, and his hands were clutched, and his breath came short and quick, as if drawn with pain, nay, even his lips trembled. Had not the Jinns given him a soul as sensitive as a woman’s? At last the paper dropped from his nerveless hands, and a cry of despair rang through the garret. The Jinns heard it and hurried to see the sport, but the Poet sat with outstretched arms and buried face and was silent. And so long did he remain thus that at last they grew a little frightened. “Surely,” they said to one another, ‘‘ he is breaking his heart, and if he were to die our game would be at an end,” “We must save him,’-said one of them shortly; it was he whose gift had not been bestowed. a2 fi moe  THE AUTHOR. 169 “We will,” said the others hurriedly. ‘He shall have that which he most desires. That will surely restore him.” A messenger sent by the Jinns stood before the Poet, who gazed at him with weary bloodshot eyes, “T have been sent to help you,” said the messenger. The Poet still gazed at him with a look of dull despairing pain. “You cannot,’ he said. ‘I want but one thing on earth, and that is denied me.” “T have come,” said the messenger, “to give you that very thing. Name it.” The Poet whispered one word. It was Success. “You must define your meaning more precisely,” said the messenger. ‘‘ Will the success of having done your best satisfy you ?” “No,” said the poet, “that I have already experienced.” “You wish then,” said the “simply for popularity.” The poet winced. The fourth gift conferred by the Jinns began to hurt him a little, but he bowed in acquiescence. “You may take your choice,’ said the messenger, and held two cups before him, the one containing a dull liquid of a deep dark red; the other one clear and sparkling and frothing to the brim, “ This,’ he said, pointing to the first, “is but a deeper draught of what you have already tasted. It is heart’s blood mixed with poetic fire. ‘he other is fame and popularity. Which will you drink ?” “ Both,” murmured the poet, with outstretched hands; but his eyes were fixed on the one that sparkled. “Tt is impossible,” said the messenger, and handed him the one of fame and popularity. The poet quaffed it eagerly, then seized his pen once more and wrote. The draught produced its effects. Success shone on the Poet. His next volume of poems, issued soon after the visit of the messenger, was applauded by the Cynical Observer, and ran to a hundredth edition. His miserable garret was exchanged for comfortable apartments. He became the lion of the season. Fashionable ladies vied with each other to secure his presence at their receptions; interviewers besieged his doors ; his portrait was painted by a royal prin- cess and had a railing round it at the Academy ; young ladies went on their knees before him in public; his autograph was put up to auction; and a lock of his hair in a glass case was sold by a titled lady for fifty pounds at a bazaar. One would have thought that no mortal man could have wished for more, yet, strange to say, the messenger, nature of this poet was so unreasonable that even now he was far from happy. Applause palled on him; his soul was satiated, yet unsatisfied; the future held out no prospect, for what more in the way of success can be hoped for when a man has reached the zenith of popularity, represented by being the lion of a London season? Moreover, he missed the old fierce fire which had glowed in his veins, and beaten at his heart and brain, the wild delicious pain fraught with joy, and joy fraught with pain, which had filled his soul in the old garret days, when fame and success were far off, but when to have completed a poem which his own heart told him to be good, gave him more joy than the flattery of all the world now that he had become famous. So it chanced that one evening, having returned from one of the assemblies where he was so much in request, he flung himself on his bed, and uttered a prayer that the messenger who had brought him the cup of success should return, and let him change his choice. And the Jinns heard it, and resolved to grant his request. “The pain,” they said, “ will be greater than ever now that he has been without it so long. It will be spoit to see what follows.” But the sport was not what they had antici- pated, for the Poet quaffed the cup with an eagerness which was fatal. The old fire was in his veins, the old pain at his heart. For a moment he was conscious of a sharp, swift rapture, a pain which was exquisite joy, then he sank back with a faint smile on his lips, and the emp'y cup fell from his hand. On the morrow, the Poet, who was travelling quite alone on a long road far away from earth, passed another wayfarer who, while on earth, had been a woman. And—which was very strange— when they looked into each other’s eyes they recognised each other at once, though they had never met before. “Oh!” said the poet, with a smile, “It is you —you at last! Why, it was for you—for you alone, that I wrote my best poems.” «Yes, yes,” she replied. ‘They were for me. I took them for myself. And they thrilled my soul into life. But that was before you became famous.” “Tt was,” said the Poet. ‘Since I have met you, I am glad I came here.” “So am IJ,” she said, “for I was beginning to be a little tired of waiting for you.” Then, hand in hand, they moved on towards a Sphere where dwells the Fountain of all Art and of Love. But the Jinns, who could see what was hap- pening, though they had no power to interfere, 168 THE AUTHOR. But the author was gone. He went to a certain office where they advised him. And when he did place that MS. it was neither for £20 nor for a 10 per cent. royalty on the retail price after 950 copies should be sold. “ T have now read Mr. Andrew Lang’s advice,” he said afterwards. ‘It is what the Senior Partner described it — admirable. All ‘one has to say is ‘Too much,’ or ‘Too little.’ That is all. The root of the whole matter is there. I never knew or guessed before that he was so practical and so keen on the business side of letters. Only, you see, he forgot to remind us that we must first—which, of course, he has himself done long ago—before we can say either ‘Too much’ or ‘Too little,’ know exactly the preliminary facts in the case; for instance, what a book actually costs to produce; what it actually costs to advertise it, ¢.e., what any parti- cular firm means to spend upon it ; and what it is sold for. With these figures one can make the necessary calculations, and then it is perfectly easy, without further argument, just to say ‘Too much’ or ‘ Too little.’ And see how simple it is. I hear that some absurd persons have taken the advice to mean that you must say ‘Too much’ or ‘Too little’ without any knowledge of the figures.. That, of course, is ridiculous.” II. Tuer Portr’s CHoIce. A poet sat with bowed head and folded arms, alone in a garret. He had been writing with his heart’s blood, and that is exhausting. More- over he was not happy, and that was the fault of certain evil Jinns who had hovered round his cradle when he was an infant and bestowed gifts upon him. “He is born a poet,” they said; “we can’t help that ; but let us have as much sport out of him as possible. He is born a poet. Therefore, his future should contain fame, love, and success. We will turn it into ignominy and failure.” Then they rubbed their hands with glee, and each prepared his gift. “J,” said the first Jinn, ‘ will endow him with poetical aspiration: to write shall be a necessity to him, and success the aim of his life: but I will leave out the element by which success could alone be attained,” and he laughed, for he knew the bitterness which his gift would bring with it. “« And I,” said the next, “ will endow him with a sensitive soul, with a man’s power todo and dare; but without a woman’s power to suffer with patience.” “And I,” said a third, ‘will give him a capa- city for love, which shall have only itself to feed upon, for I shall give him also a reserve and shyness which will conceal his own heart, and keep other hearts away from it.” “ And I,” added another witha chuckle, for he knew that his gift added to the others would cause pain and torture unspeakable, “I will give him so much pride that he will never stoop to ask a favour, and to receive one will be agony.” Then they laughed, for they foresaw a time of merry sport. They laughed, all except one who had not yet spoken, and who was moved to pity at the fate in store for the babe sleeping so peacefully in its cradle. ® “T have not much to offer,’ he said, sadly, “but what I have I will give. Let the child have a sense of humour.” But the others frowned angrily at the sugges- tion, and hurried their companion out of the room before he could bestow his gift, and so the child grew up without it. This was a pity, for it might often have helped him, but had it done so the Jinns would have been deprived of some of their sport. The Poet was aroused from his reverie by the arrival of the Cynical Observer, and in it, as he saw at a glance, was the review on which rested all his hope for his new poems. Now, had the last of the Jinns been allowed to bestow his gift, the Poet could hardly have read the article with- out amusement. It was so bright, so full of well turned phrases; it picked out and magnified little weaknesses of the poems with so ready a wit; it so played with isolated verses as a cat might do with a mouse, perverting their true sense; it was so determined to find nothing good in them: that a man with any sense of humour could not have read the article without shouts of laughter. But the Poet did not even smile. He read the article straight through, and as he did so his brow coh- tracted, and his hands were clutched, and his breath came short and quick, as if drawn with pain, nay, even his lips trembled. Had not the Jinns given him a soul as sensitive as a woman’s? At last the paper dropped from his nerveless hands, and a cry of despair rang through the garret. The Jinns heard it and hurried to see the sport, but the Poet sat with outstretched arms and buried face and was silent. And so long did he remain thus that at last they grew a little frightened. “Surely,” they said to one another, ‘he is breaking his heart, and if he were to die our game would be at an end.” “We must save him,’’-said one of them shortly; it was he whose gift had not been bestowed. ; ie MoasmeKmeTein  7 THE AUTHOR. “cc He That “We will,” said the others hurriedly. shall have that which he most desires. will surely restore him.” A messenger sent by the Jinns stood before the Poet, who gazed at him with weary bloodshot eyes. “T have been sent to help you,” said the messenger. The Poet still gazed at him with a look of dull despairing pain. “You cannot,’ he said. “I want but one thing on earth, and that is denied me.” “T have come,” said the messenger, “to give you that very thing. Name it.” The Poet whispered one word. It was Success. “You must define your meaning more precisely,” said the messenger. ‘‘ Will the success of having done your best satisfy you ?” “No,” said the poet, “that I have already experienced.” “You wish then,” “simply for popularity.” The poet winced. The fourth gift conferred by the Jinns began to hurt him a little, but he bowed in acquiescence. “You may take your choice,” said the messenger, and held two cups before him, the one containing a dull liquid of a deep dark red; the other one clear and sparkling and frothing to the brim, “This,” he said, pointing to the first, “is but a deeper draught of what you have already tasted. It is heart’s blood mixed with poetic fire. ‘he other is fame and popularity. Which will you drink ?” “ Both,” murmured the poet, with outstretched hands; but his eyes were fixed on the one that sparkled. “It is impossible,” said the messenger, and handed him the one of fame and popularity. The poet quaffed it eagerly, then seized his pen once more and wrote. The draught produced its effects. Success shone on the Poet. His next volume of poems, issued soon after the visit of the messenger, was applauded by the Cynical Observer, and ran to a hundredth edition. His miserable garret was exchanged for comfortable apartments. He became the lion of the season. Fashionable ladies vied with each other to secure his presence at their receptions; interviewers besieged his doors ; his portrait was painted by a royal prin- cess and had a railing round it at the Academy ; young ladies went on their knees before him in public ; his autograph was put up to auction; and a lock of his hair in a glass case was sold by a titled lady for fifty pounds at a bazaar. One would have thought that no mortal man could have wished for more, yet, strange to say, the said the messenger, 169 nature of this poet was so unreasonable that even now he was far from happy. Applause palled on him; his soul was satiated, yet unsatisfied; the future held out no prospect, for what more in the way of success can be hoped for when a man has reached the zenith of popularity, represented by being the lion of a London season? Moreover, he missed the old fierce fire which had glowed in his veins, and beaten at his heart and brain, the wild delicious pain fraught with joy, and joy fraught with pain, which had filled his soul in the old garret days, when fame and success were far off, but when to have completed a poem which his own heart told him to be good, gave him more joy than the flattery of all the world now that he had become famous. So it chanced that one evening, having returned from one of the assemblies where he was so much in request, he flung himself on his bed, and uttered a prayer that the messenger who had brought him the cup of success should return, and let him change his choice. And the Jinns heard it, and resolved to grant his request. “The pain,” they said, “ will be greater than ever now that he has been without it so long. It will be spoit to see what follows.” _ But the sport was not what they had antici- pated, for the Poet quaffed the cup with an eagerness which was fatal. The old fire was in his veins, the old pain at his heart. For a moment he was conscious of a sharp, swift rapture, a pain which was exquisite joy, then he sank back with a faint smile on his lips, and the emp'y cup fell from his hand. On the morrow, the Poet, who was travelling quite alone on a long road far away from earth, passed another wayfarer who, while on earth, had been a woman, And—which was very strange— when they looked into each other’s eyes they recognised each other at once, though they had never met before. “Oh!” said the poet, with a smile, “It is you —you at last! Why, it was for you—for you alone, that I wrote my best poems.” “Yes, yes,” she replied. ‘They were for me. I took them for myself. And they thrilled my soul into life. But that was before you became famous.” “Tt was,” said the Poet. you, I am glad I came here.” “So am I,” she said, “for I was beginning to be a little tired of waiting for you.” Then, hand in hand, they moved on towards a Sphere where dwells the Fountain of all Art and of Love. But the Jinns, who could see what was hap- pening, though they had no power to interfere, “Since I have met 170 did not laugh any more, except one, It was he who had proposed the gift of humour, and it amused him to see the discomfiture of the rest. Noruey CHESTER, eas CORRESPONDENCE. I. “DELICATE AND SUBTLE.” T present there appears to be no market for A work that may be called “delicate and subtle.” That, at least, has been my experience. In May, 1890, the late Mr. G. T. Bettany, then English editor of Lippincott’s Magazine (to whose kindness and courtesy— although a stranger—I herewith bear grateful testimony), accepted from me a short sketch, called “A Mother and her Boy,’ in which I had endeavoured to show the all-consuming power of a true mother’s love, It was one of those tender little outpourings of thought which sometimes well up in the most unpoetical heart in quiet moments, and serve to water the arid deserts of the commonplace. Whether the American editor—to whom the sketch was subse- quently forwarded for insertion in the two edi- tions of Lippincott’s—deemed it too “delicate and subtle,” I cannot-say ; but so far as I know (not having seen the magazine recently) my sketch is still in the editorial pigeonhole. And no one knows how I have longed for the publica- tion of that “ delicate and subtle” trifle during these three years. In justice to the publishers of the English edition «of Lippincott’s (Messrs. Ward, Lock, Bowden, and Co.) I must say that the sketch was handsomely paid for in June, 1891. Of course ‘‘ the filthy lucre’’ (which Mr. Buchanan affects to so much despise) was very acceptable to me, as it must be to all young writers who live by their pens ; but to the author who loves his work, complete satisfaction only lies in the publication of it, whether it be “delicate and subtle” or not. Guorcre Morury. IL. ReEviEwED Books. Your constant remarks in the Axthor on the subject of “reviews” are extremely interesting reading to me, and I feel rather a savage delight (having at times been both reviewer and reviewed) in relating the following incident :—-As secretary of this institute (Sydney Mechanics’ School of Arts), I often have books submitted to me for purchase, and some few months ago a THE AUTHOR. young gentleman called on me and stated that he had lately arrived from London, and was tired of carrying so many books about in his luggage. He offered them to me all round at ninepence per volume, ‘and said he would submit them for inspection. About 100 volumes arrived next day, and, to my surprise, all were popular novels, among them being several three-volume sets and single volumes by such authors as Walter Besant, Edna Lyall,and Rosa N.Carey. Of course I secured them, but on further examination found that they were not only uncut (those with folded edges), but were stamped on the title-page with the words “ With the publisher's compliments.” Evidently all these books were review copies, and equally evident was the fact that they had never been read by the reviewer. 1 may also add that in several second-hand shops in Sydney at the present time there are copies of uncut novels (both three-vols. and single vols.) with the same wording stamped on title-page, and these can be had for from ts. to 2s. a volume. Cyrrin Havinanp. . Ill. Re Rasu Conciusions 1N CRITICISMS. I am the writer of “Mrs. Elphinstone of Druoss,” published last May by Messrs. Bentley. It was favourably noticedin the leading reviews, of which, however, one of the best fell into serious error. Its reviewer says, “ The influence of Mr. G. Meredith’s individuality is making itself felt in the usualfashion. He is no longer a, soli- tary master; he is the head of a rapidly increasing school, and Mrs. Stevenson is one of his disciples.” This idea being carried out through half the review, until it seems that Mr. Meredith is the writer reviewed. The fact is I had read one only of Mr. Meredith’s books—“ Diana of the Crossways ” —when I wrote my book, and that was read four years ago. I alluded to “The Kgoist,” but had not read it. I have just finished “ One of Our Conquerors.” My admiration of Mr. Meredith is very great, He seems to me the Carlyle of fiction colossal in his art. But I have not dared to attempt imitation, and I am no disciple of his. Ina humble way I also prefer originality, and feel it due both to Mr. Meredith and myself to say that the “cleverness” and ‘ qualities more valuable than cleverness” ascribed to me by this same critic are my own, and not, as an imitation, a false development. Mrs. Mary Exiz. STEVENSON. Dingley, Sept. 4.  THE AUTHOR. IV. PusiisHers’ Work. I do not recollect to have seen in the Author any detail description of what a publisher has to do to put a book before the public which he desires in his own interest to push. TI assume the following matters comprise some of the things to be done, but what else :— 1. Gives MS. to his reader to report upon and pays his fee, how much ? 2. Having accepted MS., takes printer’s con- tract to produce at per sixteen pages, having settled size of book, size of type, form of binding, and design for cover. 3. Sends and provides for the sending of proofs to author for correction. 4. The book having been produced, receives a supply bound up for stock to sell. 5. Draws up form of advertisement, negotiates cost, selects where to send same, and includes book in his general catalogue of books on sale. 6. Selects newspapers and periodicals and special persons to whom copies are to be sent for review. 7. Sends round libraries for sale. 8. Sends copies to proprietors of railway book- stalls on sale or return. g. Sits down contented and waits for buyers to call, and what else ? KE. BL. copies by a traveller to NV Tue Extension or ourR Lanauace. The Editor of the Author has recently shown how much larger is the English speaking and reading population of this day than in the time of Dickens. It is worth while thinking of this, for, though we enumerate 110 millions of English-speaking population, that is nothing, he says, “ compared with the audience which he (the author) will command in a future by no means distant.” A question for the author, the statesman, and for patriots to consider is, whether anything can be done to promote this result. Part of this result is due to the efforts of some, with whom Mr. Besant has taken part, in promoting the use of the English language; but to a great extent no care is shown for the extension of the English language. For the French language, and for its active propaganda against English in the East, in Canada, and the North-Western Territories, a great French society exists, with large funds obtained from subscriptions of five francs. In India for some time our officials resisted the desire of the native population to learn ryt English, and even now it is not effectually pro- moted. Sanskrit, which is not a spoken language, not a language of modern science, and Persian, which is a language foreign to India, have re- ceived greater favour from the Government than English. How many people in India speak English the Census of 1891 does not tell us. It is in the vast population of India, however, that a great expansion of our language can take place, and ought for the promotion of culture to take place, and it is to this efforts should be directed, as well as to Canada, the Cape, and many other regions. In such efforts authors are more particularly interested, and the cost need not be heavy. Organisation is, however, wanting. The Alliance Francaise has organisation, and its labours are patronised by Lord Mayors at the Mansion-house. The St. George’s Societies afford the elements of such organisation, particularly in the United States and in Canada. In London we have only one Society of St. George, which Mr. Besant has supported as a member, and of which the hon. secretary is Mr. W. H. Christmas, 414, Blooms- bury-square, who is now engaged in an active campaign for its extension. The society has already done much work of an unobtrusive character, but chiefly in. propagandism on the other side of the Atlantic It was through the action of the society that the conception of the confederation of the 110 millions of the English-speaking races, and the 450 millions under their government, has acquired acceptance. Mr, Andrew Carnegie has now devoted himself to the promotion of this public labour, but few can yet appreciate its im- portance. Hype Ciarke. 32, St. George’s-square, S.W. VI. Tue Noverist as TopogRaPHEr. A writer of good books is more skilful than the painter, more talented than the orator, and more useful than the legislator, because without the aid of colour he can attract, without the splendid gift of articulation he can enthral, and without the reforming powers of the legislator he can do good to multitudes. I do not think that the duty of the novel- writer is only to amuse, but to leave some good firmly engrafted upon the mind of his reader, and this contention is capable of ample proof, for if an appeal is made to many writers of this and past ages—writers whose works are for all time the imperishable monuments of their fame—it will invariably be found that their purpose was instruction, not amusement. 172 THE AUTHOR. Life for one half of the world—the half that takes its literature with the regularity of its church going—is simply made up of amusements of one kind or another; there is therefore no reason why these people should pick up a book and expect to find it a continuation of their frivolity. If I, who as yet am no’ novelist, might pre- sume to lay down a dogma pertaining to the first duty of a novelist, it would be to suggest to him that a description of his own neighbourhood is sometimes as essential to his work as the inven- tion of a plot, which is sometimes very unreal, unhealthy, and morally unsound. What does Thackeray say on this point? “ Out of the fictitious book I got the expression of the times, of the manners, of the merriment, of the dress, of the pleasures, the laughter, the ridi- cules of society; the old times live again, and I travel in the old country of England. Can the heaviest historian do more for me?” A citizen should closely describe the scenery and life as they appear to him in the city; a townsman as they appear in his town ; a country- man as they appear in his village—so that in the perusal of novels the reader may gain a view of his native land far more entertaining, and some- times far more correct, than can be found in the best guide-book ever written. Some writers—notably Mr. Blackmore and Mr. Thomas Hardy—do combine the arts of novelist and topographer; and what charming books theirs are in consequence! Both have performed excellent service to their county and their county’s literature. They have done for their neighbour- hoods—Exmoor and Wessex—that which George Eliot did for Warwickshire; and this is what should be the inexorable duty of a novel writer. In their works are to be found all the elements requisite and necessary for the novel and the country history; and, tf only on account of the latter qualification, these Exmoor and Wessex books are far in advance of the ordinary novel of the time. Grorer Morey. Leamington. Vil. Kprroriat Eruics. Editors are naturally and very properly “arbitrary gents” as touching the publications which they control, nevertheless it is a ques- tion whether and to what extent they have a right to sophisticate, either by addition or sub- traction, signed contributions which are neither libellous nor offensive. Here is a case in point, as to which I should be pleased to have your opinion, A short time ago I sent toa London evening paper an article which contained the following passage :—“ The success of the feuilleton in the country is in curious contrast with its comparative failure in London ‘papers of the same class. The cause, however, is obvious. London editors have not given to the wants of their readers and the choice of their stories the same care as their country colleagues. They have thought it enough to buy a novel from a distinguished novelist, forgetting that the popu- larity of an author with magazine readers or Mudie’s subscribers is no guarantee that he will succeed with newspaper readers.’ The presump- tion is rather the other way.” That part of the passage which I have quoted was deleted when the article appeared. Witiiam WESTALL. High Beach, Sept. 20. [If the paper was unsigned, surely the editor has a perfect right to alter the article as he pleases. An unsigned article has always been recognised as carrying with it the editor’s responsi- bility. If it were signed, then the question arises whether the editor has any right at all to omit or to change anything without permission of the author.—Eb. | VIII. ‘A Pree Lance” agarnst “ Nature.” A member of the Society, who writes under the name of “A Free Lance,” has sent me a printed circular, containing a complaint against Nature. The facts of the case, taken from the circulars, are these: In May, 1892, “Free Lance” published a thirty-page pamphlet called “The Organisation of Science.” This was sent out for review, and was actually reviewed in certain scientific papers, but not in Nature. On June 29, 1893, a letter appeared in Nature from Mr. Swinburne (not the poet) raising inde- pendently many of the points discussed in this pamphlet The author“ Free Lance ”__wrote to Nature, pointing out that, while he did not impute plagiarism to Mr. Swinburne, many of the points in the letter had been already advanced by himself in that pamp!let. The editor of Nature refused to publish the letter with- out the writer’s name, The editor had previously printed a letter without his name. Another scientific paper published the letter, and there was an editorial in Nature containing ‘ similari- ties’? which “Free Lance” acknowledges may very well be due to the simple coincidence between the thoughts of two writers treating the same subject. |  THE AUTHOR. 173 “Free Lance” complains, also, of no notice being taken of his pamphlet. These are the plain facts as stated by the circular, which we produce in deference to “ Free Lance’s”” request as a member. It is doubless very hard to have one’s work neglected and one’s proposals advanced by other and later writers. But we cannot see that there is the smallest ground for complaint against the editor of Nature. It is a rule in every respect- able paper that the writer of a letter should give his name. That a previous letter by “Free Lance” appeared without sending the name may very well have happened by an accident. ‘“ Free Lance’’ does not impute plagiarism, but he does seem to impute a wilful ignoring of his pamphlet. But why wilful? Every pamphlet sent to a paper cannot be noticed. But then, is it proved that the author of the leading article had read it? ‘Similarities,’ are observed; but then “Free Lance” allows that these may arise from the treatment of the same subject by two minds. Here, however, are the facts. I have only to add that I refused to admit this statement in the Author without the writer’s name, and have perhaps incurred the same displeasure on the same grounds. The following is what the editor of Nature says himself: ““We have received a printed circular signed ‘Free Lance,’ condemning a recent action of. ours in refusing to print a letter from the author on the subject of the ‘ Publication of Physical Papers’ unless, in accordance with the rule to which attention is drawn in every number of Nature, he divulged his name. We fail to see any adequate reason for violating our rule in the favour of ‘Free Lance’ more than in the case of any other of our correspondents.” (Ep.) IX. GzrorGEe Exiort anp RESPECTABILITY. This is a delicate question, as well as a some- what subtle one ; and it is perhaps better to leave it severely alone, lest one be misinterpreted and misjudged in consequence. However; I should like to say a few words upon it, as it involves much more than the reputation of the eminent woman concerned. I hold that human differences arise as often from diversity in interpretation of words as from variety in opinion of deeds; in effect that, in many such questions, as Cardinal Newman said of certain religious discussions, when we come to agree as to.the meanings of words, we generally find that “argument is either superfluous or hopeless.’ Similarly, in the present case, the controversy really lies more between diverse inter- pretations of the word “respectability” than in any differences of opinion as to the ethics of the question—great though these are likely to con- tinue to be. So many problems of ethology, psychology, sociology, or theology are involved that only the superficial would venture to pronounce final judg- ment without duly considering how the peculiar course of conduct affected the character of the chief actors, the spiritual culture of their inti- mates, and the quality of society in general, as well as the welfare of posterity in particular—as indefinitely influenced by them. In other words, did or did not George Eliot remain the same pure-souled woman after as before her breach of ‘ conventionality” ? Did she or did she not harm as well as hurt certain members of the community more immediately involved? Did she or did she not lessen her vast power for good by thus defying ‘“‘ Mrs. Grundy ” ? While nothing is easier than to judge, nothing is harder than to judge justly. Realising this, it behoves us to be humble in judging our fellows individually ; recognising that reputation is at best merely a social conception, just as conceit is a personal opinion, of a certain character only partially known—even to its possessor. As to the social influence, there is room for limitless speculation, according to our individual share of racial ignorance. We may question the expedience of a gifted and noble woman’s atti- tude, even while concluding that it more than neutralised its own possibilities for evil, by fos- tering a reaction in favour of ethical conserva- tism; but, none the less, our philosophy pro or con. will probably resolve itself mainly into a mere matter of popular phraseology, in spite of ourselves. In effect, when we think we have established primary principles, we may have merely endorsed popular phrases. The danger of a doctrine is no proof of its iniquity, but is only an index of its potentiality. Until marriage is duly recognised as a fine art, and properly understood as the most sacred institution of social science, there will continue to be considerable diversity of opinion as to how far its divinity consists in its ceremony or in its harmony ; and how far ceremony is a matter of legality or of morality; as well as how far morality is a matter of individual duty or of social utility. Meantime, it would be well were conventionality more clearly differentiated from morality, and reputability from respectability ; but this might necessitate a reform in the art of language, as well as a revolution in the science of soul. PHINLAY GLENELG. 174 X. James DEFOE. The following communication speaks for itself. Will anyone among our members take the lead in this matter ? “Saturday's Daily Chronicle contained a pathetic letter from James W. Defoe, an out- door pauper of Chelmsford Union. It would appear from investigations made by Mr. Thomas Wright that this unfortunate man_is the father of the last lineal descendant of Daniel Defoe. One would desire, of course, that everything that can be done should be done for the father; but T would suggest that since the son has been educated attention should be directed to him. We cannot force this young man to marry, but we can impress upon him, if perchance he should fail to appreciate the fact, that in representing Daniel Defoe his position is far more distin- guished than it would be were he the repre- sentative of Defoe’s great contemporary John Churchill. To let the name of Defoe die would be a national loss; it should be continued. Who knows what potentialities may yet remain in the family which has given us the author of “ Robin- son Crusoe.” John Churchill and his descen- dants were well provided for by Parliament ; Defoe, a greater benefactor to his country than Churchill, for, leaving the esthetic and literary question untouched, he has been the real father of much of the colonising and exploring activity of our race, got nothing for himself or for his descendants. I would suggest that we try to remedy this injustice. A letter signed by the leading novelists making an appeal to the public might be sent to the journals, and I venture to think a substantial capital sum might be raised. This sum, held by trustees, should be invested for the benefit of James W. Defoe and his heirs male in the usual manner. “e5, Se. lee “Sept. 18, 1893.” XI. Rerention oF MSS. sy Eprrors. I The following case of a story of my own will serve to illustrate the question. In June, 1892, I sent a story of about 14,000 words, which I had been to the expense of having typed, to the editors of a well-known magazine for their Christ- mas number. ‘Time went on, and I heard. nothing, and at last, when I saw the Christmas number advertised, I wrote to the editors to in- quire whether my story were to be inserted. After some little delay, I heard that it had never been received by them. I then made inquiries of the publishers to whose care it THE AUTHOR. had been sent, but without result, and, needless to say, I could obtain neither compensation nor redress. This, though of course very annoying, is one of the accidents of an author’s life, which, whether due to the carelessness of post-office officials or of publishers’ clerks, can only be endured with the best grace possible, though I think some plan of acknowledgment might be established, and authors thus enabled to institute inquiries for missing MSS. at a time when they might be of use, instead of, as in my case, several months after. But, now to the next chapter in the history of my story. I set to work and rewrote it from my rough copy with slight alterations, as it was written to illustrate a given motto in the first in- stance, and, this accomplished, I sent it to another popular monthly. Seven months elapsed, and then, on the advice of the Secretary of the Authors’ Society, I wrote to the editor reminding him of my story, and asking him to be so kind as to tell me whether it was accepted. This produced a return of the MS. with a polite note from the sub-editor expressing “pain” that he “ did not think it quite suitable” for the magazine, and laying out a hint that, should I send another contribution, it might—it would be accepted. In acknowledging the MS., I ventured to suggest that, before sending another, I should like some guarantee that so much time would not be wasted again. T do not wish to dispute the editor’s refusal of my story ; it may have been too long, or not sen- sational enough, or unsuitable in many ways, but where I do complain is that an author's MS. should be retained so long and then rejected. My case is, I expect, by no means exceptional, and surely there must be some want of organisation or some inadequacy of staff in editorial offices for such things to occur. II. One of the unfortunate beings who has to live by his pen sends a story to the editor of a magazine or journal, and hears nothing about it for three, four, or six months. He is loth to write and inquire, for if he does ten to one back comes the MS. (provided stamps were inclosed) by the next post ; the personage having doubtless expressed himself much in this way—‘ Hang the fellow; why does he keep bothering me about his wretched stuff? Let him have the confounded rubbish back.” Now, the point I want informa- tion on is this—How long after submitting @ MS. should one wait before sending another copy elsewhere? Does the fact of an article being submitted to an editor give that mighty indivi- : i 2  THE AUTHOR. 75 dual an exclusive right to the use of that article for as long a time as he in his irresponsible great- ness may choose to keep it in suspense? I sup- pose itis considered an incorrect proceeding to send the same story or paper to more than one publishing source at a time? I amvery ignorant in these matters, and should be greatly obliged if any reader of the Author would enlighten me. H. RB. G. XII. Mopern Poetry. Modern poetry is now becoming so difficult that it is almost cruel, if not terrible and truculent. As for example take me, a beginner who sits down and studies it. What becomes of me? I have an ink-dream, and find this that follows on my bed-side table in the morning. It is a horrible failure: but where, and with, or by whom, or when, is a commencing poet to start ? Here is my nightmare. But I must say a few more prefatory words. It seems to poor students of poetry that all you have to do is to get a certain swing into your ear, distrust everybody else, see that you’re not copying anybody, and disconsult the rhyming dictionary. Then go to sleep, and do as I did: Older and older sinks the Dust into the bottoms of our fathers’ graves. Where that is laid we know we shall and must—down to the level of old Wisdom’s knaves. The piles of pillory are all in rust; but fetters polish on the noble slaves ! Old Death is lone and in the must; his hoops are shrunken round these staves. You see the jokes? No. Then you are not JEB SLINTER. XIII. PUBLISHERS’ READERS. Mr. James Payn, in his “ Notes” of this week, falls to upon me (among, I think, all your other correspondents), for expressing the particular opinion that if, as Mr. Sherard said, authors should not be critics, they should still more not be readers for publishers. This he summarises (with your other correspondents’ ideas) as rubbish. Now the position of the hebdomadal sum- mariser may be, while perhaps envious, rather demoralising, for he is so like the parson who cannot be contradicted. _ Whereas the ordinary correspondent only obtains leave to ventilate an idea, the hebdomadal summariser is under an obligation to fill several columns with ideas, and must find matter—but will you allow me to add a few words to those printed in last month’s Author, apropos of Mr. Payn’s objections ? lf authors should not be critics then they are more out of place as readers, is surely sensible. The critic passes judgment on the production when produced, the “reader” passes judgment thereon when it is only proposed to be produced ; it is evident, therefore, that whereas the first can only, if he think proper, injure its reputation on publication, the other can use a still more power- ful agency against it—he can nip it off altogether so far as his “firm” is concerned. As the number of publishing firms is not very large, these author-readers must be as proportion- ally more powerful to hinder publication of a par- ticular style of work than the author-critic is to merely injureit, as is the difference between the number of “firms” and of critical organs. So that a writer sending his work to a firm who have an author-reader who dislikes his “ form” and rejects it, is more fatally injured hereby, than when he is only “slated” by an author-critic, among the very numerous critical organs. This rejected writer has then to go afield among the limited number of tasters for someone more sympathetic, but it is obvious that in this he is more justly handled, if he is in the power of, and affected by, only absolutely impartial judges of his wares. As the Author deals with the machinery of authorship—what Mr. Payn calls the “ways and methods ’—I venture to submit these observa- tions to it; and upon the question of the suit- ability of the author as “ reader,” I will hope in a few lines to strengthen my argument. An author must be strongly prejudiced the better one he is. Icould not conceive a good painter, occupying the position of “buyer” to picture- dealers, flooding the market with oleographic pictures of gaudy attractiveness—or even in manners strongly opposed to his own—without a peculiar catholicity essentially foreign to the best workers. Would Carlyle have been a reader suited to “run” the concerns of an enterprising firm ? Of course, the wnsuitability I have here advanced, of authors being good commercial “tasters” for publishers, always becomes less as the status, genius, and deep earnestness of that author are less, and if Mr. Payn believes a reader is quite properly employed when he is passing all work that will bring grist to the mill, then surely that points to quite another person than the author of any importance. One would think the public would esteem the great author better employed producing his own work for their delight than placing (though perhaps but temporarily) bars before someone else. I am convinced Johnson would have ‘“ returned with thanks” “Tristram Shandy.” INGENUE. BOOKS OF 1892. 176 TYNE following lists have been compiled from the books announced day by day in the Times Jan. 1—Dee. 31, 1892. It includes reprints, new editions, and all the publications, good or bad, of the year: General Theology. Educa- | Novels. Law. Political. | Arts. Voyages. | History. |Biography.| Poetry. |) ature, tional. January et 31 8 56 6 8 28 II 21 14 27 50 Webruary ...:.6:------- 25 18 68 6 19 26 6 25 22 17 53 March |b 29 17 go 13 24 24 4 33 18 17 42 RTE coi cccsc seers sees 19 18 76 9 II 25 12 21 22 II 51 MAY f2. oes so sss tence eee aenes> 39 20 75 it 20 45 6 28 32 23 64 PUNS ec cei ces esse eenuve ees 17 20 61 9 32 31 5 37 22 28 89 THE AUTHOR. Te oe ee 18 II 59 6 17 20 3 25 II II 55 JUN ee 9 14 43 7 12 19 — 20 9 12 38 September ..............6045 20 32 123 5 7 29 4 32 23 19 45 October 6.6. ec 29 27 1g! 8 12 32 6 29 31 25 103 November .............. ae 25 13 178 12 II 43 18 53 39 41 112 December .......ccs0..- 068 29 19 98 7 13 33 3 23 27 23 104 : Wotel: 5 oe 288 217 1118 99 186 355 78 347 272 254 806  THE AUTHOR. WHAT THE PAPERS SAY. L. “THe Book Hat FAarLep.” [A publisher writes to the Author to say that, for the first time in his experience, the writer of a book which was not a success has sent him an unsolicited cheque to com- pensate him for the loss he has sustained by producing it.] AS THINGS ARE TO-DAY. Publisher (nastily): I tell you that it’s no earthly use your asking about profits, because there are none. Author (amazed): No profits! And you really mean to tell me that the public has not thought fit to purchase my shilling work of genius—‘ The Maiming of Mendoza?” By our agreement only a paltry 6000 copies of the work had to be bought before my royalty of a penny a volume began. Publisher: Iam quite aware of it. The sale of the 6000 copies would just about have repaid us for cost of production. As a matter of fact, only 3000 have been sold. We've lost heavily, and very much regret we were ever induced to accept the work. Author: Aud you really ask me to believe that after such a sale as that a loss on your part is possible? Why, if you take price of printing at- | Goes elaborately into cost of produc- tion. | Publisher: Yes, but you see the price of every- thing has gone up in our trade. Binding is now ten per cent. dearer, composing is [Also goes into precise and prolonged details. | Author (turning desperate at last): Oh, let us end this chatter! You really say that no cheque whatever is due to me for all my labours? Publisher: Nota single penny. It’s the other way about. Author (leaving): And you call this “the beneficial system of royalties,’ do you? Good day! And if I don’t set the Society of Authors ‘at you before I am a day older, then my name’s not Butwer Maxerreace Deroz SmitH! [Lait tempestuously. | AS THEY MAY BE TO-MORROW. Utterly Unknown Novelist : Then I am afraid that my last three-volumed work of fiction, in ‘Spite of the cordial way in which it was reviewed by my brother-in-law in the Weekly Dotard, my maternal uncle in the Literary Spy, and afew other relatives on the daily press, has not upon the whole been a decided success ? Publisher: Well, it’s useless. to conceal the fact, that from a mere base material point of view, the publication of “The Boiling of Benjamin” has not quite answered our expectations. In 177 fact, we have lost a couple of thousand pounds over it. But (more cheerfully) what of that ? It is a pleasure to lose money over introducing good work to the public; a positive privilege to be sacrificed on such an altar as “ The Boiling of Benjamin.”” So say no more on that head! U. U. Novelist (enthusiastically) : Good and generous man! But I will say more! You recollect that the terms you made with me were a thousand pounds down, and a hundred pounds a month for life or until the copyright expired ? Publisher (groaning slightly): Oh, yes! I remember it very well. U. U. Novelist: And that I have already received cheques for one thousand and five hun- dred pounds, without your mentioning a word about the loss you have been nobly and silently enduring ? Publisher: An agreement’s an agreement, and you are only experiencing one result of the bene- ficial system of royalties. U. U. Novelist: Quite so! But if there is to be a division of profits, there should be division of losses as well. So (¢aking out cheque-book, and hurriedly writing in it) there! Not a word of thanks! It’s merely repaying you the fifteen hundred I’ve received, with another thousand to compensate you for the loss on production. Publisher (melted into tears): Oh, thanks, thanks! You have averted ruin from my starving little ones! And if you should wish to bring out any other work of He is gone, to escape my gratitude! (Takes up cheque). By far the best thing he ever wrote! (Curtain.) —Punch, Sept. 22. Ef, EXPERIENCES OF A LITERARY BEGINNER. The following facts have been extracted from two memorandum books, one of which contains a numbered list of every article or story written, with particulars of where sent, when sent, when returned, when accepted, prices paid, &c. The other book has its pages headed with the names of the various journals to which a manuscript or manuscripts have been sent—one page for each journal. The former book is indexed by the titles of the articles or stories, the latter according to the names of the journals. During this period of five months, sixty-seven articles, &c., have been written and offered to twenty-five journals. Up to the date of writing, twenty-seven articles or stories have been accepted, fifteen are ‘ out’ to meet their fate, and twenty- five are in the drawer set apart for rejected MSS. —some of these will be sent off again ; others are obviously faulty.  178 As regards the twenty-seven acceptances, sixteen were accepted at the first offer, five at the second trial, two at the third time of asking, one at the seventh, and three were “ ordered ” by an editor on the strength of a lucky article which pleased him. The payments for these twenty-seven accepted MSS. amounted to £96 7s. Concerning the fifteen MSS. which are “ out,” and whose fate is thus not yet decided, five are “ maidens,” six are on their second trip, one is at the fourth trial, two at the fifth venture, one at the sixth. The twenty-five MSS. which are in the drawer for rejected articles have been treated thus :—Four have been returned once, three have come back twice, eight have been coldly received by their author at their third rejection, six have been glared at upon their fourth return to home, and four have shamefacedly crept back no fewer than five times. So much for the three groups of MSS. Now about the journals to which they were sent. The twenty-four journals have been classed in three groups :—I. Those which accepted some or all of the MSS. offered; II. Those which refused all MSS. offered; and III. Those whose decision is not yet known. Group I. contains seven journals: One London newspaper (morning), four weeklies, and two monthlies. Group II. relates to twelve journals of various kinds. Group III. comprises five publications whose respective editors have not yet arrived at a decision upon the MSS. offered. A point which may be usefully examined by a writer is the number of separate times he offered his MSS. Here are the tabulated facts relating to the sixty-seven MSS. now mentioned :—the twenty-seven accepted were, in the aggregate, sent out forty-two times; the fifteen which are “out” have been offered, in the aggregate, thirty-seven times ; and the twenty-five which are inthe “rejected” drawer have received among them no fewer than seventy-eight refusals. Thus, the whole sixty-seven MSS. have a total of 157 separate trials. This means 314-27==287 journeys through the post, and up to the present time not a single MS. has been lost. This fact speaks well for both editors and post- men. The cost of postage, both ways, of those 157 offers of MSS. has amounted to £2 5s. 2d. —say £3 if paper be included—thus the net profit in respect of the twenty-seven accepted MSS. is £96 7s. less £3, or £93 78. The fore- going are actual facts, and the result is by no means discouraging; moreover some of the fifteen MSS. which are awaiting their fate are “ig fish,” one is a 20-pounder, and two others, if accepted, will considerably increase the above figure ; again, a few out of the twenty-five MSS. which are now “resting” will probably find their THE AUTHOR. way into print when touched up a little. But even if these 15 +2540 manuscripts should none of them be accepted, the net amount of £93 7s. in five months represents £225 per annum. Finally, all the journals referred to are London journals, the writer of the manuscripts sent to them started as an entire “ outsider,’ and beyond the fact of taking great pains with his work, he cannot be said to possess any exceptional ability ; so, perhaps, there may be more room at even the bottom of the ladder of literature than some of us are disposed to think.—The Globe. Ti. Tus Heattuy CuLture or THE Literary Lire. Before concluding this address, one other point seems to me to deserve particular atten- tion in connection with the literary life. It relates to jealousy as the bane of competi- tion, under which the best men are sometimes doomed to fall. I am speaking literally and medically when I affirm from experience and observation that jealousy may turn into actual disease, and may so affect the physical life as to lay the foundation of fatal disease. There is nothing in all callings so opposed to success as jealousy, but in literature it is the danger of dangers. It destroys the quietude of the reason- ing soul; it keeps up a fever of the animal organization ; it leads to passions that are as wearing as pain, to competitions as exhausting as the strife of the gaming table, to failures as certain as those which are produced by strong drink. I pray you all who intend to labour in the literary field, do your best to kill all jealousy lurking in your bosoms. It is seated in the centres of the passions, and no doubt in many persons it is strong as life, keen as death. It has often heredity as its root, and so much the more is it hard to conquer; but it can, by force of will and exercise of reason, be subdued and even utilised for the purpose of honourable ambition, if it be from the first kept in subjection. It is best kept in subjection by the exercise of a reso- lute determination on the part of the writer to apply the same fair criticisms to his own work as he ought to apply to the works of others, on the grand principle of doing unto others what he would they should do unto him. To this effort should be added the desire to discover in the successful the secret of success. Insuccess there is always a secret, though it be an open one; and in every case there is some opening, which, fol- lowed up, leads to success, under which jealousy vanishes, with all its evil train. My advice, therefore, is, go on working and improving your own work; think no evil, feel no contempt, of .  THE AUTHOR. 179 fellow-workers ; find what path in the wide field of literature suits best your powers; and be sure that in the end you will win if you live and make the best of life—Sir Benjamin Ward Richardson in The Asclepiad. EV. READING FOR THE WORKHOUSE. The books which the Free Literature Society seem to think suitable for workhouses appear to belong exclusively to the class of ‘books which are no books— biblia abiblia.”’ The Kettering Union, who subscribe to the society, report that the last parcel sent tothem included “The Manufacture of Bleaching Powder,” an 1862 “Guide to London,’ ‘“ A Chronology of the Soap Trade,” ‘The Oil and Colourman,” “Improvements in Acid Manufacture,” ‘“ Con- densation of Noxious Vapours,” and a batch of German almanacs. This list will fairly vie with Charles Lamb’s of ‘Court calendars, directories, draught-boards bound and lettered on the back, almanacs, and Paley’s ‘Moral Philosophy.’’”’ One recalls, too, Macaulay’s story of the Italian prisoner who was suffered to make his choice between Guicciardini and the galleys. He chose the history. But the war of Pisa was too much for him. He changed his mind, and went to the oar. The inmates of the Kettering Union will, no doubt, try the German almanacs—and go back to the stone-yard.— West- minster Gazette. Vv. “ Fuavia.” “Flavia,” by Adair Welcker, a little book printed at Berkeley, California, is somewhat of a curiosity. It is a drama, and owes very much to the influence of Shakespeare. Although it is printed, the ‘ publisher’s announcement ” states that “copies of this work cannot be obtained in any other than manuscript form.” The author offers to make and sell autograph manuscript copies for 1000 dollars a copy. “People not caring to pay that sum,” Mr, Welcker informs us, “ can either make manuscript copies themselves or hire other people to make them,” or, he might have added, do without. Of a previous play Mr. Welcker has made fifty-four manuscript copies. Ina manuscript note to the printed edition of “ Flavia,” Mr. Welcker states that up to the time when he “ began the publica- tion himself of his play ‘‘ Louis XVI.” with pen and ink (for want of a more extensive publishing plant) he was of the opinion that it would not be- come widely known during his lifetime. But since he began making manuscript copies, giving to anyone the right to employ others to make manu- script copies from copies wherever they find them, and since he has put on that ring which was worn by Aladdin (it will be useless to ask him what is that ring, for his answer, if he made one, could not inform you) he has seen that during his life- time it is destined to achieve a success such as has never been achieved by those having at their com- mand giant presses and unlimited publishing facilities.” After this it is not surprising to know, also on the authority of Mr. Welcker’s autograph note, that “ Flavia,” “ properly read or acted by persons who have not a fetish worship for the present condition of the stage, will hold an audience spellbound.— Manchester Guardian. pecs “AT THE SIGN OF THE AUTHOR'S HEAD.” ——>e> -—- ILL be published very shortly, by Mr. W. Herbert Hill, a work entitled “ The Political Economy of Jesus, being an introduction tothe Study of Christian Sociology.” (Andrews, Hull. Price to subscribers, 35. 6d.) Mr. H. G. Keene, C.I.E., has in preparation a History of India from the earliest times to the present day, for the use of students. It will be in two vols., each 6s. The publishers are Messrs, W. H. Allen and Co. Limited. Mr. Charles E. Hall has in the press a new novel called “An Ancient Ancestor.” It will be published early in October by Messrs. Skeffing- ton and Sons. “Rambles in Shakespeare’s Land,” by George Morley, is published by the Record Press, 276, Strand. It is a cheap and very handy little volume, adapted for use as a guide-book, as well as a pleasant and readable little work. The Rev. Frederick Langbridge’s poems of home and homely life, ‘‘ Sent Back by the Angels, &e.,” of which the first thousand at 4s. 6d. was quickly exhausted, and of which a cheap edition has since been sold, is to appear again this season at 2s. 6d. Messrs. Cassell are the publishers. Miss Katherine Tynam has written a volume of poems, entitled ‘A Cluster of Nuts,” with a title-page and cover design by Laurence Housman, which will shortly be published by Messrs. Elkin Mathews and Lane. Mrs. Graham Tomson is engaged upon a volume of poems to be entitled “ After Sunset,” for which Mr. A. Bell has designed the cover. Messrs. Elkin Mathews and Lane are the pub- lishers.  THE 180 Lady Wolverton has adopted the Spinning Wheel as the official organ of her Needlework Guild, now numbering many thousands of members throughout the country, and presided over by the Duchess of Teck. The paper, which willretain all its usual features and characteristics, will in future devote a corner in its pages to the guild news. A new novel, by Fitzgerald Molloy, entitled « An Excellent Knave,” will be published early this month (October), in three vols., by Messrs. Hutchinson and Co. This story, which ran serially in England, has been already published in volume form in America and Germany. Messrs. Hutchinson and Co. will publish in the spring a cheap edition of the same author’s novel, “His Wife’s Soul.” “The Religion of a Literary Man” is the title of Mr. Le Gallienne’s new volume of essays, which will shortly be published by Messrs. Mathews and Lane. A special edition on hand-made paper, limited to 250 copies, will accompany the cheap edition, The same writer’s ‘‘ Prose Fancies,” issued by the firm above mentioned, will also appear in the autumn. Mr. G. H. Greene, of the Rhymers Club, has been at work upon translations of the “ Ttalian Lyrists of To-day,” which will shortly be pub- lished by Elkin Mathews. «“ Orchard Songs ”’ is the attractive title chosen by Mr. Norman Gale for his new volume of poems. The dainty volume, with a title-page and cover design by Mr. Rothenstein, will shortly be issued from the famous “ Bodley Head ” in Vigo-street. Mr. Grant Allen’s new novel, “The Tents of Shem,” has been published by Chatto and Windus in regulation three-volume form. Mr. Walter Besant’s new novel, “The Rebel Queen” (three vols.), has also been produced by the same publishers, who have issued a cheap edition of the “ Ivory Gate” and his “ Katherine’s by the Tower.” A collection edition of Mr. Davidson’s plays, “An Unhistorical Pastoral,” “A Romantic Farce,” “ Bruce, a Chronicle Play,” and “ Scara- mouch in Naxos, a Pantomime,” will be published in the autumn by Messrs. Elkin Mathews and Lane. Mr. Aubrey Beardsley will design the cover and a frontispiece, the latter containing portraits of living celebrities. Mr. John David- son’s “A Random Itinerary ” will also be pub- lished about the same time. It isa record of short journeys chiefly in and about London, the illustrations being provided by Mr. Rothenstein. AUTHOR. “ Keynotes,” a new volume of stories by a new writer, George Egerton, will appear very shortl from the firm of Elkin Mathews and Lane. x merciless dissection of woman and her idiosyn- cracies characterises the book. : Mr. G. C. L. Sparkes, Principal of the National Art Training School, and Mr. F. W. Burbidge have (says the Westminster Gazette) written a new and beautifully illustrated work called « Wild Flowers in Art and Nature.” It will be published in six parts by Mr. Edward Arnold, and each part will contain three or four coloured plates of flowers painted from life by Mr. H. 8. Moon. A volume of short stories by M. E. Francis, whose first novel ‘‘ Whither ?’’ appeared last year, will shortly be published by Messrs. Osgood, McIlvaine, and Co.. who will also bring out early in January an Irish novel by the same author. Cream (of the World’s Fact, Fun, and Fancy) is the title of a new weekly penny paper, which, under the editorship of Mr. Francis George Heath, will shortly appear. Mr. Robert Bird, the author of “Jesus, the Carpenter of Nazareth,” has in the press a new book, entitled “A Child’s Religion,” which will form a sequel to his popular Life of Christ, now in a seventh edition. It is intended to set forth simple Christianity for the young, and will be published early in October. The publishers are Kegan Paul and Co. Mr. Walter Besant’s new book on London is not an abridgment of his previous work. It is a totally different book. The first book is an attempt to portray the condition, manners, and customs of the London people from age to age; the new book is a_ history of the City and its institutions, designed for the use of schools in the first place. It is published by Messrs. Longman, with a great number of illustrations. New editions have been produced by the same publishers of James Payn’s “ A Trying Patient,” Mrs. Croker’s “Family Likeness,” Christie Murray’s “ 'Time’s Revenges,” Francillon’s “ Ropes of Sand,” “ Dick Donovan’s “ Suspicion Aroused,” Grant Allen’s “Ivan Greet’s Masterpiece,’ and Ernest Glanville’s “ Fossicker.” We spoke last month of the West Indies as a fine field for a new writer. We are reminded that this field has already been successfully occu- pied—not, of course, wholly—by Mr. Eden Phill- potts. His stories of West Indian life have been for some time running through the pages of the Graphic, Black and White, &c., and a West —  tbe 2, THE AUTHOR. Indian book by him, called “Fun from Afar,” is now in the press. Mr. Grant Allen is to make his first appear- ance as a poet. Messrs. Elkin Mathews, and Lane will be his publishers. Science, Fiction, and Poetry. May his success be as great in the third branch as in the other two ! A new and fifth edition of Mrs. Brightwen’s “Wild Nature Won by Kindness” is announced by the publisher, Mr. Fisher Unwin. “Lays of the Scottish Highlands” is the title of a collection of verses by Ryder £. N. Breeze, published by Ward and Downey. It is apparently designed as a popular work, being attired ina gaudy paper cover, with a picture, outside, of one against a multitude. There are, besides the Scottish lays, Oriental tales, prison rhymes, and patriotic poems. “Songs in Springtime,’ by John Cameron Grant. These verses have reached a second edition, which speaks better for the author than all the press notices together. These are collected and form a kind of introduction. The book may be taken as one among many signs of the approaching revival of verse. “Some Country Sights and Sounds”’ is the title of Mr. Phil RKobinson’s new book. On Sept. 19, 1471, the first book ever printed in the English language, the “ Recuyell of the History of Troy,” was issued at Cologne by William Caxton. On the same day, 1806, the end came to that great Greek scholar, Richard Porson, librarian of the London Institution, in a fit of apoplexy. The City Press has supplied us with these two reminders. Mrs. Skey is bringing out a new novel in one volume called “That Mrs. Grundy!” It is pub- lished by the Arundel Publishing Company, Granville House, Arundel-street, Strand. The following novels will be published by Messrs. Bliss, Sands, and Foster during the autumn season: Percival Pickering’s “ Life Awry;” Mrs. G. 8. Reaney’s “Dr. Grey’s Patient;” Mrs. Murray Hickson’s “A Latter Day Romance;” Clara Savile Clarke’s “The World’s Sharon.” They will also bring out a new edition of Scriblerius Redivivus on the “Art of Pluck;” and a book on Somersetshire, with illustrations by C. R. B. Barrett. Miss Eleanor Stredder’s new story for boys, “Doing and Daring,” will be published shortly by Messrs. Nelson and Sons. This lady has re- ceived a perhaps unique expression of approval concerning her last book, “ Alatch,’ from the Chinese Ambassador, Ta-jan-Sieh. 181 Thomas Cobb (author of “On Trust,” “The Westlakes,”’ &c.) has written the new serial, entitled “Ronald’s Wife,” for Household Words. Mr. Reynolds Ball is about to publish in The Hotel a series of technical and descriptive papers on the hotels of Europe from the English traveller's standpoint. These articles will pro- bably be ultimately reprinted in book form, and should prove a useful handbook to English tourists travelling in the main lines of European travel, “Lord Tennyson and his Friends” is the title of a book containing four portraits of Tennyson, including that by G. F. Watts, and portraits of Arthur Hallam, Longfellow, Henry Irving, and other friends of the Laureate. It is a limited edition of 400 only—all copies numbered—and will cost six guineas. An essay by Mrs. Thackeray Ritchie and an introduction by H. H. Hay Cameron are contained in the work. The pub- lisher is Mr. Fisher Unwin. Messrs Conway and Coolidge’s Climber’s Guides (Fisher Unwin), will sh ortly receive two additions, (1) The Adula Alps; (2) The Mountains of Corfu (Fisher Unwin). The Adventure Series (Fisher Unwin) will also be enlarged by the “ Life of James P. Beckworth,” and the “Memoirs of Mauritius, Count de Benijowski.”’ Joseph and Elizabeth Robins Pennell are going to take us into “ Gipsyland” (Fisher Unwin) with pen and pencil. Five more volumes of the Pseudonym Series are also announced by the same publisher. Mr. J. E. Gore, F.R.A.S., has in the press “ An Astronomical Glossary,” which will be published in October by Messrs. Crosby, Lockwood, and Sons. Besides a dictionary of terms used in astro- nomy the book will contain tables of data and lists of remarkable and interesting celestial objects. Dr. Waldstein, the archeologist, has written a volume, which will shortly be published by Messrs. Harper, entitled “The Work of John Ruskin: Its Influence on Modern Thought and Life.” Mr. David Christie Murray is reported to be writing an autobiography, portions of which have appeared from time to time in the pages of the St. James’s Gazette. It will be published by Messrs. Chatto and Windus. Mr. Cranage, of King’s College, Cambridge, has written an architectural account of “The Churches of Shropshire,” many of which are very beautiful and quaint. The book will be fully illustrated.  182 Mr. Mackenzie Bell’s new volume of Poems will be published by Messrs. Ward, Lock, and Bowden Limited. Rev. Stopford Brooke has wnitten a little book called “The Development of Theology as Illustrated in English Poetry from 1780 to 1830.” Mr. John Robert Robinson is busy at work on a curious biography, which will be entitled ‘‘ The Last Earl of Barrymore.” He was the most “pronounced” of that singular coterie that claimed George IV., when Prince of Wales, as its head. Thackeray, when writing his “ Barry Lyndon,” exploited the character of Richard the seventh earl for recklessness in monetary matters to add to the singular proclivities of his hero. He is called by him in one place “Sir Richard Wargrave,” a surname that brings to our memory what Mr. Robinson’s work will deal with, besides fashionable life of the period embraced (1769-1824), the drama, racing, hunt- ing, &c. Messrs. Sampson Low, Marston, and Co. will be the publishers. ec NEW BOOKS AND NEW EDITIONS. Theology. Brooxe, Rev. Sroprorp A. Theology in English Poetry. The Essex-hall Lecture, 1893. Philip Green. Is. Moors, Rev. S., AND BRINKMAN, REv. A. The Anglican Brief against Roman Claims. Simpkin, Marshall. 7s. 6d. Srmms, Rev. A.H. The Atonement of Our Saviour. Six Sermons by. Skeffington and Sons. “Variorum” Arps TO THE BrBLE STUDENT, THE. Eyre and Spottiswoode. History and Biography. BEsanT, WALTER. The History of London. and Co. 2s. 6d. Bromrreip, Rev. J. C. History of Fritwell. Compiled by. Paper covers. Eliot Stock. Bury, J.B. A History of the Roman Empire, from its Foundation to the Death of Marcus Aurelius. Murray. 7s. 6d. Couns, Pror. Extiorr. The History of the Expedition of Lewis and Clark. A new edition, reprinted from the Authorised Edition of 1814, with copious Critical Com- mentary, prepared upon examination of unpublished Archives and many other sources of information, inclu- ding the Original Manuscript J ournals and Field Note- books of the Explorers, together with a new Biogra- phical and Bibliographical Introductioe, new maps, and other Illustrations, and a complete index. Edited by. In 4 vols. Henry Stevens and Son. (Limited edition) Longmans copies 1 to 200, £5; 201 to 1000 £2108. THE AUTHOR. Diary or SAMUEL Pepys, THE: transcribed from the shorthand manuscript in the Pepysian Library, Mag- dalene College, Cambridge. By the Rev. Mynors Bright, with Lord Braybrooke’s notes. Edited, with additions, by Henry B. Wheatley, F.S.A. Vol. II. George Bell and Sons. 10s. 6d. Discourse oF THE ComMoN WEAL OF THIS REALM OF Eneianp, A. First printed in 1581 and commonly attributed to W. 8S. Edited from the MSS. by the late Elizabeth Lamond. Cambridge University Press. Epyz, Mason L. The Historical Records of the Royal Marines. Vol.I. Harrison and Sons. Exits, A.B. A History of the Gold Coast of West Africa. Chapman and Hall. 10s. 6d. Frarensipz, C. S. The Intermediate Text-Book of Eng- lish History. Vol. I. W. B. Clive. Gasquzt, F. A. Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. New Edition, with illustrations. Parts XVII. and XVIII. John Hodges. 2s. net. Hernvon, W. H. and WzIk, JEss1z W. Abraham Lincoln, The True Story of a Great Life. With an introduction by Horace White. [Ilustrated. 2 vols. Sampson Low, Marston. Hoox, Rev. Waiter. A History of the Ancient Church of Porlock, and of the Patron Saint, St. Dubricius, and his times. Parker and Son. Hurron, Rev. W.A. The Marquess of Wellesley, and the development of the Company into the Supreme Power in India. (Rulers of India series.) Clarendon Press, Oxford, Henry Frowde. 2s. 6d. Juss, R. C., M.P. The Work of the Universities for the Nation, past and present. Cambridge University Press. Paper covers. Is. Krenz, H.G. History of India, from the earliest times to the present day. For the use of students and colleges. W.H. Allen and Co. 2vols. 16s. Linton, W. J. Life of John Greenleaf Whittier. “ Great Writer” Series. Walter Scott Limited. 1s. 6d. Myune, Rev. B.S. The Master Masons to the Crown of Scotland and their Works. Scott and Ferguson, Edin- burgh. Published by subscription. “ Ramster” (A. MontEFIORE). Isle of Thanet, Ramsgate, Margate, Broadstairs, &c., with historical and descrip- tive notes. R. Sutton and Co. Is. Riemann, Dr. H. Catechism of Musical History, Part IL., History of Musical Forms, with Biographical Notices of the most Illustrious Composers. Translated from the German. Augener and Co. 2s. RurLanp, Ducuess or. Haddon Hall, being Notes on its History. Reprinted from the Quarterly Review. Simpkin, Marshall. Sarnt-AMANT, IMBERT DE. Women of the Valois Court. Translated by E. G. Martin. Hutchinson and Co. 58. SmrrH, Gorpwin. The United States. An Outline of Political History, 1492-1871. Macmillan. 8s. 6d. SmirH, Mary. Mary Smith, Schoolmistress and Noncon- formist. Vol. I., Autobiography, with letters from Jane Welsh Carlyle and Thomas Carlisle. Vol. IL, Miscellaneous Poems. Bemrose and Sons. Story, Anrrep T. William Blake ; his Life, Character, and Genius. Sonnenschein.  fox “iH CHANNEL ISLANDS. THE THE ExcHEQuer Rous oF ScoTnanp. Edited by George Burnett, LL.D., and A. J. G. Mathay, M.A. Vol. XIV. H. M. General Register-house, Edinburgh. Tuirrs, Lovrs A. History of the Consulate and the Empire of France under Napoleon. Translated by D. Forbes Campbell and John Stebbing. With 30 steel plates. Vol.I. Chatto and Windus. 12s. General Literature, ABERDEEN, COUNTESS oF. Through Canada with a Kodak. With illustrations. W. H. White and Co., Edinburgh. Appison, Katz. Economical Cookery for the Middle Classes. New and enlarged edition. 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Printed and Published by Horace Cox, Windsor House, Bream’s-buildings, London, E.C. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Author, Vol. 04 Issue 05 (October 1893) Subject The topic of the resource <em>The Author</em>, Vol. 04 Issue 05 (October 1893) Type The nature or genre of the resource Publication Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1893-10-02-The-Author-4-5 publications The Author https://historysoa.com/files/original/5/456/1893-11-01-The-Author-4-6.pdf ef898470ef131d1eb2256b1b062f0352 PDF Text Text ���������������������������������������� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Author Subject The topic of the resource <em>The Author</em> Description An account of the resource A digitised run of the Society of Authors' monthly periodical, <em>The Author</em>, 1890<span>–</span>1914, made available together for the first time.<br /><br />Currently users can browse issues and <a href="https://historysoa.com/items/browse?search=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Index&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;tags=&amp;exhibit=&amp;date_search_term=&amp;submit_search=Search+For+Items&amp;sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CTitle">indices</a> (not available for all volumes). Full text search for all issues, and other additional search functionality, will be added in 2022. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1890–1914 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context The-Author-Issues Publication Date The date of an event (in YYYY, YYYY-MM or YYYY-MM-DD format) 1893-11-01 Volume 4 Issue 6 Pages Page range in volume 189–228 Ngram Date Version of the date in YYYYMMDD format for use by the Ngram plugin 18931101 Ngram Text Version of the text with no HTML formatting for use by the Ngram plugin Che Huthor. (The Organ of the Incorporated Society of Authors. Monthly.) CONDUCTED BY WALTER BESANT. Vou. IV.—No. 6.] NOVEMBER 1, 1893. [Prick SIXPENCE. CONTENTS. PAGE Warnings and Notices <n as Ge eae eee oe: olen The Book of the Future Literary Property— Correspondence— 1.—Proposed Amendment of American Copyright Law wax 198 1.—Authors and Publishers— 2.—Stevens v. Benning see oe — me aoe wee 195 1.—By Andrew Lang 3.—Hole v. Bradbury ... ee ae oe oe Seis Se 197 2.—By the Editor ... oe Sige sioe 4.—Harper v. Pick-Me-Up ... ue Eee ike eae see LOT 2.—West Indian Stories. By Jeb Slinter... 5.—Low vy. Volunteer Service Magazine ave sae os woe LOT 3.—Song Publishing... See oh ase 6.—On Illustrations... ae oo os see a cae 4.—James Defoe. By Hyde Clarke 7.—Copyright ... ae Ses Sees ees Ss ats «-» 198 5.—Reviewed Books. By X. Y. Z.... The International Copyright Union. By Sir Henry Bergne «.. 198 6.—Literary Paymasters. By H.R.G. ... ae Omnium Gatherum. By J. M. Lely ... a aay re oss AGO 7.—A ‘Second Edition.” By Daniel Dormer |. Zola and Anonymity. By H.E. W.... ae ae ose eco ieul 8.—A Contributor’s Experience. By Hubert Haes The Autumn Publishing Season ... ae os eae ee «+. 203 9.—Anonymous Criticism... ae 2 a Siti Centenary of Beatrice ... ee as ae one sos a 10.—Poets and Critics. By a Writer of Prose ... Book Talk ae a oR is mes es ies oe ve From the Papers— ee I ane 1 Dede ooed of Hawthornden ... 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By Waurer Besant (Chairman of Committee, 1888—1892). 15, i j i i ‘ 190 ADVERTISEMENTS. The Sociefy of Authors (Suncorporated). PRESIDENT. GHORGH MbEREDITHE. COUNCIL. Sir Epwin ARNOLD, K.C.LE., C.S.I. Tue Ear or DEsART. Lewis Morris. ALFRED AUSTIN. Austin Dosson. Pror. Max MULLER. J. M. BARRIE. A. W. Dusoura. J. C. PARKINSON. A. W. A BEcKETT. J. Enic EricusEn, F.RB.S. Tur Eart oF PEMBROKE AND Mont- RoBERT BATEMAN. Pror. Micwaz Foster, F.B.S. GOMERY. Sir Henry Berens, K.C.M.G. Ricut Hon. Herpert GARDNER,| Sir FREDERICK POLLOCK, Bart., LL.D. WALTER BESANT. M.P. WaLtEerR HERRIES POLLOCK. AUGUSTINE BIRRELL, M.-P. RIcHARD GARNETT, LL.D. A. G. Ross. Rev. Pror. Bonney, F.R.S. EpMUND GOSSE. Grorce AuGusTUS SALA. Riegut Hon. James Bryce, M.P. H. Riper HaGearp. W. Baptiste SCOONES. Haut CAINE. Tuomas Harpy. G. R. Srms. EGERTON CAsTLe, F.S.A. JEROME K. JEROME. S. Squire SPRIGGE. P. W. CLAYDEN. RupyARD KIPuinea. J. J. STEVENSON. Epwarp CLODD. Pror. E. Ray LANKESTER, F.R.S. Jas. SULLY. W. Morris CouueEs. J. M. Lety. Wittram Moy THomas. Hon. JoHN COLLIER. Rav. W. J. Lorre, F.S.A. H. D. Trarit, D.C.L. W. Martin Conway. Pror. J. M. D. MEIKLEJOBN. Baron Henry DE Worms, M-P., F. Marion CRAWFORD. HERMAN C. MERIVALE. E.RB.S. OswALD CRAWFURD, C.M.G. Rev. C. H. MippnEeton- WAKE. EDMUND YATES. Hon. Counsel—E. M. UNDERDOWN, Q.C. Solicitors—Messrs. FIELD, Roscox, and Co., Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Accountants—Messrs. OscaR BERRY and CaRR, Monument-square, H.C. Secretary—G. HERBERT THRING, B.A. OFEICES: 4, Porruaan STREET, Lincoun’s Inn Freups, W.C. Third Edition, with Additions throughout, in demy 8vo., 700 pages, price 15s. AN ANECDOTAL HISTORY oF THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT, From the Earliest Periods to the Present Time. WITH NOTICES OF EMINENT PARLIAMENTARY MEN, AND EXAMPLES OF THEIR ORATORY. ComPiILED FROM AUTHENTIC SOURCES BY GHORGEH Hpea hy JENNINGS. CONTENTS. Part I.—Riseand Progress of Parliamentary Institutions. | ApPENDIx.—(A) Lists of the Parliaments of England and Parr Il.—Personal Anecdotes: Sir Thomas More to John of the United Kingdom. Morley. (B) Speakers of the House of Commons. Parr Il.—Miscellaneous. 1. Elections. 2. Privilege; Ex- (C) Prime Ministers, Lord Chancellors, and clusion of Strangers; Publication of Debates. Secretaries of State from 1715 to 3. Parliamentary Usages, &c. 4. Varieties. | 1892. Opinions of the Press of the Present Edition. “The work, which has long been held in high repute as a repertory “It is a work that possesses both a practical and an historical of good things, is more than ever rich in doth instruction and amuse- value. and is altogether unique in character. '—Kentish Observer. ment. ”—Scotsman. ‘+ We can heartily roomier ugly the politician, whatever “Tti *. + may be his party leanings.”’—. hern Echo. ‘It isa — of useful fact and amusing anecdote, and in its THe hers the whole company of Parliamentary. celebrities, latest form should have increased popularity.” —Globe. past and present, reduced to puppets, so to speak, and made to “Its advantage to those who are seeking seats in Parliament, or repeat their best and most approved rhetorical performances for our who may have occasion to assist as speakers during the electoral | leisurely entertainment, which is not less enjoyable from being allied campaign, is incomparable.”—Sala’s Journal. with edification.”—Liverpool Courier. “= Orders may now be sent to HORACE COX, “Law Times Office,” Windsor House, Bream’s-buildings, E.C.  Che #uthor. (The Organ of the Incorporated Society of Authors. Monthly.) CONDUCTED BY WALTER BESANT. Vou. IV.—No. 6.] NOVEMBER 1, 1893. [Prick SIXPENCE. 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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. NOTICES. HE Editor of the Author begs to remind members of the T 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,  ie THE AUTHOR. 193 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 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 eall it. LITERARY PROPERTY. E THe AMENDMENT OF THE CopyriGHT Law. HERE is a movement on foot to petition the copyright leagues for a commission to revise the copyright law, in order that an appeal may be made to Congress asking for amendments remedying existing defects. Although the law, as a whole, has given satis- faction, much annoyance has resulted from the ambiguous wording of several of its passages, and from its failure to provide proper safe- guards against the registry of unlawful claims for copyrights. These defects, it is said, have necessitated frequent appeals to the courts, in- volving prolonged litigation. These are some of the causes of complaint: the failure of the law to secure a renewal of a copyright to its owners or assigns other than his widow and children; the condition that a work, whether by a foreign or domestic author, must be manu- factured within the United States; the absence of any requirement that applicants for copyright shall furnish evidence of ownership ; the depriva- tion of the rights of authors or owners of copy- rights to sue for infrmgement after two years, and the failure of the law to define the word “ book.” George Haven Putnam, who, as a representa- tive of the league, was active in securing the passage of the law, when asked to-day what he thought of the advisability of amendments to remove these reasons for dissatisfaction, said: “It has never been the intention of the framers of the several American copyright laws that any heirs of the author other than his widow and children should be entitled to secure an extension of the copyright beyond the first term of twenty- eight years to cover a second term of fourteen years. The privilege of securing such extension is given only to the author himself in case the first term may expire during his lifetime, or to his widow or children. The restriction has worked hardship in not a few cases. One instance of such hardship occurred in connection with the works of Washington Irving. Irving was never married, but had adopted three nieces, who, for many years previous to his death, were members of his household, and were dependent upon him for support. After their uncle’s death, these nieces were, however, unable to secure re- newals of the copyrights of the later works which were then expiring, and the income from these copyrights, on which they had mainly depended, could, therefore, no longer be assured to them.  194 THE “Tt ismy own opinion, in which theauthors, pub- lishers, and others interested in the literary develop- ment of the country are, I think, in substantial accord, that the term of copyright now granted by the copyright law is inadequate. It does not secure a sufficient protection for the author even during his own lifetime, nor does it enable an author to plan with any certainty for the accu- mulation of property in the shape of copyrights for his ch:ldren, grandchildren, or other heirs. Tt was the case that during the lifetime of Long- fellow unauthorised editions were printed of the first unrevised editions of certain of Longfellow’s earlier works. The injury in this case was two- fold: the returns to the author for the sale of the revised authorised editions were diminished to the extent of the interference with these sales caused by the circulation of the unauthorised issues. The injury, which was of greater import- ance in the author’s estimation, was the wrong caused to his literary fame by the circulation of imperfect material bearing his name, and for the character of which he is made responsible before the later generation of readers, although such material has been cancelled and superseded by the finished work on which he was prepared to have his literary reputation for posterity based. An action of this kind is to be regarded as a personal injury, apart from the property injury. The possibility of such injurious action cannot be avoided, of course, after the expiration of a term of copyright, but the author ought certainly to be protected by law against such mjury during his lifetime. A similar injury has been caused to a number of authors, including, for instance, Donald G. Mitchell, still living, whose earlier books, now out of copyright, have been printed in unautho- rised and unrevised editions, to his business detriment and personal annoyance. “The term of copyright granted by the American law is the shortest conceded by any country possessing an important literature, and is, in fact, the shortest in force anywhere in the civilised world, excepting in Greece. The term in England is forty-two years, or the lifetime of the author and seven years thereafter, whichever term be the longer. Under this provision the author is fully protected against the risk of in- fringement during his life. ‘The German term is the life of the author and thirty years; the French, the life of the author and fifty years, &c. The Bill now pending in the English Parlia- ment for the English copyright law accepts the German term. This is the term that ought pro- perly to be in force in the United States. If the author is entitled to work for his children he ought to be permitted also to work for the benefit of his grandchildren. AUTHOR. “The law of 1891, under which the protection of American copyright was, under certain con- ditions, granted to foreign authors, did not under- take to make any changes or amendments in the copyright law previously in force except by the insertion of a requirement that a work, whether by a foreign or domestic author, must be manu- factured within the United States. It was under- stood that all the provisions of the copyright law would probably, within a few years time, be brought under consideration for revision and amendment. As was made clear in the record put into print at the time, the responsibility for shaping the act of 1891, und for securing for it the requisite support with the public and with Congress, rested with two “copyright leagues,” comprising the leading authors and publishers of the country. The work of these leagues was carried on during the five years’ ‘campaign’ by a joint committee, in which, of course, both the publishers and the authors were represented, and which included also representatives of the general public not pecuniarily interested in literature. Each step in connection with the drafting of the original Act and the several modifications finally assented to, was taken under the substantially unanimous decision of this joint committee. The Act as originally recommended by this com- mittee did not contain the manufacturing condition, which was finally included in the law. It was the opinion of the greater number of the members of the committee that manufacturing conditions had no logical connection with the right of authors to control their productions ; and that if the book manu- facturing interests needed protection, this should be secured under separate legislation. It was found, however, after some consideration of the matter with the friends of copyright in Washing- ton and elsewhere, that no law could at that time be enacted without this concession to the views of the protectionists in the country, many of whom, while heartily interested in international copy- right, believed that its enactment without such manufacturing restriction might bring serious detriment to printers and other mechanics engaged in the manufacture of books. “The Copyright Bill was, of course, an un- partisan measure, but it was impossible to secure for it adequate support either in the House or in the Senate without the co-operation of Republican protectionists as well as of Democratic free traders. The manufacturing provision, as finally included in the Bill, represented the views of the American Typographical Unions, and for the framing of this provision Mr. Henry C. Lea, of Philadelphia, was more particularly responsible. After the suggestions of the Typographical THE AUTHOR. Unions had been accepted in regard to this pro- vision, the co-operation of these unions proved of very material service in securing for the measure favourable attention throughout the country and the necessary support in the two Houses. It is doubtless the case that if. in place of the intelli- gent and effective co-operation rendered by these unions, the Bill had had to encounter their opposition, it could not have become law at the time it did. It was my own opinion, and I may say that of by far the larger proportion of both the authors and publishers on the joint com- mittee, that the manufacturing provision would not further the interests of American publishers, and was not required for the interests of the Typographical Unions, and that the prospects of securing for the members of these unions and for the other book manufacturing workers of the country assured and in reasing employment would be better if no such restrictions should be put into the shape of law. I am still of opinion that whenever this restriction shall be abolished, American type-setters will be able not only to secure their full share in the book-making done for the American market, but will also be in a position, with the improved American methods for making electrotype plates, &c., to increase their trade in the exportation of book plates to England and Australia. “The regulations of the several copyright laws which have been in force in the United States have never made any provision for the furnishing by ap- plicants for copyrights of evidence of ownership of the work entered for copyright. The librarian of Congress, who has charge, under the law now in force, of the copyright entries, has no machinery or facilities for verifying such evidence or for passing upon it ina judicial capacity. An entry when made is not evidence that the person in whose name it stands is owner of the copyright in question, but is evidence merely that he claims such ownership. In case the copyright were infringed, and the person in whose name the entry had been made applied to the United States Court for protection against such infringement, it would then be incumbent upon him, in order to secure standing in the court, to prove his owner- ship. It is the case also that the copyright law of Great Britain, of France, and of Germany makes no provision for the proving of the right to the copyright at the time the entry is made. It is doubtful whether it would be practicable, under any working arrangements, to place such a responsibility upon the authorities having charge of the entries. Under this same general practice the registry of copyright is granted to anyone applying for registry for a dramatisation or for translation of a copyright book. Such entry or 195 registration can, however, be of service to the person in whose name it has been made, only if he may later be in a position to protect in the ‘courts his right to secure profit from such dramatisation or translation. There is no difficulty, under the provisions of the American law, on the part of the author so desiring, in preventing the publica- tion of an unauthorised dramatisation or transla- tion of a work duly protected by copyright. “Personally, I do not think that the restric- tion placed upon owners of copyrights, that they shall take such measures as may be in order for the defence of tbeir copyrights within the term of two years after the date of the alleged infringe- ment, constitutes any serious hardship. If the work is of value, so that the author’s edition has been kept before the public, the interference with its sale that might be caused by the issue of an unauthorised edition would certainly be manifest within the term of two years. It was apparently the intention of those framing this provision, that if the owner of a copyright abandoned his work, so that the public were no longer supplied with copies, at the expiration of a sufficient length of time from such abandonment the work should fall into the ‘ public domain,’ and if the public still called for supplies, that any party should be free to meet such demand. This provision is in substantial accord with that of the French and German law. Under the English law, the action must be brought within twelve months after the date of the offence. “Neither the American nor the English copy- right law has undertaken to define the term ‘book.’ The definition of this term has, however, been arrived at under various decisions of the English and American courts. The term is, as I understand, usually understood to cover material printed in book form, that is to say, made up in pages, without limitation as to the number of pages to be comprised, or as to the nature of the cover. A pamphlet is, therefore, for the pur- poses of the copyright law, to be considered as a book. Sir James Stephen, Q.C., states that under the interpretation of the English courts, the word ‘book’ in the English copyright law ‘means and includes every volume, part or division of a volume, pamphlet, sheet of letter- press, sheet of music, map, or chart planned to be separately published.’ American decisions have accepted in substance this definition.”—Hvening Post, New York, Oct. 4, 1893. Il. SreveNs v. Bennina. In this case, an important one for authors, an injunction was sought by the plaintiff to  196 restrain the defendant from publishing a book entitled “Forsyth on the Law of Composi- tion with Creditors.” The injunction was not granted either in the original instance or in the appeal. The case is one of great importance, as it practically decided whether a publisher could assign a contract to publish. This question, so far as it was decided, was decided in the nega- tive. The facts of the case were as follows :— Mr. Forsyth, the editor of the book, entered into an agreement with Robert Sanders and Wiliam Benning, publishers, of which the follow- ing is a slight abstract :— Clause 1. The author undertakes to prepare the book for the press. Clause 2. The publishers direct the mode of printing the said book, and bear and pay all charges thereof, and of publishing the same, except, as thereinafter mentioned, and take all the risks of publication on themselves. Clause 3 referred to the division of profits. Clauses 4 and 5 were clauses relating to accounts. Clause 6, to alterations and printer’s errors, corrections, &c. Clause 7 ran as follows: ‘That in case of all the copies of the book not being sold off, and a second edition or any subsequent edition of the said book having been required by the public, the said author should make all necessary alterations and additions thereto, and the said publishers should print and publish the second and other editions of the said book on the above con- ditions.” Clause 8 referred to remainder sales. When this agreement was entered into, the publisher's firm consisted of Robert Sanders and William Benning. This partnership was dis- solved, and a new partnership was formed between William Benning and John Kirton Gilhat, under the name of William Benning and Co., and the interest of the former firm was expressed to have been transferred and invested in the new firm. In 1849 the author published a second edition with the new firm without a fresh agreement. In 1851 the partnership was dissolved, owing to the bankruptcy of William Benning. By an indenture dated July 17, 1852, Mr. Gillat transferred to the plaintiffs, Messrs. Stevens and Lawton, his interest in the copyright or shares of copyright in the works specified in a schedule to the deed (which schedule comprised the authors work), with the MSS. and unsold copies of the several works then in Mr. Gilliat’s possession, and all things pertaining to the copy- right and shares of copyright of which the late firm of William Benning and Co. were possessed, or interested in, and over which Mr. Gilliat had THE AUTHOR. any power of disposition. On Aug. 16, 1854, a further deed of assignment was executed by Mr, Gilliat and the assignees of Mr. Benning, to the plaintiff, which assignment virtually embraced all the conditions of the former one. Under this, all the stock-in-trade of William Benning and Co. was delivered to the plaintiffs, including the un- sold copies of the second edition of the author’s book. In 1854, William Grainger Benning, the son of the former partner, published a third edition of the author’s book, which was edited by the author, and thereupon Messrs. Stevens and Co. commenced action against William Benning. The arguments brought on behalf of the plaintiff were: (1) That the agreement amounted to an assignment of copyright ; (2) that if the court did not think the copyright was assigned, the agreement was one of partnership, and that one partner (the author) could not destroy the partner- ship property; (3) if neither of these viewx were taken by the court, then, if the contract were one of agency, as the agents contracted to take all the risk of loss, the principal could not, after entering into such an agreement, bring out an edition in competition with that which was the subjectof such agreement. Lord Justice Knight Bruce looked upon the question more from the point of view of whether the plaintiffs could obtain an injunction, than upon the actual subject matter of the case, but in his judgment stated as follows: “‘T do not see that the duties on either side were of such a nature as that their performaace specifically could have been enforced by a Court of Equity.” Therefore, it would have been impossible for the plaintiffs to have asked for an injunction against Mr. Forsyth, the author. Lord Justice Turner, in summing-up, said, that the plaintiffs’ case rested wholly on the agreement of Sept. 14, the original agreement, and referred to the three points raised in the argument for the plaintiff He stated, after careful consideration of the agreement, (1) That the agreement was not an an assign- ment of copyright. (2) So far as partuership was concerned the question could only arise with regard to the unsold copies of the second edition. (3) That the contract appeared to be a personal contract, personal to the special publishers men- tioned in the agreement, and that if Messrs. Sanders and Benning were not in a situation to perform their personal part of the contract (as they were not, owing to the bankruptcy and dissolution of partnership) they could not in equity enforce against the author any contract he had entered into with them, and that he thought the plaintiffs, who were the assignees of Messrs.  THK AUTHOR. 197 Sanders and Benning, could be in no better condition. The decision of the court therefore amounts to this: That a mere contract to publish is a per- sonal contract, and cannot be transferred or assigned. TL. Hote v. Brapsury. This decision, that a contract to publish is a personal contract, was again upheld in Hole v. Bradbury; but in this case the decision was stronger, for the firm repubiishing the work was the same firm which originally. published the book, but through lapse of time had lost those partners who were parties to the original contract. TV. Harper v. Pickh-Me-Up. In the Westminster County Court to-day, his Honour Judge Lumley Smith, Q.C., had before him the case of Harper v. the proprietors of Pick-Me-Up, in which plaintiff, a journalist, sought to recover payment for certain articles and drawings supplied to the defendants. The plaintiff was called, and stated that during the first eight months he supplied seven articles and one drawing to the defendant paper, but they had neither been published nor returned to him. Therefore he claimed payment in the usual way. He would much rather the matter had been published, but as it had not been, and as he understood that the manuscript was lost, he now desired payment for it. In cross-examination the plaintiff said he was aware that there was a printed notice in the paper to the effect that the paper did not undertake to return rejected manuscripts, but he did not con- sider that that notice applied to his case, as he was well known to the proprietors. For the defence one of the proprietors of the paper was called, as was also another witness. The latter alleged that some portion of the manuscript had been returned to the plaintiff, while another portion had been offered to him, but he refused to accept it on the ground that it had been made dirty. His Honour said he had held in several recent cases when manuscript was set up in type it was an acceptance, but in this case there was no evidence to that effect, and judgment must be for the defendants. —Reported in the Lvening Post. VOL. IV. Vv. Low v. Volunteer Service Magazine. The plaintiff in this case, tried at the West- minster County Court, stated that he wrote an article for this paper which occupied four pages, for which he was paid a guinea. He afterwards wrote another, which would have made ten pages, and as 5s. a page was agreed for the first, he claimed 50s. for the second. The second was put in print, and a proof was sent to him and revised, but never published. That, he contended, was an acceptance, and he was entitled to be paid for it. Mr. R. Thomas Merry said half-a-guinea was agreed for the first article, and the second was never accepted. He could get 70 or 80 per cent. of the matter for the magazine free. His Honour came to the conclusion that a guinea was agreed for the first article, and the second, after being set up, the proof revised, was an acceptance, and a guinea must be paid for that. Therefore, allowing the half-guinea paid into court, there would be judgment for 14 guineas beyond the amount in court, but no costs over the fees on the summons would be allowed. —Reported in the Star. VI. Own ILtustRations. The charge for illustrations in books is one which generally astonishes the author when the account comes in; sometimes because he is per- fectly ignorant of what such things cost; some- times because he is really overcharged. It is proposed in the Author to let as much light into the subject as possible. Readers may help if they will forward copies of their own illus- trated books with the charge made in the accounts for the illustrations. Mezntime, one or two points may be borne in mind. The illustration of books is no longer carried on by wood en- graving, but by process. There are many methods of “ process.” All are a great deal cheaper than wood engraving. But a loophole for extra profit and extra charge is found when the original drawings have to be redrawn. ‘The artist will do well to make sure that this is not necessary. The author will do well to place himself in communica- tion with the artist in order to be quite sure that this precaution has been observed. On this sub- ject we do not consider the cost of the original drawings (which may be very great, depending on the reputation of the artist), but only the cost of mechanical reproduction by photogravure or some such process. For instance, we have learned that by a certain process the manufacture of R  198 electros from the original drawings can be done, at what is considered a fair price, at sixpence a square inch. VII. CopyRIGHT. What constitutes a claim to copyright? On this subject we have received an interesting correspondence between Mr. John Davidson, Author of “ Fleet Street Ballads,” and Mr. Fisher Unwin. We have also received the former’s per- mission to publish these letters, and have asked Mr. Fisher Unwin’s permission, but (Oct. 31st) have not yet received a reply. —— ee THE INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT UNION. By Sir Henry Berane, K.C.M.G. (Plenipotentiary for Her Majesty’s Government with Sir F. 0. Adams, at Berne, Sept. 1886.) T a conference beld at Berne in 1883, the International Literary Association pro- duced a scheme for the formation of an International Copyright Union, with the view that if possible the law relating to the subject in the different countries might be reduced to some sort of harmony, and that works — literary, scientific, or artistic—produced in any one country might be adequately protected throughout the world. The scheme which was then produced, although not such as could readily be brought into actual practice, showed certain elements of possible success, and was on this account taken up officially by the Swiss Government, who invited the Govern- ments of all the principal States to be represented at an International Diplomatic Conference which was to meet in 1884, to consider the subject in all its bearings, and to endeavour to form the basis of an International Copyright Union. This invitation was accepted by most of the European Powers, Great Britain, being, however, only represented by a delegate in a consultative capacity, with no power to vote, or to take part in the drafting of a Convention. The attitude thus assumed at the time by Great Britain was largely determined by the fact that the Govern- ment of the United States of America was not represented at the Conference. The result of this meeting was the framing of a Convention, which, however, on examination, did not prove to be thoroughly acceptable to many Powers, especially to Great Britain, but which still formed the stepping-stone to ultimate success ; for, when in 1885 an invitation to a further con- ference was issued by the Swiss Government, THE AUTHOR. the matter was taken up in earnest by Great Britain, who, upon this occasion, sent delegates armed with full authority to press the matter to a definite issue. The Government of the United States was also represented at this conference by a delegate, who, though not empowered to take any active part in the proceedings, was instructed to declare the sympathy of his Government for the substance and aims of the International Convention, to which he stated that they were well dispo-ed to accede, provided that the necessary legislation could be passed in the United States. At this conference the International Conven- tion in its existing shape was drafted, for final acceptance or rejection by the various Govern- ments, with the result that ultimately it has been signed, ratified, and is now in force between the following States:—Great Britain (with all her colonies), Germany, Belgium, Spain (with her colonies), France, Haiti, Italy, Switzerland, Tunis, Monaco, Luxemburg, Montenegro. A translation of the International Conven- tion, and of the final Protocol attached thereto, can be obtained, from which it will be seen that the principles of the Union are of the simplest kind, being based on the theory of “national treatment ;” that is to say, authors of works of any kind within the literary, scientific, or artistic domain, published in any one country of the Union, are to enjoy in all the other countries of the Union, the rights there granted to nativesub- jects in respect of their works published at home. The enjoyment of the protection soto be accorded, is subject only to the accomplishment in the country where the work is first produced of the formalities, if any, required by law in that country to establish a valid title to copyright. Consequently, if a work is duly registered and has acquired a copyright, say im France, no further registration or deposit of copies is neces- sary in England im order that it may enjoy protec- tion in England. The International Convention being concluded between various States not speaking a common language, an important part of its stipulations relates to the question of translation—it being recognized that between such States translation may frequently become the chief international form of reproduction. It is, therefore, expressly provided that no State which does not guarantee to the author of a work the exclusive right, for a period of at least ten years, to make, or to authorise translations of it to be made, can be admitted to the Union. A further important stipulation of the Conven- tion is contained in Art. 2, to the effect that no rights can exist in any country of the Union fora longer period than those granted in the country  THE AUTHOR. where the work is first published, nor can any work claim in any State of the Union rights in excess of those granted by the law of such State to native publications. Pirated works may be seized on importation. The central office of the Union is established at Berne, under the auspices of the Swiss Govern- ment ; and each State of the Union contributes a small annual sum towards the working expenses, which are devoted to the collection of informa- tion,and generally to looking after matters of interest to the Union. The contributing States are arranged in classes according to size and importance, but the maximun contribution of any one State does not exceed £200 per annum. The other articles of the Convention relate to the protection to be accorded to newspaper articles, dramatic and musical works, photographs, &c., the details in regard to which will best be gathered from a study of the Convention itself, It will be seen, from a perusal of the Con- vention, that it nowhere expressly mentions the question of duties on imported books, or forbids expressly that the domestic law shall require a foreign work to be reprinted within its territory in order to secure protection there. There can, however, be no question that unfair or excessive duties upon books would be contrary to the spirit of the Union; whilst, as regards reprinting, the provision contained in Art. 2, to the effect that the enjoyment of protection is subject to the accomplishment of the formalities prescribed by law in the country of origin, must be interpreted to mean, that any further formality, such as reprinting, re-registration, or deposit, in the foreign country where protection is claimed, is contrary to the terms of the Convention, clearly implied, though not, perhaps, expressed with sufficiently definite precision. Any States which are willing to comply with these conditions, so obviously fair and reasonable, are welcomed as members of the Union, and may at any moment accede, on expressing their mind to do so to the central office of the Union at Berne. Periodical conferences of the Union are ap- pointed to take place, at which any State wishing to suggest any points for amendment, or to make proposals of any kind for the welfare of the Union, can be represented. The next of these conferences will probably take place at Paris next year, and it is much to be desired that the United States of America would manifest anew its sympathy with the Union by sending a dele- gate to this meeting. Any representations coming from such a quarter, as to difficulties in the existing form of the International Convention preventing the United States from joining the Union at the present moment, or as to other VOL. IV. 199 points of interest, would be sure of attentive consideration, with the earnest wish on the part of the signatory States to make any reasonable concessions tending to facilitate the accession of So important a factor in the literary and artistic world as the United States of America. Read at the Literary Congress of the Chicago Exhibition. sec OMNIUM GATHERUM FOR OCTOBER AND NOVEMBER. Subjects for Treatment.—Non-Biblical Texts for Church Sermons; the Index Expurgatorius ; the Stocking of a Library; the Undue Depreciation of Boswell; the Re-subscription of the Thirty- nine Articles by the late Master of Balliol; Plural Appointments, with special reference to Mr. T. G. Bowles’s request for a Parliamentary Return and Sir J. Hibbert’s guarded answer thereto (see morning papers for Aug. 9); Cumulative Prefer- ences; the Earlier Commencement and Termina- tion of the Summer Holidays; the Comparative Delights of Shooting, Fishing, and Hunting, by one who indulges in all three; the altruism of Grace Aguilar and the hard-headednegs of Mary Mitford, as depicted by Mrs. Crosland in her lately published “ Landmarks of a Literary Life.” “ Scale Pay.” —Though “ scale pay” is usually just, we should all bear in mind that, in the absence of special agreement to take it, we have a legal right to demand more, up to what a con- tribution is worth, in event of “ scale pay” proy- ing insufficient ; and to demand at least some pay- ment (also up to what the contribution is worth) in the happily few cases where the custom has been to give none. The Return of Rejected Contributions.—All thanks to the collector who got together for the August Author the pretty list of notices to con- tributors! May it soon be followed by another and another until we have at least complete lists of the notices in all the London periodicals ! The Insurance of Manuscript.—I greatly doubt whether any fire office will insure manuscript against fire. But, looking to the hardship on having to replace it when burnt, I should say that authors would be willing to pay sufficient pre- miums. Can any friend tell me of an office willing to insure ? Reviewing.—In the August Jdler attention is very properly called by Mr. Jerome K. Jerome to the impropriety of the same reviewer dealing with a book in more periodicals than one. This practice R2  200 is unfair (1) to the author, (2) to fellow re- viewers, (3) to the owners of the various periodicals, and (4) to the public, and should be discouraged by editors. The Library of the Authors’ Club.—The Authors’ Club should possess a small (the space being very limited), good, and very carefully gelected reference library. Could not the members unite in making the selection? I very respectfully suggest the following : The best dictionary of Quotations, “ Haydn’s Dictionary of Dates,” the best directory of newspapers, the latest edition of the “ Universal Dictionary ” of English, French, German, and Italian; the Directory of Directors ; the Stock Exchange Year Book ; the latest Hazell, Dod, Whitaker, Crockford, &c. ; a small atlas; the Inder Expurgatorius; a Continental Bradshaw; ‘ Notes and Queries ” from the beginning; a Liddell and Scott’s Greek Lexicon, a Jo Miller. Besides these books of mere reference, which might well occupy the whole of the principal bookshelf (the present one having been exchanged for a better), we might surely get together in small hanging bookcases a model collection of single volume classical or epoch-making books, such as “ Mill on Liberty,” “The Religio Medici,’ Burton’s “ Anatomy of Melancholy,” “ Don Juan,” Rousseau’s ‘ Confes- sions,” Emerson’s “ Essays,” “ Childe Harold,” Macaulay’s ‘“ Essays,” Rousseau’s ‘“ Contrat Social,” a Tennyson, a Marcus Aurelius, an Augustine’s Confessions, 4 Shakespeare, ‘ Les Miserables,” “The Sorrows of Werther,” “ The Leaves of Grass,” a Homer, Punch from the beginning, a Virgil, “ Essays and Reviews,’ Boswell’s “ Life of Johnson,” “ Pepys’ Diary ” (not the new edition), “ Vanity Fair,” “ Pickwick,” &c. I purposely omit the works of living authors, and attempt no order of merit in my humble selec- tion for our Wvxns Iatpeov. As for price, I observe that the first fifty of Sir John Lubbock’s celebrated ‘“ Hundred Books,” now in the course of publication by George Routledge and Sons, may be bought for £8 os. 6d., or @ little more than three shillings per book. Corrections of proofs.—A high official of the British Association complained at the annual meeting that the corrections on the proofs of the scientific contributions sent to him had greatly increased the printing expenses of the association, the cost of the corrections of one single contribu- tion alone amounting to £25. How could such waste be checked ? Corrections are rendered neces- sary by four main causes, being (1) bad writing or composition by author; (2) bad distribution, com- position, or reading by printer; (3) insufficient instructions of author or publisher to printer; and (4) after-thoughts of author, or after evens THE AUTHOR. or discoveries, as where a legal author has had his solution of some doubtful point cleared up by Act of Parliament. Of these causes the first three are all clearly preventible causes, ¢.g., the evils of bad handwriting may be avoided by taking lessons in handwriting or having the MSS. type-written. The evils of many after- thoughts or after events, &c., may be mitigated by giving instructions for proofs in slips instead of sheets. As to bad writing, I observe with satisfaction that the late Master of Balliol is spoken of in one of the many notices of him as having emphatically denounced it, as did the late Lord Palmerston and Sir Arthur Helps. Mottoes.—A motto on the title-page of a book, and even at the head ot each chapter, is, I think, a good appendage. What could be more happy, for instance, than Dr. Liddon’s “ Stemmata qud faciunt?” as a motto to the chapter of Dr. Pusey’s biography, which sets out his ancestry ? The difficulty, of course is to keep all your mottoes up to the mark; this is perhaps got over by little dashes into original poetry. Machine-cut pages and paged tables of contents. —By way of crambe repetita let me once more implore all authors and publishers to have their books machine-cut; the cost is but ten shillings for each thousand books. And let all the pro- prietors of newspapers follow the example of Truth and the Author, and have the pages of their newspapers machine-cut. And let all proprietors of newspapers follow the example of Bradshaw's Guide, the Saturday Review, Good Woods, and the Author, and have paged tables of contents on their front pages. It is no use to answer that these front pages are wanted for advertisers. These would, I contend, gladly give a little more than even they do now for front- page advertisements in consideration of the increase of front-page readers which a front-page table of contents would certainly bring. The Laureateship.—Though the greatest of the laureates has now been dead for more than a year, his place is still not filled up. Iam credibly ‘nformed that the salary of £99 a year 1s not quite one-fifth of the amount expended on a single discharge of one of our heavy guns, and it has been said that each of our minor poets is so zealous for the public purse that he would rather that this £99 were no longer taken there- from, than that it should be handled by any poet but himself. For my own part (and auch’ to son poeta, as anybody who has seen my pathetic but unpublished lines on the death of a favourite cat can testify) I really think that somebody or other ought to be appointed without further delay. J. M. Ley. + sau  THE AUTHOR. M. ZOLA AND ANONYMITY. NW ZOLA has comeand gone. Mayall good M attend his visit! It seems to have ® surprised the French that we should know anything about their great “realist,” and, knowing, that we should honour his genius. I fear that there are not many English authors who would receive in Paris the homage which has been paid to M. Zola in London. AS author, M. Zola is worthy of all the attentions which our own craftsmen have heaped upon him. His books sell by the hundred thousand, therefore he is a very proper man for authors to entertain. Nothing should be grudged to the literary man who has so gloriously upheld the market for books. But that the journalists should also have fallen prostrate before M. Zola, receiving instruc- tion in the art of public writing, was, I own, a little surprismg. M. Zola is not known as a great journalist. Even were he one of the kind which is bred in Paris, is it not a little too much that he should come over to lecture us on the first principles of journalism? Is Eng- land, the mother of newspapers, to be taught how articles should be written? For one kind of Press-man, the descriptive reporter, the works of M. Zola are doubtless a complete education. From them he will learn the art of saying common things to the best effect, of describing little things in so earnest and simple a manner as_ to make them seem great, of giving to fiction by the telling of it the air of truth. But journalism proper—which includes criticism, political and literary—is this also an art in which we islanders are so defective that we must get a first-rate man of letters from Paris to teach us?—I read with great interest that, immediately after landing for the first time in his life on these perfidious shores, M. Zola proceeded to lecture a select body of literary persons on the elements of journalism. Weare, it seems, in possession of an antiquated and quite obsolete institution called Anonymity, which destroys the personality of the writer, and makes it impossible for him to rise to the ‘level of the French newspaper man. While we are crushed under a brutal and soulless machine— brutal of course it must be, being English—the French, “‘ broken and turned up by incessant revo- lutions,” have arrived at that blissful state where the individuality of the writer is triumphant— where there is a ‘“‘ magnificent ardour of life with a generous expenditure of courage and of ideas,” A picture is drawn of the down-trodden British journalist, without hope of decorations or retir- ing pensions, uncheered by the casual duel or action at law, wearing out his soul as “a mere 201 wheel in a great machine’”—whom nobody knows, whom ‘nobody sees—fulfilling his d: aily task as a docile instrument, without even the hope of a little celebrity as a “ delicious reward for a life of effort.” As a contrast to this gloomy picture, M. Zola gives us the journalist of France, emancipated, as we are asked to believe, thr ough the uprising of amore generous national spirit, from anonymity. As a matter of fact, the transition from the anonymous to the signed article was effected, not because “ the nation would have nothing more to do” with the former, but because a decree of Napoleon III. in 1850 made the signing of the article in every French newspaper compulsory. This law was violently resented at the time as an encroachment on the national liberty. Thus it was not from choice but from necessity—not as the outcome of a long process of evolution, but as the arbitrarily- imposed command of their master, who certainly had no thought of cultivating any new ardour of life, that ibe French came to that condition ee with individuality, for which we are now called upon to exchange our old, effete, and brutal anonymity. All this fine, flowing talk about the signature to the article being a kind of new birth in France, the mark of a higher development, reached through per- petual revolutions—about “the craving to fight in the front rank, the face uncovered, and in the glory that is therefore to be won by hurling one’s name into the midst of the conflict’’—is mere flummery, and in itself a very good sample of the kind of journalistic stuff which “ individu- ality” tends to produce. This overflowing of the individual, this ardour of combat, limited only by the harmless rapier and the pistol at thirty yards, this expenditure of courage and of ideas, English readers have special opportunities for studying. For is it not mainly at their expense that the show is maintained ? There is not a day passes in which we do not see this admirable new French journalism in exercise How greatly superior in truth as in knowledge, in honesty as in intelli- gence, does not the state of France confess, where the stupid forgeries of an obscure mulatto could revive to a fever heat the old rage against perfidious Albion—where a Boulanger could seriously threaten a revolution—where the Panama Canal could be gravely upheld as a national under- taking, by the means that we know of—where, as the last “ardour of life,’ we see the newest of Republics in a frenzy of delight over the coming of the Russians. As Lord Beaconsfield said, every nation has the government it deserves. So every nation has the Press which it merits. But to hold up French journalism as the model which England should  202 follow is a little intrepid. We have more to teach than to learn in the way of journalism ; we had the essence of the thing, which is the right of free speaking, long before M. Zola’s country- men knew anything or cared anything about it. When the Roi-Soleil was still exacting from his people a homage which would be abject in Annam, De Foe, the first of jour- nalists proper, was working with his pen for the establishment of English liberties. In a generation later it was a journalist, Jonathan Swift, who changed the fortunes of Europe, and turned the whole current of the world’s history. The power of Junius in his time was greater than has been exercised in polities by any indi- vidual writer in France, under his own name or any other. In some of these cases, it is true, the writers were not wholly unknown, but it is not necessary for the preservation of anonymity that the individuality of the writer should be concealed. In England, even in political writing, it is seldom that absolute secrecy can be preserved, even as to the authorship of the individual article. The essence of the English system, which M. Zola does not appear to know, is that the individuality of the writer, whether known or not, is merged in that of the journal—the lesser and more imperfect responsi- bility in the larger and more complete. In one sense, and in the proper and legal sense, no news- paper in England is anonymous. All journalism is signed, for every journal bears, in the imprint, the name of the publisher. All beyond is un- necessary, and to seek to know more is imperti- nence. The theory of our system—the theory which is the life of every Free Press, where even before the writer comes the public—is, that the thing written, not he who writes it, should be the first object of regard. An English journal is a corporate body, which speaks with more than the authority, as it has necessarily more than the responsibility, of any single writer. Hence it comes about that the name of the individual writer is not wanted, which the public has no right to ask for, and in general does not care to know. This is our system, which as it has grown naturally out of our life in the process of the development of English liberty, we have a right to consider the best for ourselves—altogether declining to say whether it is the abstract best, or good for every nation. Certainly the experiment of the contrary prin- ciple in France is not likely to make us enamoured of itin England. Nor does it appear that M. Zola desires any immediate change in the Eng- lish system of anonymity in political writing. But in literary criticism, which is quite another thing, we are exhorted, with more show of reason, THE AUTHOR. to make a change. In criticism, we are told, there is *‘a creative function which distinguishes it from a mere summary or report,’ such as a “leader” is supposed to be. ‘It calls for per- sonal penetration, for logical power, not to mention a very wide erudition.” The assumption that the political article needs no penetration, or logic, or learning, comes naturally from a French journalist who knows no English. There is something doubtless in M. Zola’s argument, though scarcely enough to induce us to do away with the anonymous, even in literary criticism. We have tried the signed review, and I do not know that either literature or criticism is the gainer. Certainly the public is not. I doubt whether even the author prefers the signed review to the anonymous criticism for which the whole journal is responsible. After all, the freedom of literary opinion is of smaller im- portance than the freedom of political opinion; and if the public prefers its literary or its dramatic criticisms signed, signed they will be— though in most cases it will be hardly necessary. There is too much of the individual already, as some think, in our criticisms, which would be freer, and truer, and more honest, if they were more general—less personal and more abstract. We have experience of both systems in England, and there seems to be no good reason for pre- ferring the French to the English system. We have the critic who signs his name, and the critic who elects to remain anonymous, though not necessarily unknown. As one of the “old journalism,’ with a tolerably large experience of both states, having been reviewer and reviewed, I cannot understand why the author or the public, who are the two parties most concerned, should prefer to have their lite- rary reviews signed. For the critic himself, I can perceive that there are some reasons, not uncon- nected with self-advertisement, why he should be revealed in his own individuality. Certainly in M. Zola himself we have a product of journalism perhaps the most striking the age has yielded. He is a child of that very genius he has so gloriously depicted, with all its ardour of life, its fever of individuality, its break-neck gallop towards every glimpse of a new world. Yet the journalism which M. Zola represents is that French journalism which, with all its delights, its passions, and its ambitions, I do not know to be so good a thing for us English as that we should be in a hurry to give up in exchange the greatest work of our own freedom. H. E. W. wo  Ke a THE AUTHOR. THE AUTUMN PUBLISHING SEASON. HE “announcements ”’ of the season have been iT appearing, as usual, in the Atheneum. The following is an analysis of the lists which seem now to have been completed. The order followed is the order of their appearance in the Atheneum : Ward, Lock, and Co.: Fiction, 6 works; travel, 3; verse, 1; biography, 1; book for girls, 1 technical book, 1; total, 13. Hutchinson: Fiction, 17; a Library for Boys, 10; a Library for Girls, 10 ; general literature, 3; total, 40. Cassell: Astronomy, 3; memoirs, 2; history, E; fiction, 14; science, 3; art, 2; religion, 2; geography, 2; miscellaneous, 7; total, 36. Macmillan: Poetry, 2; illustrated books, 6; new editions, 6; fiction, 4; “The Eversley Series,” 6; literary history and criticism, 3; biography, 6; history and archeology, 7; “Englsh Citizen Series,” 3; theology, 10; philosophy, 2; miscellaneous, 5; classics and education, 33; total, 93. Lawrence and Bullen: Two reprints, illus- trated. Blackie and Son: Educational, 10. T. and F. Clark: Science, 1; religion, 3. Sunday School Union: Fiction, 13. F. V. White and Co. : Fiction, 3. Clarendon Press: Theology, 10; Greek and Latin, 12; Oriental works, 5; general litera- ture, 3; history, biography, and law, 12; English language and literature, 5; philosophy, 5; sacred books of the Hast, 4; miscellaneous, 10; total, 66. Messrs. Heineman and Co.: Memoirs and biography, 7; “Great Educators” series, 2; general literature, 7; fiction, including transla- tion, 26; total, 42. Mr. Nutt: Reprints, 6; fairy and folklore, 3; miscellaneous, 7 ; total, 16. Messrs. W. and R. Chambers: Fiction, 8; reprints, 2; biography, 3 ; educational, 6 ; total, 19. Messrs. Bliss, Sands, and Foster: fiction, 8; illustrated books, 3; topography, 1 ; total, 12. Messrs. Oliphant, Anderson, and Ferrier : Fiction, 12; religion, 8; total, 20. Sonnenschein and Co.: Theology and philo- sophy, 12; history and topography, 7; belles lettres, 12; social science, 17; education, 14; fiction, 9 ; total 71. The 8.P.C.K.: History, 4 ; science, 2 ; theology, 5; devotional, 4; books for girls, 29 ; total, 44. Putnam: History and topography, 15; social science 5 ; fiction, 18; religion and philosophy, 4; belles lettres, 7 ; miscellaneous, 3; total, 52. > 203 A. and ©. Black: History and topography, 2 ; fiction and re-issues, 12; theology, 5; social science, 2; natural science, 2; total, 23. A. D. Innes and Co.: Religion, lettres, 2; fiction, 19; total, 24. Skeffington and Sons: Theo.ogy and devotion, I5 ; verse, 1; fiction, 2; total, 18. Griffith, Farran, and Co.: Books for the young, 20; total, 20. Messrs. Henry and Co, : Fiction and drama, 8; miscellaneous, 4; total, 12. Chapman and Hall: Fiction, 3; history and topography, 5; sport, 2; science and art, 6; philosophy, 1; miscellaneous, 3 ; total, 20. Rivington, Perceval, and Co.: History and theology, 4; art, 2; travel, 1; schoolbooks, various, 59; total, 66. Fisher Unwin: Belles lettres, 5; verse, 1; biography, 8; history, 5; travel, 7; theology, 2; fiction, 28 ; total, 56. Allen and Oo.: Travel, 6; fiction, 5; natural science, 3; miscellaneous, 2; total, 16. Hodder and Stoughton: Theology and mission work, 17; biography, 3; belles lettres, 2; topo- graphy, 2; science, 1; stories, 4; total, 29. Walter Scott: Contemporary Science Series, 3 ; dramatic criticism, 3; fiction and fairy tales, 4 ; Scott Library, 4; total, 14. Elkin Matthews and John Lane: Verse and drama, 12; belles lettres, 23. Warne and Co.: General literature, 4; topo- graphy, 3 ; miscellaneous, 4; fiction, 4 ; Favourite Library, 1; Adventure Library, 4; Welcome Library, 7; total, 27. Cambridge University Press: Theology, 9 ; law and history, 4; Greek classics, 6; Latin classics, 4; grammar and composition, 5; antiquities, 4; total 32. Methuen: Speeches, 1; fiction, 9; classics, 2; translations, 2; verse, 2; history, 3; grammar and composition, 3; Commercial Series, 2; social questions, 2; total, 26. : Wells Gardner and Co.: Theology, 7; topo- graphy, 1; verse, 1; social questions, 3; fiction, 7; total, 19. Routledge and Sons: Reprints and re-issues, 8; Popular Library, 2; history, 3; total, 13, Williams and Norgate: Science, 2; theology, 4; biography, 1; German, 5; philology, 2; translations (Greek, 1; Arabic, 1; German, 1); 3; total, 17. Nimmo: Fiction and romance, 2; botany, 1; topography, 1; total, 4. Blackwood and Sons: Memoirs, 3; travel and topography, 3; theology, 1; belles lettres and translations, 4; agriculture, 3 ; total, 14. Sampson Low and Co.: Travel and topo- 3; belles 204 graphy, 11; fiction, 11; theology, 2; science, 3; memoirs, 3; belles lettres, 6; total, 36. Masters and Co.: Theological and devotional, 11; tales, 2; miscellaneous, 1; total, 14. Clowes and Sons: Law, 6; total, 6. Gay and Bird: Book for girls, 1; general lite- rature, 4; fiction, 2; drama, 1 ; verse, 1; total, g. Bemrose and Sons: Theological, 4; total, 4. Partridge and Co.: Biography, 1; religion, 3 ; fiction, 12 ; natural history, 1; total, 17. Jones, Mac Lehose, and Sons: Theology, 2; science, 2; belle lettres, 3; total, 7. Nelson and Sons: History and biography, 5; verse, 1; fiction, 6; natural history, 2; dictionary, 1; total, 15. Suzal and Co.: Educational, 1; theology, 1 ; history, 2; total, 4. The total, so far, is 1153. rec THE SIXTH CENTENARY OF BEATRICE. Not ours the rhythmic vesture, to array The Queen of Dante’s minstrelsy aright : No more the Master-singer’s harp of might May yield his deathless homage to her sway. Yet we, who watch this soft six-hundredth May Break into bloom o’er Arno’s banks, delight To hymn her praise, who mocks the ages’ flight, And whose pure Fame is young as yesterday. Still through the world’s. rough war, the foemen’s stress, Earth’s Pilgrims strain unconquered to the goal, Cheered by the Lady of all loveliness, And ever glorying in her sweet control. Still smiles for Poet hearts, who heavenward press Through purifying pain, the Woman’s soul. C. A. KELLY. Peoacs BOOK-TALK. HE “Society of English Bibliophilists”’ announces a new translation of the Hepta- meron. Since the Society does not print its address we are not able to find out if it has published anything previously from which we could learn what to expect. Its advertisement in- forms us that the work is newly translated into English from the authentic text of M. Le Roux de Lincy, and quotes from an essay upon the Heptameron by Mr. George Saintsbury. It appears, however, that this must not be taken to mean that the translation is by Mr. Saintsbury, nor yet that an essay has been written by him specially for this edition. The name of the real translator does not appear, and Mr. Saintsbury’s essay, referred to in the advertisement, is one, or THE AUTHOR. the part of one, published by him some time ago. "tt may be well to consider the position of the English reader with regard to this sixteenth century classic. The English editions of the Heptameron are as follows :—The earliest trans- lation is by Codrington, published in 1654. The next, the work of several hands, and published in 1750, and a third in one of Bohn’s libraries by Cc. A Kelly, published in 1840. In 1886 a trans- lation by A. Macheen, privately printed, with plates by Flamengo, and a bibliographical preface —a scholarly and beautiful edition, which claims to give the whole of the original. In 1887 there appeared a selection of this translation, with a preface, historical and critical, by Miss A.M. F. Robinson. There is also an American edition, with plates by Flamengo, published at Philadelphia. To this list we must add the special note in Prof. Baird’s History of the Huguenots, in which the difficulties surrounding the original are noted and dismissed. He says: “Her (Queen Margaret’s) most sincere admirers would hail with gratification any satisfactory evidence that the Heptameron was written by another hand,” and concludes: “It is a riddle which I leave to the reader to solve, that a princess of unblemished private life, of studious habits, and of not only a serious, but even a positively religious turn of mind—in short, im every way a noble pattern for one of the most corrupt courts Europe has ever seen—should, in a work aiming to inculcate morality, and abundantly furnished with direct religious exhor- tation, have inserted not one, but a score of the most repulsive pictures of vice drawn from the impure scandal of that court.” The difficulties, then, which surround the Hep- tameron are, first, the difficulty of authorship, for Brantome contradicts himself; at one time he says that the Queen wrote it in her litter—his own grandmother holding her ink-horn, and at another (as quoted by Bayle) he writes: “ Je ne scay si ladette Princesse a composé le dit livre dautant quwil est plein de propos assez hardis et de mots chatouilleux.” There is also the diffi- culty of identifying the characters and the peculiarity of language. The same kind of thing meets us in studying the Fairy Queen, but we can enjoy the poem without troubling about the identity of the knights and ladies, or going 100 deep into linguistic peculiarities. These diffi- culties, however, are of a very different order from that of which the American professor has written so regretfully and so justly. It would seem that the work is one of those classics, @ translation of which is always justifiable, but which always has to be justified. To the THE AUTHOR. historian it is invaluable. It enables him to form a fair estimate of the material civilisation of the time, together with its deep corruption of morals, because the persons represented are 3 eal persons, and the stories they relate are true stories. Put together, perhaps, to amuse the king, they owed much of their popularity to the fact that the original audience were able to recognise to whom the incidents—scandalous enough many of them—had occurred. That particular reason for reading and liking the work is denied us, even if with the help of recent criticism we could identify some of the characters. The time is past for anyone really to care. The chief merit of the work is the skill with which the gross vice, and, above all, the hypocrisy of the time, are held up to ridicule. Its use at the present moment is that it quickly gives the lie to all attempts to make out that the necessity of the sixteenth century reformation in teaching morals was due to the faults of the laity and not of the clergy. The latter may not have been so bad as has been stated, but they were certainly worse than they should have been. Professor Huxley’s new book, called ‘ Methods and Results,” consists of a short biography and nine essays published at different times between 1866 and 1870. It is in every way pleasant Sestae In the interesting biography, Professor Huxley tells us to what aims and duties he has always devoted his energies. He instances the popularisation of science, the development of scientific education to the endless series of battles and skirmishes over evolution, and tothe untiring opposition to that ecclesias- tical spirit, that clericalism which in England, as everywhere else, and to whatever denomination it may belong, is the deadly enemy of science. Of the nine papers, we are told that one—which treats of Descartes and his famous discourse—is to be considered as justifying the title methods, and that the remaining eight are results Of these the ‘Physical Basis of Life” is perhaps the most w idely known, unless it be the “ Progress of Science,” brought out in the year 1887. “Professor Huxley shows that Descartes was the originator «f much of the now accepted teaching of the physiology of nerve and muscle. If the paper on animal autonation be too scientific for some readers, they may console themselves with the account of a soldier—a patient of Dr. Mesnet—which would seem to countenance the possibility of the divided personality, and consequently divide! moral responsibility, with which the reader is familiar in the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The final essays are political as well as_ scientific, “ Administrative Nihilism” deals with political philosophy, with a keen eye to practice in the VOL. Iv. 205 defence of the educational and scientific institu- tions of our day. But it is one of those remark- able essays which turn people into non-voters. For if the evolutionists cannot agree as to the limits of state action, how shall those to whom the cell as an individual, and the cell as a member of a group present difficulties enough, be able to grasp the conception of duty amongst the higher groups? With the “ coming slavery,’ and the sins of legislators clear in our recollection, no contrast could be so complete as the Professor’s advocacy of State interference, but we must leave it to the reader to follow out for himself how the author justly claims to be a friend to the State and an enemy to clericalism. As a past president of the Royal Society, as the possessor of a literary style which Darwin envied, the words in which the Professor expresses “a hope that he had somewhat helped that move- ment of opinion, which has been called the New Reformacion,” are modest enough. Those who have been constant readers of Professor Huxley’s papers, and intend to revive their acquaintance in this and succeeding volumes, will think it a very large ‘‘ somewhat ”’ for one man. “ A History of New York, by Diedrich Knicker- bocker.”’ By Washington ‘Irving. Two new editions of this book are announced, the Van Twiller edition and the Peter Stuyvesant edition, each in two volumes. The latter is limited to 281 copies, of which twenty-five are secured for sale in Europe. This is a work of which many would say that it deserves all the luxury that print, binding, and paper can do for it. But it cannot be denied that, of Irving’s works, it is not so much read—at least among the younger gene- rations—as the Alhambra and the Sketch Book. To the dwellers on the shores of the Hudson river, and to the descendants of the early colonists of Connecticut and Rhode Island, the book will always have a personal interest, but, admirable literary tour de force though it be, we fear its sun as a Classic has a little waned. A revised and annotated edition of the con- versations of Lord Byron and the Countess of Blessington has appeared with two memoirs of the Countess, one a contemporary sketch by her sister, the other written especially for this book by an editor whose name does not appear. The two memoirs supplement each other, and with the help of the notes there is little in the work which should not be clear even to those who have not made themselves familiar with the extensive literature upon Lord Byron, “ his friends, and his relations.” Now that Lord Byron’s fame as a poet is regularly assailed by the essayist, it is very interesting to try to estimate how much the atmosphere of scandal in which le moved, and 8  206 his habit of self-advertisement, had to do with his immense popularity. After reading this book there can be no doubt that they counted for much. The work has another use, as its title will suggest—we may make of it a test of the social refinement of the present time. We have no literary salons to-day, and we have no conversa- tion—on this subject hear Professor Mahafty— but if anyone chooses to compare the tall talk in this volume with our more ordinary chit-chat, though he may find the latter less worth record- ing, surely he must find it more amusing, owing its increased pregnancy, of course, to the much larger chvice of subjects now at our disposal. In 1823 society talked about Lord Byron, and Lord Byron talked about himself. Practically there was no other topic. And yet again we are ahead of our grandfathers ; if we take up a chance volume of society memoirs of to-day, we shall find that, whether malicious things still be said or no, we have in the main acquired the better taste of not recording them. The editor of this edition is much to be congratulated on the re- issue of a work which must raise our opinion of society in the century’s last decade. J. W.S. (To be continued.) Pes LADY EASTLAKE. OME of us were children fifty years ago, and many of the children of fifty years ago still remember certain volumes which bore the name of John Murray, of Albemarle-street. They were covered in paper of a peculiarly ugly grey colour—a livid grey, —and, if I mistake not, they were described as forming “ The Traveller’s Library.” I remember Acland’s delightful letters from India, with their tragic ending, and Mrs. Poole’s “ English Woman in Egypt,” and others ; but, of them all, there was no volume to which my parents were so much attached as “ Letters from the Baltic.’ It was published in 1841, and at once placed Miss Rigby, who was then about twenty-five, in a good rank in literature. She immediately became a member of the little society, as it might be called, of which Sir William Smith, also just gone from us, was the chief. She shone chiefly as an art critic, not so much because she could draw herself, as because she had a very universal appreciation and enjoyment of what was good in any style, and had, besides, a remarkable faculty, too rare by far, for describing what she saw. She could do much more—she could discrimi- THE AUTHOR. nate. Her knowledge stood her in good stead when she married Mr. Eastlake, then an R.A., but afterwards Director of the National Gallery, and a knight. She was thirty-three at the time of the marriage, and it is well known that her judgment and advice were frequently and freely invoked down to 1865, when Sir Charles died, That she was a judge of pictures was frequently proved when she exhibited one or another of her possessions, as, for instance, at the Royal Academy, in the winter shows of old masters ; but it seems strange that in none of the obituary notices, nor yet in the letters that have appeared in the papers, is her munificent gift mentioned—a memorial of her husband in the scene of his chief labours—a picture which was long considered to be unique. This is the “ St. Anthony and St. George” (No. 776 in the Catalogue of the Foreign Schools), painted by Pisano of Verona, who is so much better known for his bronze portrait medals. One other picture from his hand is in England, and a portrait at Bergamo may be his. This con- cludes the list of his works now extant, and demon- strates, apart from its beauty and finish, the priceless character of Lady EHastlake’s contribu- tion to the completeness of our National Gallery. Lady Eastlake continued, almost to the day of her death, to contribute to contemporary litera- ture, writing both in the Quarterly and the Edinburgh Reviews, chiefly on artistic subjects. She also corrected and continued Mrs. Jameson’s works for Messrs. Longman. Her “ Letters from the Baltic” were supplemented by some stories of “Tivonian Life.’ Her sister had married an Esthonian nobleman, which led to her taking much interest in a region so little known to most of us. Since her widowhood she lived in compara- tive retirement, surrounded, nevertheless, by a circle of enthusiastic friends. They could never sufficiently extol her personal beauty or her mental powers, which were in no way abated by her seventy-seven years and long illness. One gentleman (Mr. Flower) writes to the Times of Oct. 13: “Such characters are among the glories of English society, and should be thankfully remembered.” : W. J. 1.  THE AUTHOR. NOTES AND NEWS. from the New York Evening Post, and to the opinions advanced by Mr. George Haven Putnam on the further amendment of the American copyright law. No one, outside the profession of the law, has a better right to be heard than Mr. Putnam, who has done so much already for the amendment of American copyright law. ET me call attention to the paper reprinted The Report of the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge informs its supporters that it has circulated during the year a vast quantity of literature in many millions of books. It also states, with the complacency of the successful merchant, that a great circulation is the one thing most important. It is now two years since I pointed out in a little pamphlet, and in these columns, that there was another thing even more important than circulation, in a religious trading company, viz., that its methods of trading should not be such as might lay its directors open to a charge of sweating or of dishonesty. And Iasked, in general terms, what is thought of a man in trade who gives the producer a shilling for an article which he knows he is going to sell for ten or twenty shillings. I also quoted no less an authority than the Archbishop of Canterbury himself, who lays down as the first evil of the sweating system, “arate of wages inadequate to the necessities of the worker, or disproportionate to the work done.’’ Then cases were cited, three or four out of many. In one of these the society bought for £12 (!)—with a promise of more if the book was successful—a historical work, of which they sold 7000 copies at a profit of—how much? about £200, and then refused to give any more, Is £12 arate of wage proportionate to the work done ? There were other cases, but the leading charge brought by me was that the society deliberately, knowingly, and with open eyes, and in the sacred name of the Founder of our religion, buys books from their authors at prices which, compared with the profits they make on them, are as one to five, six, ten, or anything you please. This practice they have never disavowed, or con- fessed, or, so far as I know, changed. And again Task those who read these pages what they think of such a practice ? It is absurd to say that the imprint of the letters S.P.C.K. causes the sale of the books, because such may be said by any great firm with equal truth. But the great firm does not, in consequence, cut down the miserable author’s pay; on the contrary, the auth »r enjoys, in its 207 hands, not only terms which would make this committee jump out of their chairs, but the prestige of their name. I reproduce what was said in that pamphlet on the sweating pub- lisher. If the words can no longer be applied to the §.P.C.K. I shall unfeignedly rejoice :— The sweating publisher, then, is one who grinds down the faces of his unfortunate authors ; who offers a miserable sum for work which is going to bring him in a hundredfold profit; who scruples not to toss an author a ten-pound note for his labour, and without a pang of shame or remorse makes £50 or £100 or £500 profit for himself; who knows no law but the cruel law of supply and demand, and recognises no other right in an unfortunate author but his right to receive meekly the highest sum that he can obtain. There are many of these people abroad. They deal largely with the productions of women. The sweater, it is well known, works more comfortably by means of women. They are helpless, they are ignorant of business, they are yielding ; if they cannot be frightened they can be cajoled. And literary women, again, are timid about their own work, not knowing what amount of stability they have achieved or what is the extent of their popularity. Therefore the sweater can do what he pleases with them. If they venture gently to remonstrate, he bullies them; if they weep and entreat he threatens. He enjoys making them feel that he is their master; he is never so happy as when he has them at his feet, humiliated and submissive. The sweater is always a bully as well as a sweater. He has got all kinds of excuses for hissweating. His first excuse—in fact the words are seldom out of his mouth—is that there is perfect freedom of contract between himself and his authors. Itis take it or leave it. Here is a sum of money, there is the M.S. Thatisall. There is no other consideration. Freedom of contract! It is freedom of contract when the wretched seamstress toils all day long—a day of sixteen hours—for 11}d.—or less. She is free to take it or to leave it. Itis freedom of contract when the poor woman who “writes for her bread submits a manuscript which has cost her weeks and months of labour ; yes, and that of a kind which requires, before it can be produced, a pure heart, a lofty soul, a brain rich with knowledge and a-glow with ideas, fancies, and imaginings, and a trained hand. Such a woman is a most precious gift and blessing to the generation in which she lives and works. She may be a most potent force in the advancement of humanity. But she is alsoa most sensitive and delicate instrument. And she has to deal with a sweater! She goes to him trembling, because she knows what to expect. He will toss her £10, £20, £30, £50, whatever it may be. And out of her book he will make to himself a profit of ten, twenty, fiftyfold. Freedom of contract! No greater mockery, no greater cruelty than to speak of such a woman driven to such necessities, is free to choose—free to accept or to reject. She is not free, she is the slave of the sweater. From a letter. “Is it not time to leave off exposing frauds? Have we not exposed them enough? And will not the Society proceed to something practical — become publishers for authors on terms recognised as fair, with open books, and no secret profits?” Answer: It is never time to leave off exposing frauds until the practice and the possibility both become things of  a 208 the past. Until then the Society must always act as a kind of police. As regards the third question, it must be remembered that the Society has certain specified objects, for which it is incorporated, expecially the defence of literary property ; that it has no power to go outside, or beyond, objects laid down in the memorandum of its Articles, I do not think, for instance—but it is for a lawyer to determine—that the Society could, under its Articles of Association, become a publishing company. Some day—perhaps very soon— unless some of the existing machinery is modified, a company of authors—men and women whose position is assured-—will form a publishing union of their own—just for theirown books. It would be perfectly simple to establish; there would be no possible risk about it, provided a manager could be found both honest and capable; and it would cost, to start, little more than the first year’s salaries and wages of a small stat. This work is not, I think, for the Society, but for authors when they have learned at last their individual strength and the power of Association. Quite a common gibe to cast at the Society is that it “helps” no one, meaning that it gives money to no literary person in trouble. A certain person, writing in the Daily Chronicle last July, stated, with admirable taste and feeling, that he himself had “helped” more literary people in distress than the whole Society of Authors. Very likely. If he ever gave a literary man in trouble a single half-crown he was quite justified in his boast. But the Society “ helps ” many literary men and women ina much more lasting manner when it keeps them from robbery and from robbers. Which is better, to teach a whole class of workers what their work means, and to make it increasingly difficult to overreach them, or to give a shilling to a man in distress ? The relief of distress is not one of the objects of the Society, and it cannot spend any portion of its funds for that purpose. =—— “Are we right to encourage young men and maidens into the fields of literature?” This is a question which has been often put. Answer: Do we so encourage them? It is true, as we have stated over and over again, that literary property, meaning the property produced by the traffic in work which is produced by us, and is our property unless we part with it, is of prodigious extent; to state the real facts is, surely, always advisable. It is also true that authors of successful educational books, above all; of scientific books, by men of reputation ; of historical books, by well-known scholars; of THE AUTHOR. fiction, when it is by a popular writer, command, each and all,a market which for extent and for certainty has never yet been equalled in the history of literature. It is also true that this market is enlarging rapidly, even daily, and that there appears to be no limit to its enlargement ; and that the position of the popular author in any of the departments named above will, unless the author sink into the mere hack of the publisher, whicha few years ago seemed possible and _pro- bable, become the most enviable in the world, not only for the reputation he will enjoy but for the revenues he will command. Se All this is true, and it is good to state it openly and often, and to keep on repeating it, so that it may never be forgotten. Unfortunately, the number of those who can ever occupy a posi- tion so enviable will always remain very, very small; and the number of books which every year can hope to obtain anything like a popular success will also be very small. For instance, in to-day’s Times there are advertised eighty new books. The list includes about a dozen paid for by the author. Of the rest, all, I should think, will pay their expenses and something over; but there are probably not half a dozen which can be looked upon as likely to increase literary pro- perty. Aspirants, whatever one says, well crowd in. If one dissuades them, they think, and say, that we want to make a ring. If we point to the last paragraph, they return to the previous paragraph. Well; they must crowd in if they like. When they fail, as most must do, they may console themselves with the reflection—also true—that literary merit and popular success are things which cannot be measured, or compared, and then they may further solace their disappointed souls with the thought that popular success is cheap success, which is always a comforting thing to say; and that, after all, the real genius is the man who fails to #:hieve that success. Water Besant. ee THACKERAY’S WOMEN. II. TOO, am a great admirer of Thackeray’s | genius; and I, too,am a woman, and cannot - but wish, with the correspondent: in .the Author for October, that Thackeray had drawn his portraits of women with a more generous hand. For it has been his good pleasure to draw us either  THE coldly base orangelically inane. An American lady once asked Thackeray why he made his women either knaves or fools? To which he replied, “Madam, I paint your sex as I have found them.” Yet I do not think he was the harsh cynic these wor’s imply him to have been. I imagine rather his meagre portraits of women to have arisen from two causes—firstly, the sadness of his personal lot; and, secondly, that he painted only from one narrow section of social lite—the artificial society phase of it—upon whose barren soil blossoms little feminine mental or moral loveliness. It is true that, amid the same condi- tions of life, his men emerge far nobler than his women; yet may this not be due to the fact of men, even in fashionable life, being called to the more active business of life—the fighting branch —in for-ign countries, and winning their way in professions more or less arduous. His finest men—the characters for whom he seems to have had the greatest love—are oftenest old soldiers, such as Colonel Newcome and Major Dobbin. Their lives, even amidst wordly surroundings, were redeemed from the futility and pettiness of those of their wives and daughters. Thackeray’s business was to portray the women of his fashionable world—‘‘the world which amuses itself’? most generally at its neighbour's expense; and though he dwelt much upon the traditional weakness of the sex—its jealousies, small deceits,envy,and petty spite—still, at times, who has written more tenderly more reverently, with loftier moral justice, of women, than he? Take, for instance, for simple tenderness and reverence, those words from ‘ Vanity Fair,” when George leaves Amelia in the cold dawn of Waterloo : ‘‘Heart-stained and shame-stricken, he stood at the bed’s foot and looked at the sleeping girl. How dared he—who was he—to pray for one so spotless? God bless her! God bless her! He came to the bedside and looked at the hand, the little soft hand, lying asleep, and he bent over the pillow noiselessly towards the gentle pale face. Two fair arms closed tenderly round his neck as he stooped down. ‘I am awake, George,’ the poor child said, with a sob.” His heroines had, indeed, a fatal knack of loving blindly the wrong man, when a better might have been theirs “for a word or a look.” But even George Eliot, with her larger-brained, more generously moulded woman, makes her nobler heroines fall into the same error. Tina loves a brainless fop, with loyal Mr. Gilfit standing by ; Maggie Tulliver loves the somewhat shallow Stephen instead of sensitive Philip. I doubt, herves and heroines would have to be drawn AUTHOR. 209, quite irrespective of human reality could they be made to love only that which were worth the loving. I have not space to give extracts from Thackeray’s Miscellanies, in which there are passages showing how ethically just he was to women,-and fearlessly outspoken upon moral questions. This sentence, only, proves how pure of heart he was and loyal: “This supreme act of scoundrelism has man permitted to himself—to deceive women.” So little of Thackeray’s inner life is known: he revealed himself most in his letters to Mr. and Mrs. Brookfield. oe Perhaps he loved too deeply, and felt too keenly, the baseness of average human nature, for “the deepest truth blooms only out of the deepest love,” and that, by the irremediable sorrow of his life, was denied to him. GRACE GILCHRIST. Treganhoe, Penzance, Oct. 5. —$—<—So Il. The writer of a short article on ‘“ Thackeray’s Women” in last month’s Author says, at the end, that she should like very much to have someone else’s opinion on the subject. May I offer a few remarks concerning two, at least, of these women —the two heroines of “ Vanity Fair?” for it is they who (as in “‘ Ninguna’s ” article) are generally cited as typical instances of Thackeray’s inability to portray a real, lifelike woman. “ Ninguna’s” complaint that this great master of fiction did not understand women, and seemed to think that they were always either angels of kindness and goodness, or demons of wickedness, is a very common complaint, but, to my mind, a very unreasonable one. Iam not going to attempt to show that Thackeray did understand women, or to prove that Amelia Sedley and Becky Sharp are not, the one unnaturally angelic, the other unnaturally the reverse; but simply to suggest that they are not intended to represent realistic, lifelike characters, or even idealised characters, such as one expects to find in novels pure and simple. “Vanity Fair” is not only a novel; it is first and foremost a work of satire. Asa mere novel, I think it would be open to much other criticism than the unreality of its women; but as a work of satire it seems to me faultless. Its unnaturalness is the unnaturalness of cari- cature, and car:cature is an essential element of satire. It would be as unreasonable to look in Punch’s journal for perfectly well-proportioned, realistic drawings of human figures, as it is to find fault with Amelia Sedley and Becky Sharp  210 for being caricatures of goodness and wickedness. To interpret the nature and experiences of women, to expose their special grievances, to make him- self the champion of their rights and wrongs, was not the primary intention of the author of “Vanity Fair,’ and whether he could or could not do this is beside the mark: his object was to show up the vices, follies, and meannesses of society and humanity at large. The more we study “ Vanity Fair” as a great work of satire, the more I think shall we see how perfect it is as a whole and in all its parts, and how everything in it which seems exaggerated, unnatural, impos- sible, and which we may be inclined at first sight to condemn, is in reality essential to the complete- ness of the whole, and serves to emphasise the lessons intended to be conveyed. We must not fasten on particular incidents or traits of cha- racter, and criticise these independently of the author’s intention, any more than in examining the caricature of a face we should object to some one feature for being unnaturally large or small. Were we in the latter case to work up all the other features into proportion with the exag- gerated one, we should, no doubt, have before us a more harmonious and lifelike picture, but one in which the artist’s original intention would be entirely lost. eS SMALL BOOKSELLERS’ SHOPS. HILST various animadversions are pretty \ \ freely exchanged between authors and publishers, publishers and authors alike forbearingly refrain from any impeachment of a personage who is doing his uttermost to diminish the profits of both. That personage is the small retail bookseller. Just at present this individual is possibly “in a tight place.’ But his tactics are certainly directly inimical to the interests of both authors and publishers, as well as to his own interests, and to the advance of letters. It is strange that a bookseller should turn his hand against bookselling. What is to become of the tradesman who obstructs the sale of his own wares ? What of the market in which the sellers discourage the demand? Well—exactly what is becoming of the small retail book trade. But the ruin of this trade is a literary calamity. The importance of the retail bookseller cannot be exaggerated. He is the distributor by whose immediate agency almost every book must pass into the ha‘.ds of the reader. This work of dis- tribution is, at present, being performed by the large retail houses better than ever before—more intelligently, more widely, and upon more liberal THE AUTHOR. terms. But the lesser towns and the suburbs of the larger ones cannot maintain these expensive establishments. In such places the work of dis- tribution falls to the smaller booksellers. These men are serving a population in the aggregate much exceeding that served by the large houses. Unhappily, to this large population the small shops are distributing pretty nearly nothing. The reason is easily stated. The small book- seller will uot “stock.” He freely confesses, sometimes even boasts, that he keeps as little as possible upon his shelves. Consequently he sells as little as possible. The public at large do not buy what they cannot see; and a mean display of wares discourages purchase as directly as a good show attracts that curiosity which so greatly assists the retailer to sell. It is vain for the bookseller to plead that he is always ready to execute orders. Few people know how to order a book. The ordinary customer far oftener desires to be shown something new than to purchase a work with which he is already acquainted. And the enterprising tradesman does not merely meet demand, he fosters it. Nor does it seem possible that the trader himself should enter with the same zest into the execution of orders (at small com- missions) as into the busy enterprise of “placing” his own selected stock. It is in con- sequence of this last fact that the bookseller of the small town conducts his book trade half- heartedly—of course to his own detriment. Did he manage his collateral business of stationer, especially the “ fancy stationery’ department, in the same unenterprising fashion, his sales of paper and envelopes, photographs, and “fancy articles” would soon be as unsatisfactory as his sales of books. The man pleads in excuse that the policy which he is pursuing is one which dire necessity has forced upon him. Everyone with any knowledge of business will feel the seriousness of his state- ments. He says that people will not buy books. Even if they do so the discount leaves him no sufficient profit to make the transaction remune- rative. He must let the book trade slide, and fall back upon his “fancy stationery ”—or put up the shutters. There is some truth in what he says. It is also true that some publishers, know- ing the price at which he is compelled to sell, supply him on terms not quite so hard as he represents; whilst several first-class houses are bringing out works at “net” prices. Do those firms find that the smaller booksellers are proving, by the manner in which they “push” these volumes, that their gratitude is as great as it ought to be ? The circumstances of the small bookseller are at the present moment undeniably hard; but it  THE AUTHOR. Qi is impossible to exonerate him from the charge of being, to some extent at least, the cause of his own misfortunes. Not half-a-century since, the country bookseller did a quiet, little, profitable trade. Books were dearer then. But purchasers were also fewer. The little country printing-press was much less in requisition. There were no photographs to sell; and booksellers did not deal in china. But the bookseller himself was a different man. He took an interest in his goods. He stood behind his own counter. His customers strolled into his shop, sometimes to make a purchase, often only to talk, and he encouraged their coming, as to a place of resort. They chatted with each other and with him. He showed them new works, and listened to what they said. In consequence he knew a great deal more about books than anyone else in the neighbourhood. And his knowledge of his wares, and of the tastes of his customers, made him a successful man. At present the bookseller of the small country town too often knows nothing about his wares. He is more ignorant of what he is selling than his customers are of what they are buying. Too often he knows so little about his own business that he makes the most foolish blunders in executing orders. Far too often he leaves his shop to be served by girls less acquainted with his goods, and with the art of disposing of them, than he is himself. He has a business which is the most intellectual of all businesses. He manages it in a way more unintelligent than any other retailer. People, he says, will not buy books. It is his place to help them to buy. Every man who buys books knows how great is the assistance given him by his bookseller. Could he do without it ? Let him consider the hopeless position of the country and suburban customer, who has no bookseller either willing or competent to assist him to purchase. A man keeps a shop for his own advantage. It is right that he should do so. It is right that every person concerned in a commercial transac- tion should find that he makes a profit. But if the small booksellers of England would return to bookselling, by themselves knowing something of their trade and their wares, and by intelli. gently persuading the people of England, m every corner of the land, to be book-buyers, they would do a great deal more than create for themselves a trade as profitable as highly creditable to their commercial enterprise. They might create a market of incalculable value to publishers and authors. They would advance throughout the land letters, learning, and that highest of all educations, the education which men and women give themselves by reading. They would be, instead of obstructors, bene- factors of their age and country. Let anyone only consider what would be the effect of booksellers’ shops in every little town, conducted with the same intelligence, the same enterprise, the same care to please, and the same skill in making a market which is invariably exhibited in the shop of the haberdasher. Henry CRESSWELL. “THE BOOK OF THE FUTURE” AND “THE HOROSCOPE OF BOOKS”: ACOINCIDENCE! ‘JN the spring of this year we drew attention to a lecture by Mr. Blackburn, in which he tried to forecast the book of the future, with respect to its mechanical parts. The con- clusion he came to was that in order to stamp the author’s individuality on his work it should be in his own handwriting—beautifully written, and that it should be published to the world by means of photographic copies of this MS. The Pall Mall Gazette of Oct. 11 has also tried to forecast the future of literature, and erect the horoscope of books. By a curious coinci- dence, after going over some of the same ground, the writer comes to nearly the same conclusion as Mr. Blackburn so far as the mechanics of literary production are concerned. He, too, looks forward to a time when by a book will be meant some cherished original MS. passed from hand to hand. He is careful to tell us nothing about publication, because, fortunately or unfortu- nately, according to him, the profession of letters will have died out, as will be seen by the ensuing vaticination: ‘Then will come the days when men will write books for the love of it, will do so merely to read them again, or lend them to a choice soul now and then; and writing will be its own sole reward.’ The book of the future is thus described: ‘Your ideal book should flourish gaily when the author was merry, having then laughing scrolls in its §’s and L’s, and playful twiddles and quaint humorous dashes about the R’s and the Y’s and G’s. It should be plain, and keep to the lines when his argument was grave, and become heavy and large as thought or sorrow crept into his dis- course. Passionate emotion should shake his writing into an expressive illegibility. Every word in a properly constructed sentence should have its certain weight, which were best shown by the size of the writing.’ In either instance,  212 whether we consider the matter satirically with the P.M.G., or seriously with Mr. Blackburn, there remains a noble opening for forgery. CORRESPONDENCE. [. AutTHors AND PUBLISHERS. I.— BY ANDREW LANG. N the August Author (p. 70) I find a note on the “inimitableness ” of my remark that a writer may think his publishers offer him too much money. But the case has occurred in my experience ; mine is first-hand evidence, and good enough to prove a ghost story. Then Mr. Besant, in the Author for September, writes on myself and Mr. Buchanan. 1 have not seen Mr. Buchanan’s remarks, and can only take Mr. Besant’s word for it that his methods and opinions coincide with mine, and that mine include ‘the perversion of words.” Great wits jump. And here I find my sin. I said that the critic in the Author “decided” that there was a prejudice, and so forth, wt supra. But it seems that the critic did not decide that there was a prejudice, “he lamented the fact of a prejudice.” I did not say that he rejoiced in it. The verbal question seems to me a—verbal question. I meant that he stated (constatait) the fact (as he thinks it) that a prejudice exists—and what a prejudice ! As to the generosity of publishers, we do not appeal to the “ generosity” of publishers. Nor are we dependent on publishers. They, and we, are alike dependent on the public. If the public does not want my poems, the publisher, if he accepts them, only does so from love of poetry. If the public does want them, so does the pub- lisher, unless they are improper .in any sense, or otherwise offensive to his private taste. In that event, there are other publishers. How in the world would authors be “independent,” if only dependent on the public? Surely the vast majority of persons who try to write would, still, under any arrangement, be utterly unbought and unread by the public. The whole contention is a mystery tome. Being a writer, naturally I know plenty of the profession. I never knew one who adopted the attitude of “the bending back ” and so forth, nor would that attitude do a man any ood. As to the author’s ignorance of the sum which should be his due, I presume that he finds out his market value, like other people, as soon as he is “ quoted,” in all senses. His first effort ig a shot in the dark. Let it even “ make an outer,” and he begins to know what he should be THE AUTHOR. paid Iam presuming that an author is not an idiot ; nay, that he can, if he chooses, do a simple sum in arithmetic. As long as publishers are publishers, and are employed by authors, an author has a middleman, as a_ barrister has. The arrangement is not ideal, but, till some other method be discovered, I conceive that, while author and publisher remember to act like honest and honourable men, we shall do very well. Inmy poor opinion, the author has the happier, the more free, and the better position—the best of the bargain. Even if the public be indifferent, still the author has the better of it. His vanity is comforted by being in print, and he may have admirers. ‘The publisher’s vanity is not soothed in any way when he puts forth a book of which the public is wholly independent. As to any system of “yecognised terms and proportions,” it might, to my knowledge, sometimes end in the author’s having to pay a recognised proportion of the cost of his whistle. However, as I think this very proper, when there is loss on a book, I have no objection whatever to seeing literature placed “on a footing of recognised terms and propor- tions;” I do not want to retard such a condition of affairs, for then we should be quite sure that we are not being overpaid. An author does not wish his publisher to lose by his book. Perhaps the Author thinks that this never happens. I am too well convinced of “the odious contrary.” I do not wish to “attack the Society.” “I wished to criticise some remarks about Literary Men and Mendicants, by a member of the Society. If the whole Society agrees that literary men go kneeling to publishers for “ generosity,” then their expe- rience is unlike my own. The cause of the Society, in my opinion, cannot be helped by state- ments of which, if I apprehend the meaning, I fail to observe the accuracy. As to the “ perversion of words,” my intellect is so blunt that I cannot understand wherein my per- version lies. Did the critic in the Author not assert the existence of a “ prejudice”? Ifhe “ lamented the fact” that a prejudice existed, was that not asserting, or, as I said, “ deciding” that there zs a prejudice ? His very words were: “ There is no doubt that some of the contempt which has | een freely poured upon the calling of letters, and is still poured upon it, is due to the prejudice which regards literary men as a set of needy mendicants.” T have stared at these words till the process would hypnotise me, if staring could hypnotise. And still they seem to me to “ decide,” to “ state,” to “affirm,” to “ assert,” to “maintain,” the exis- tence of this prejudice. If I pervert their meaning, as I am said to pervert it, what do they mean? Do they mean that there is not a preju- dice ? Tf they mean that their author “ laments  ah THE the fact,” he still asserts the facet, decides that it is a fact. Of course I never denied that some persons, calling themselves literary men, write begging letters. ‘Who knows it if not I?” What I denied, and deny, and will deny if you put me in the pilniewinks, is that literary men are, or are considered, mendicants “‘ with bending back,” in their dealings with publishers. And I also deny the statement that a literary man, when offered a price, must take that sum. “He has to take that sum, because, you see, a man cannot go hawking literary wares about.” A man can, a man often does, either personally or by his agent. These extraordinary facts are within my personal knowledge, and I have known cases in which the author whose wares are “hawked” has been among the most successful, and deservedly suc- cessful, of modern writers. I don’t say that the process of ‘ hawking,” or of being “hawked” is agreeable. I don’t say that I practise it myself. But I do say that it is done; I do say that a literary man, like any other man—say a painter—need not accept the sum which is first offered to him. To advance the opposite theory seems to me to be the result of some sort of misapprehension. Perhaps this expression of opinion is an attack on the Society. II. BY WALTER BESANT. 1. If the writer means by “too much” that the book in question was bought outright for a sum of money which its sale did not afterwards cover, his experience may be matched by hundreds of others. Publishers (now very few) who buy outright must sometimes make mistakes and bad bargains. I suppose that no one will contend that they ever consciously give more than they expect to make, unless for charitable purposes. 2. About “perversion.” If Mr. Lang did not intentionally mean to pervert my meaning, there is nothing more to be sa'd. My words themselves ; and his words and his explanation are now before the reader. 3. Selling may certainly be mendicancy. In the case of an author who has to beg and pray for better terms I do call it mendicancy. But, of course, any- body may call it what he pleases. Andas regards the bending back, I know of plenty whose necessities, alas! have compelled the bending back. Should it not be allowed in such a question that one who for four years has given up at least the half of his time to a constant study of the literary profession in all its branches—to the methods of publishers—to the ways and needs needs of authors—who has, further, sat for two years on the council of the Royal Literary Fund, where these needs are treated, must know some- thing of this subject? I write from my own AUTHOR. 213 very large experience when I write about ways and necessities and miseries of the literary profession. 4. Authors are “dependent on the public.” Very true. Ifanyone likes to sayso,hemay. Yet they are wholly dependent upon the publisher. Put it this way. A. and B. are two persons who have a share in a common fund. They are therefore both dependent on the person C. who supplies that common fund, on which they live. But it is B. who administers the fund. He takes it all into his own hands; he will not let A. know even how much it is; he gives him out of it as little, or as much, as he pleases. Is, or is not, A. dependent on B.? A. is the author, B. is the publisher, C. is the public. I believe this state- ment of the case is exactly correct, and it shows that authors, as I said, are, on the present system, wholly dependent on publishers. 5. “So long as author and publisher remember to act like honest and honourable men, we shall do very well.” Quite so. The opinion of every- one. We shall do very well so long as this happens, or continues, or begins. At present the area over which it exists is a great deal too narrow for comfort. But there is something beautifully childlike in this blind confidence after all the exposures published by the Society. 6. Nobody ever said, or thought, in these pages, or in any utterance of the Society, that the pub- lisher never loses money by a book. 7. When does an author “ begin to know what he should be paid?”’ I don’t like the word “ paid.” The author should not be, and never be spoken of, asa paid servant of the publisher. I prefer to say “begin to know the value of the property which he produces.” Now, I repeat, the first elements of any valuation of such property are (1) the exact cost of production, ¢.e., print, paper, binding, and advertisements ; (2) the price at which the book is issued to the trade. It is perfectly impossible without this knowledge to arrive at any valuation whatever. This first ascertained, the question of circulation follows as the next determining factor. As to finding out your “value” in the vague way indicated by Mr. Lang, it seems to me meaningless and unpractical. 8. About taking an offer, I said, exactly as quoted, that a man cannot go hawking his wares about. Some men may do so, but to most men such a thing is intolerable. That is, of course, the sole ground for saying that a man must take the first offer. Those who can so hawk their wares, may doso. For my own part, my constant advice and my private practice is to use the friendly offices of an agent. g. About the ‘contempt of letters,” I find the literature of the last hundred years full of it— full of Grub Street and of hacks. I find it every-  214 where even at the present day. It is not the contempt of literature—very far from it. It is the contempt which this modern world — a fighting, busy, quick-witted world which puts its own interests first—feels towards a calling whose members are, and continue quite needlessly to be, the dependents—as I have shown above—of the men who administrate their property for them. Lastly, since Mr. Lang is as anxious as I am —no matter what his reasons—no matter what may be, as he fears, the disastrous effect upon authors—of finding and adopting some recog- nised system of terms and proportions—let us agree to cease discussion on points of minor differences, and to work together for that object. It is the main object of the Society, and it is the only reason for the discovery and exposure of facts, frauds, and abuses which Mr. Lang has certainly not realised, and probably never read. Yet are they not written in a book—not my book—ealled ‘“ Methods of Publishing ?”’ II. West Inp1Ian STORIES. The note at p. 180 of the Author of Oct. 2 in- duces me to mention that excellent one-volume West Indian story, “‘ Captain Clutterbuck’s Cham- pagne,” which originally appeared anonymously many years ago in Blackwood, and was afterwards separately published. By the way, can anyone tell me who its author was? Of course no one forgets “Tom Cringle’s Log ” nor “The Cruise of the Midge,” nor Marryatt’s continual West Indian episodes. Jes SLINTER. Ii. Sone PuBLISHING. A correspondent writes :—Some years ago I tried to set some verses to music, but left the composition unfinished. Ten years later I put it into the hands of a professor, who advised me to take it to a publisher. I went to one of the first publishing firms in London, and was fortunate enough to see one of the head men. He under- took to publish the song for £4 or £5. “And what about advertising it?” Lasked. ‘“ We should not advertise it,’ he replied, ‘it would not be worth our while. We should not take any steps to let your song be known. We should not put it in the windows or on the counter, or do any- thing but sell copies to anyone who should ask for them. We don’t care about having good songs ; there is no sale for them, and we have to pay as much as ros. a time to geta song sung,” and so on. The question remains. Is there no firm of pub- lishers enterprising enough to take a song of more than average merit from an unknown composer and bring it before the public? AMATEUR. THE AUTHOR. IV. James DEFOE. Should not the proposition of “J. 8. L.” (p. 174) as to a provision for James W. Defoe be made rather wider than an appeal solely from novelists? Defoe was, as “J. S. L.” intimates, a great benefactor to England, for he was not solely a novelist and a prince of novelists. We are largely indebted to him as one of the real founders of the periodical press, and a contri- butor to the English school of economic science. On the press, therefore, Defoe has also a strong claim. It is not necessary on this subject to depreciate the great services to England of John Churchill, but it is time to remember those of Defoe. In London, the city of his birth, the memorials of him are scanty. One of the few is a painted window dedicated to him in Butchers’ Hall on my suggestion, and assuredly his claims deserve more. Hype CLarke. V. RevieweD Books. I can cap even Mr. Cyril Haviland’s story. Some years ago I—then a raw novice—was placed in sole charge of the reviewing department of an evening newspaper. I found the task onerous enough so long as I was permitted to do the work in my own way, which—I was very young— actually involved reading the books. Consider. All the books! All the poetry! all the fiction! That is, all that were sent in to that authoritative journal and were selected—and by me — for review. But conceive my position when I received this communication from the secretary: “Dear Mr.—The editor desires me to ask you not to cut the books quite so much, as it seriously depreciates their value.” I tried it for a time; but it proved too much for my nerves to review books unread. I resigned that appoint- ment. XY. Z. VI. Lirgrary PAYMASTERS. Yet another growl on that most fertile of topics, the evil doing of editors e¢ hoc genus omne. Cruel fate having ordained that Iam to earn a living by my pen, I am forced to write for sundry papers and periodicals whose owners for the most part pay quarterly. Now, it is a curious fact that, although I am well aware of their terms, yet the sums I receive seldom or never come up to my calculations. Sometimes when the discrepancy is very glaring I write in remonstrance, and occasionally the result is an extra cheque. More often, however, my letters are treated with con-  THE AUTHOR. temptuous silence, and, as I cannot afford to quarrel with my bread and margarine, so the matter ends. On one occasion I received a reply to the effect that since my contributions were unsolicited, I ought to accept with gratitude whatever they (the proprietors) thought fit to send me. Yes, that is all very true; but why is it true? Why do literary men submit to such unbusiness- like treatment? That is a question I should very much like to hear answered satisfactorily. In my humble opinion, when payment for con- tributions is made, a detailed statement should be attached. Such and such an article, so much ; the essay entitled - so much; and so on. We should know then exactly how we stood, and maledictions, both loud and deep, would be spared. H. R. G. NEL ““SeconD Epition.”’ Some time ago a friend of mine had a one- volume book published. The first edition of 500 was reported to her as exhausted, and a second was to appear. She then decided to add a dedica- tion, which she sent to the publishers, requesting them to insert it in the forthcoming 500. This they demurred to do, protesting that they did not want a dedication, saw no use in it, &c. The author insisted, however, and the firm then re- quested her to remove the words “ second edition,” which it chanced to include, “ say further edition or new edition’ they directed. My friend asked why they objected to her mentioning that the forthcoming edition was the second! “ Well, you see we had ‘second edition’ stamped across the last two or three hundred sold,” they replied. So out of a first edition of five hundred “two or three hundred” had been going about stamped “second edition.’ My friend was very wrath, but felt powerless, and substituted another word in place of the “second” objected to. I should be glad, sir, to know if this be an old trick or an original one, and also what steps should be taken to prevent the recurrence of such a fraud ? DanrEL Dormer. VII. A ContTRisuToR’s EXPERIENCE. I would like to relate my experience with the Westminster Review. On May 4 last I sent an article to the office of that magazine in Bouverie-street, inclosing with it a stamped and addressed envelope. Not having heard anything about the article by May 29, I wrote asking about it ; and, as by June 7 no reply had arrived, I wrote again, this time 215 inclosing again a stamped and addressed enve- lope. The next day I received a reply stating that the article had been sent to the editor in Paris, and that he would communicate with me from there. I waited till June 18, and on receiving no reply then wrote once more, this time asking for the MS. to be returned. As by June 26 neither the MS. nora reply had come to hand, I called at the offices of Messrs. Henry and OCo., from which the Westminster Review 1s published, and saw one of the representatives. I was informed that my letters had been received and forwarded to the editor in Paris, but that the editor did not pay for articles in the Review. I then stated that I did not want my article to appear, but desired merely to have my MS. returned. I was told that the editor would again be communi- cated with. Thinking that there might still be some diffi- culty in the matter, I placed the case in the hands of the Secretary of the Society, who, after a fair delay, wrote to the editor of the Review on July 11, and asked for the return of the MS. Receiv- ing no answer to this letter, he again wrote on July 20, asking for an answer as a matter of courtesy. In reply, on July 20 the Secretary received a letter from Messrs. Henry and Co. stating that the editorial office was in Paris; that the MS. had been declined by the editor, but through a mistake in the address had been returned through the post, and that the editors have every reason to believe that it has since reached its destina- tion. On July 21 the Secretary wrote thanking them for the information, and stating that he had for- warded the letter to me. On July 29, not having received the MS., I notified the Secretary, who again wrote to the offices in Bouverie-street. A representative from Messrs. Henry and Co. then called at the offices of the Society, and gave him the address of the editor in Paris. On Aug. 2 the Secretary wrote to the editor in Paris a similar letter to that first written to the London office. Receiving no reply, he again wrote on Aug. 16 asking that his letter of the 2nd should be attended to. No notice whatever being taken of either of these letters, on Sept. 30 he wrote again to the editor in Paris, and to Messrs. Henry and Co. asking them if they would expedite matters. On Oct. 13 a letter was received from the editor regretting the loss of the MS., and not offering any suggestion of remedy or compensation. Husert Hass. IX. Anonymous CRITICISM. Perhaps there are no two persons more impor- tant to authors than “readers” and “ critics.” Now, both are anonymous. I see no reason why the first should be any other than nameless, for really when we submit our MS. to a publisher to see if he will buy it of us, on the proviso that he employs a cultivated, large minded, and impartial man, there is no reason why he should not be as unknown to us as any of the members of the publisher’s staff. On the publisher devolves the loss of profit if his “reader” should make any egregious blunder. But the “ critic” is another person altogether, and many think his name ought to be published at the foot of his review. However, I am of opinion that he is quite wel- come to retain his anonymous state. He is the man behind the hedge. He does not choose to step forth and make himself known, give us his counsel, tender us his remonstrances, or offer his praise. As we do not know him or see him, he can call names, or behave in any unseemly way. Giving no name, he is at perfect liberty. You may find, standing for criticism, that your work is by the clearest evidence unread, or he delights to tell you he did not read it. He may miscall your personages, and he may quote you out of your sex. He may show he does not distinguish what was in your several volumes. Vol. 1 he confuses with vol. 3; vol. 2 he will playfully ignore altogether. One thing nevertheless delights him, that is, if you have any speciality about you; if your garb, manner, or diction in any way betray you as foreign—as not the name of the street he comes from—then you are his sport. To enter upon the subject of disagree- ment among critics with reference to anonymity were useless. There is nothing in the circum- stance that one critic may flatly contradict another about your work, but you have the right to feel that, whether approved or not, the work has been thoroughly examined and weighed before being rejected or commended. Even then the individual critic can do but little for you either way, so let him be anonymous still. He is by nature of sufficient anonymity, for he never establishes your book or otherwise. It is the great public which does that, and therefore this casts back the single person as a critic into practical anonymity. INGENUE. “Ingenue” forgets that behind the anonymous critic is the editor, who will not generally allow “unseemly ways.” The experience of “ Ingenue 2 is surely unusual and unfortunate.—Ep. | THE AUTHOR. X. Ports AND ORITICS. Tf it is good to hear the truth in all plainness, or the truth according to the anonymous critic, contemporary poets ought to be happy. The Edinburgh Review makes one wish that one was a modern poet, and they must have been delighted with a notice on their place and work, which appeared in the Pall Mall Gazette otf Oct. 21. It is an article inspired by the paper in the Edinburgh Review, and it contains the following passage, referring to the writer of that article: “His hand is not so heavy as we should wish to see it, nor is his tongue suffi- ciently caustic. His wounds, hard and sore as they may be, will scarcely rankle as we could wish. He has a fine native ferocity. He has not the art of sarcasm by which the poetling can be taught his proper place.” He then goes on to show what this art of sarcasm is by remarking: “Most of our contemporary poets, we rejoice to say, are bad. If they were otherwise than bad we should be compelled to read them, and no one can imagine a more dismal fate.” There is, to paraphrase his own words, “‘a fine native imbecility”” about this Jast sentence, for it places us in a very obvious dilemma. Hither our critic has read these poets, in which case he says what is false by implying that he has not, or else he has not read them, and confesses to having written an article upon poems which are unknown to him. Are we returning to the bludgeon and the dark ages of criticism? A WRITER OF PROSE. — WHAT THE PAPERS SAY. L DrRuMMOND OF HawTrHORNDEN. HE ceremony of unveiling a memorial to the poet William Drummond, of Hawthornden, took place in the churchyard of Lass- wade, Mid Lothian. The memorial consists of a bronze medallion, set in a block of freestone, tastefully carved in the Elizabethan style, and built into the wall immediately over the en- trance to the Drummond mausoleum. Below the medallion is the following inscription:— “William Drummond, Hawthornden, born 1585, died 1649.” The following lines by the poet are also given: Here Damon lies, Whose songs did sometimes grace the murmuring Esk. May roses shade the place! Lord Melville, chairman of the committee, ex-  THe AUTHOR. plained the steps that had been taken for the erection of the memorial, and said he thought they had produced a monument worthy of the poet. He then unveiled the memorial, and form- ally handed it over to the custody of Sir James Drummond, of Hawthornden. Sir James, in returning thanks, said he felt it a very great honour as the representative of the Drummonds of Hawthornden to be entrusted with the custody of the memorial, which would be handed down to future generations as showing the high appre- ciation of the poet’s many virtues. Mr. A. S. Purves, honorary secretary, said the movement to erect the memorial originated after the publi- cation of Professor Masson’s life of the poet. Professor Masson, on behalf of the subscribers, delivered an address, and said that Drummond was the almost solitary literary star of pure radiance in a singularly darksome time of Scottish literary history. In the interval between Sir David Lyndsay and Allan Ramsay there was a singular destitution of pure poetry or literature of any sort in Scotland. Drummond, of Hawthornden, was seen as the soft Italian star, twinkling in that comparatively long night of darkness. Drummond was a pure poet, one of the sweet descriptive, reflective order. He was probably the first man in Scotland who had in his pos- session some of the works of Shakespeare, which he bought in London. He turned out in a controversial age what was the purest in lite- rature. Mr. John Cowan, of Beeslack, Professor Campbell Fraser, and others took part in the proceedings.— Times. II. Bust or TENNYSON. A life-size bust of the late Lord Tennyson has just been executed by Mr. F. J. Williamson, of Esher, for the Corporation of the City of London. It will be placed in the Guildhall, and will pro- bably be unveiled about the end of the present month. It represents the Poet Laureate in his later years, and is pronounced by his family to be an excellent likeness. The Queen, to whom the work has been submitted by the sculptor, has expressed her admiration of it, and has com- manded a replica for Windsor Castle. As a work of art and as a representation of the late poet at the period of life at which he was at the height of his popularity and renown, the bust appears likely to commend itself alike to artistic and to popular tastes, and if copies of it on a smaller scale than the original could be obtained they would no doubt be welcomed as a companion to the well-known bust of Shakespeare.— Times. 217 ITI. Port-Pinerims In SUFFOLK. A party of pilgrims, representing the Omar- Khayyam Club, and other admirers of the Persian poet, went to Boulge Church, near Woodbridge, Suffolk, on Saturday, the 14th, in order to plant on the grave of Edward Fitzgerald a rose tree from the tomb of Omar Khayyam. Mr. William Simpson began the proceedings with the following statement :— “ Gentlemen,—It may be as well to explain to those present the circumstances that have led to the simple ceremony that has, in the name of the Omar-Khayyam Club, taken place to-day. As far back as 1884 I accompanied the Afghan Boundary Commission from Teheran eastwards to Central Asia. Our route passed through Naishapur, which was the capital of Khorassan in the time of Omar Khayy4m. In this city Omar was born, and in it he died. Before reaching Naishapur I began making inquiries about the poet. Our ‘Guest- Conductor,’ who seemed well acquainted with the place, told me that the grave of Omar Khayyam still existed, and promised to take me to it. The city of Omar’s period is now only a mass of mounds, about a couple of miles distant from the present Naishapur. The tomb is only a part of a larger tomb. Knowing that the poet had expressed the wish that the wind might scatter rose leaves on his grave, I was much struck on reaching the spot by finding that rose bushes were growing close to,it, and I naturally guessed that these had been planted there in fulfilment of the poet’s wish by some fond admirer. Our visit took place at the end of October, too late for the roses, but luckily, as it has turned out, the flowers had turned to seed, and I secured some of the hips, as well as a few of the leaves. Knowing that Mr. Quaritch had been so intimately con- nected with the publishing of the Quatrains, I sent him some of the leaves and the seed. “The idea in my mind at the time was that Mr. Quaritch might perhaps plant the hips in a pot at home, and that it would be a satis- faction to have growing beside him a_ rose from the grave of Omar Khayyam. He did not plant it himself, but sent it to Mr. Thistelton Dyer, at Kew, to whom our best thanks are due for the great care and attention he has devoted to this plant. He succeeded in growing a bush from the seeds, but after a year or two of expectation, it became evident that in this climate the rose would not flower; and at last, to realise this result, he grafted it on to an English rose. By this means the Persian rose here planted will now bloom on English soil, a fitting emblem of the manner in which the  218 THE Persian rhymes, by being grafted on to English verse, have flourished, and wafted to us the fine scent of Omar’s poetic words. “T need scarcely say that I feel a satisfaction in having thought of sending home those seeds, which have led to this meeting at the grave of one to whom we all feel such a debt of gratitude for bringing to us the poetry of the old poet of Khorassan. The two names, Omar Khayyam and Edward Fitzgerald, are now inseparable. There was much that was similar in the two men, and had they met here, they would have been friends. If they have met above—and I hope they have—I feel sure that the old ‘ tent maker’ is producing a quatrain on the event of this day. If such is the case it has not reached us; but a quatrain has been communicated from another source, which I think you will agree with me is well fitted for the occa- sion, We are indebted for it to Grant Allen, who deeply regrets that he is not with us to-day. “ Here on Fitzgerald’s grave from Omar’s tomb, To lay fit tribute, pilgrim sinners flock ; Long with a double fragrance let it bloom, This rose of Iran on an English stock.” Two small but healthy-looking rose bushes, about a foot in height, were then unpacked and carefully planted at the head of the tombstone. Mr. Moncure D. Conway siid: “It gives mé very great pleasure as an American from old Virginia, to say how dear to us over there, or to many of us, is the poetry of Omar Khayyam, and how much gratitude we have always felt to Edward Fitzgerald for having not merely translated him, but interpreted him, so that it is almost like the reappearance of Omar Khayyam in an English heart and an English brain. There is about the man who lies in the grave before us, as may be seen in his poetry, a certain personality which wins the affection and touches the heart, so that I never read his verse without feeling a sort of pain that I cannot take his hand and tell him how much I love him—how much I feel the peculiar perception, the fine nature, the delicate thought which were required to reveal such a wonderful genius as Omar Khayyam. That may have been to a certain extent due to the inspira- tion he derived from that wonderful poem, for in reading Omar-Khayyim we feel the same thing—that charm of personality, that feeling when we read his quatrains, that we are convers- ing with a soul, with a heart—not with mere literature, not with a book, but with a man. It is wonderful to find how many people in various parts of the world, of various minds, have been touched by the poetry of Omar Khayy4m as he has been interpreted by Fitzgerald. The poet was dear to Emerson, my old master, when I was at Harvard, and from all parts of my country; indeed, if we AUTHOR. could see and read the hearts of individuals, and they knew we were here, we might feel that we are surrounded by a large group and company of friends and fellow-sympathisers. Here we are in large-hearted England that takes us all in, whether from America, from Persia, or India— England which with sweet toleration includes millions of Bhuddists, Brahmins, and Parsees— here we are, symbolising in a small way that large-heartedness which is now, I believe, the great and living breath of the world, which is keeping peace between jarring religions, stopping their civils wars, and promoting, especially amongst the millions of the East, that mutual toleration and affection which are attended with such vast and beneficial results to mankind.” Mr. Edward Clodd then read the following inscription by Edmund Gosse:— Reign here, triumphant rose, from Omar’s grave, Borne by a fakir o’er the Persian wave ; Reign with fresh pride, since here a heart is sleeping, That double glory to your master gave. Hither let many a pilgrim step be bent To greet the rose, re-risen in banishment ; Here richer crimsons may its cup be keeping, Than brimmed it ere from Naishapur it went. At luncheon, after the ceremony, some further quatrains were read, which had_been written by Mr. Justin Huntly McCarthy. These verses were in poetic harmony with the style and spirit of Fitzgerald’s translation, as the following example will show :— Wedded with rose of England, for a sign That English lips transmitting the divine High-piping music of the song that ends As it began, with wine, and wine, and wine. Across the ages caught the words that fell From Omar’s mouth, and made them audible To the unnumbered sitters at life’s feast Who wear their hearts out over Heav’n and Hell. Ipswich Paper. ee “AT THE SIGN OF THE AUTHOR'S HEAD.” ——+ + R. THEODORE BENT will publish in November (Longmans) a record of a journey in Abyssinia last winter, entitled “The Sacred City of the Ethiopians,” being an account of Aksum and the ruins in its vicinity. Professor D. H. Miiller, of Vienna, has supplied a chapter on the inscriptions brought home by Mr. Bent, the archeological results evolved from them being of the highest interest. The title of Mrs. Spender’s new story is “A Strange Temptation,” three vols. (Hutchinson and Co.)  % ed THE AUTHOR. Mrs. Visger (“J. A. Owen”) has two new books this autumn, the first being ‘‘ With the Woodlanders and by the Tide,’ published by Messrs. Blackwood, is joint work with the work- man naturalist now so well known as ‘A Son of the Marshes.” “J. A. Owen’s” other book is called ‘‘ Forest, Field, and Fell,” and it is pub- lished by Messrs. Lawrence and Bullen. Two new book by Mrs. L. C. Skey, entitled ‘Anime Fidelium” and “That Mrs. Grundy,” are now ready, and may be had from the Arundel Printing and Publishing Company Limited, 3, Arundel-street, Strand, W.C. Price 1s. each. Mr. J. J. Haldane Burgess, M.A., the author of “Rasmie’s Biiddie,” a book of Shetlandic poems, a second edition of which was published last year by Mr. Gardner, Paisley, and Pater- noster-row, London, is at present engaged upon a story of the Scandinavian occupation of the Shetlands. The title of the tale is “ Ragnarok : a Tale of the White Christ.” Mr. Frederick Boyle has collected his scattered writings “ About Orchids,” and this volume will be published by Messrs. Chapman and Hall, under that title early m this month. Itis nota gardening book, but a “ Chat by a literary man” —facts, history, gossip, and stories—upon the most interesting of botanical orders. Messrs. Sander allow Mr. Boyle to illustrate his work with reductions from the superb drawings by Mr. Moon in their famous “ Reichenbachia,”’ the first time such permission has been granted. At the same date Messrs. Chapman and Hall will issue “The Prophet John,’ a romance, by Mr. Frederick Boyle. Will be issued, early in December, a volume of Idylls, “The Way they Loved at Grimpat,’ by G. Rentoul Loler. Mr. J. M. Barrie says, “Further work from this writer will be looked for with lively interest.’’ The publishers Sampson Low and Co. Another of Mr. Bertram Mitford’s tales of South African adventure is announced. Its title is “The Luck of Gerard Ridgeley,” and it will be published this month, in one volume, by Messrs. Chatto and Windus. The Arundel Printing and Publishing Com- pany, of Arundel-street, W.C., are about to pub- lish as a one shilling novel “ That Mrs. Grundy,” by L. C. Skey. In the Ex libris series a second edition of English Book Plates, by Mr. Egerton Castle, is announced, with a coloured frontispiece and additional plates. It includes many examples used by distinguished men of the day. Also “A Hand-book of Printers’ Marks,” by Mr. W. Roberts, which ought to be 219 valuable to the collector. We hope Mr. Gleeson White, the editor of this interesting series, will see his way to a work explaining the various forms of “ Imprimatur.” A new and revised edition of Professor Buchheim’s “ Balladen and Romanzen”’ has recently been published by Messrs. Macmillan in their cheap issue of the “Golden Treasury Series.” The first edition appeared not quite two years ago. Miss Helen M. Burnside’s new story for children, “A Day with the Sea Urchins,” is pub- lished by Messrs. Warne and Co., of Bedford- street, Strand. It contains many little songs set to music by Mr. Myles Birket-Foster, late organist of the Foundling Hospital. “ Tieut. De Brion, R.N.R.,” is the title of the first publication of a new and unknown writer, Alan Oscar. In the criticisms of the book it is pronounced clever and interesting. The book is published by Remington and Co. Price, half-a- crown. A serial story, “For Love or Money,’ now running in the lady’s paper Morget-me-not, is by Miss Marie Connor, joint author with Mr. Connor Leighton of “ Convict 99” and “ Michael Dred,” which have recently been so successful in Answers. A Sussex magazine, entitled Southward Ho! will make its first appearance in December. It is edited under the nom de plume of “ Raymond Jacberns,” the office being at 13, Clyde-road, St. Leonards-on-Sea. A serial story by James Stanley Little will run through the first numbers. The Rev. J. Hamlyn Hill, M.A., formerly Senior Scholar of St. Catherine’s College, Cambridge, has made a complete translation into English of “ Tatianss Diatessaron.’’ No complete translation has yet appeared in our tongue, though two attempts have been made. He has made it, in the first place, from Ciasca’s Latin version, and then the result has been compared word for word with the Arabic. The extracts found in Ephraem’s Commentary have also been translated by Mr. Hill from Dr. Moesinger’s Latin; and Professor Armitage Robinson is now at Venice correcting this translation by means of the Armenian MSS. there. The work will be published by Messrs. T. and T. Clark in the autumn, in a binding uniform with the Ante- Nicene Library. “A Life Awry”’ is the title of a three-volume novel by Perceval Pickering. There are pathetic notes in the book, but a deformed and ugly heroine requires the touch of a Charlotte Bronté to make the reader sympathetic. The publishers are Messrs. Bliss, Sands, and Foster.  220 Mr. Francis Henry Cliffe has sent us a volume of translation of the poems of Leopardi and a tive-act tragedy in blank verse “ The Fatal Ring” —that is, the ring Queen Elizabeth gave to Essex It is fully copyrighted, and permission to perform it must be obtained from the author. We have received “ A Child’s Religion,” by the author of “Jesus, the Carpenter of Nazareth” (Kegan Paul), a work intended to assist in teach- ing religion to the young. It deserves a trial if only for its evident sincerity. The “ Confessions of a Woman”? is the title of an anonymous volume to be published by Messrs Farran and Co. Professor Hales has brought out, under the title of “Folia Litteraria: Essays and Notes on English Literature,” a collection of his literary productions during the last twenty years. The longer critical essays were contributed to the Contemporary, Fraser, and Macmillan’s Maga- zine, and the rest are contributions to the Athenseum and Academy, dealing with linguistic and other subjects requiring minute research. The varied range of Professor Hales’s studies renders it impossible that any reader should fail to find the work of great interest. We have received “The Strange Adventures of Anelay Moreland,” by R. Shelton Gresson ; “ The Sin and the Woman,” by Derek Vane; and “The Poems of Leopardi,’ a translation by F. H. Cliffe. Published by Messrs. Rivington and Co. « God’s Will and other Stories,” by Ilse Frapan, translated by A. Macdonald (Fisher Unwin), is a volume of a little more than 200 pages, in which are six stories. ‘“God’s Will ’ is the first, occu- pying haif the book. It is a romance of village life, in which the reader is not conscious of there having been any suggestion of a plot till almost the last page. The conflicting love interests are so skilfully concealed that one sister has to take the place of another as a bride during the marriage service, The five other stories are very slight, “The Qld Bookkeeper” and “A Christmas Story” being especially pretty and romantic. ee THE AUTHOR. NEW BOOKS AND NEW EDITIONS. Theology. Buake, Rev. EveRARD. Good News from Heaven: twelve sermons. Skeffington, Piccadilly. Brooks, Rr. Rey. Puiuurrs, D.D. The Mystery of Tniquity, and other sermons. Macmillan. 5s. CAMBRIDGE SERMONS, preached before the University in St. Mary’s Church, 1889-1892. Selected and edited by QC. H. Prior, M.A. Methuen. 6s. Exewt, Rev. J.S. The Biblical Illustrator. The Acts, Vol. Il. James Nisbet. 7s. 6d. Farrar, F. W., D.D. The Lord’s Prayer: Sermons preached in Westminster Abbey. Isbister and Co: 38. Od. Gurxiz, CunnincHAM, D.D. The Bible by Modern Light, being an entirely new edition, largely rewritten, of “ Hours with the Bible,’ Vol. I. (Creation to the Patriarchs). 6s. Gipson, Rev. J.G. Stepping Stones to Life : a series of plain sermons. 3s. 6d. GowEn, Rev. H. W. The Kingdom of Man: Sermons. Skeffington and Sons. Ler Rev. J.T. The Power of a Blameless Life and other sermons. Skeffington and Son. ROBERTSON, ProrEessor, D.D. The Old Testament and its. Contents. A. and C. Black. Paper Covers, 6d. net. Simcox, Rev. W.H. The Revelation of St. John, with Notes and introduction. Revised by G. A. Simcox, M.A. Cambridge University Press. Smitu, Rev. J. BarnpripGe. English Orders: whence obtained. Skeffington and Sons. SrERLING-BERRY, T., D.D. Holy Scripture ; Human, Pro- gressive, Divine, S.P.C.K. 2s. TuumB PRAYER-Book, THE. Pearl, 128mo, printed on Oxford India paper. Henry Frowde. Variorum TEACHER’S BIBLE, with various renderings and readings from the best authorities, and the aids to the student of the Holy Bible. Eyre and Spottiswoode. Wank yn, Rev. J. H., M.A. The Lessons of Holy Scrip- ture, Illustrated from the Poets, In8 vols. Vol. L., Genesis to Ruth. Subscribers’ copy. Bemrose and Sons, Limited. Wuirtuck, CHARLES A. Recent Religious Thought. The Church of England and Macmillan. 7s. 6d. History and Biography. Atrrep, Lorp TENNYSON, AND HIS FRIENDS. A series of twenty-five portraits and frontispiece in photogravure from the negatives of Mrs. Julia M. Cameron, with reminiscences by Anne Thackeray Ritchie, and an introduction by H. H. Hay Cameron. Edition de Luxe, limited to 400 copies, and issued to subscribers on the anniversary of Lord Tennyson’s death (Oct. 6). T. Fisher Unwin. £6 6s. Auucrort, A. H. The Making of the Monarchy: A History of Rome, 78-31 B.c. W. B. Clive, University Correspondence College Press. AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF THEOBALD WOLFE TONE, 1763-1798, The. Edited, with an introdnction, by R. Barry O’Brien. Two vols. Fisher Unwin. 328. Batuson, Epwarp. A History of Northumberland, issued under the direction of the Northumberland County History Committee. Vol. I., the Parish of Bamburgh, with the chapelry of Belford. Simpkin, Marshall; and Reid, Sons, and Co., Newcastle-upon-Tyne.  THE Bayuis, T. H., Q.C. The Temple Church and Chapel of St. Ann. Geo. Philip and Son. 7s. 6d. BRISBANE, REDELIA. Albert Brisbane: a mental biography, with a character study. By his Wife. Arena Pub- lishing Company, Boston, Mass. British East AFRICA OR Ippa. A History of the Forma- tion and Work of the Imperial British East Africa Company. Compiled by P. L. M‘Dermott, Assist. Sec. Chapman and Hall. CALVERT, Epwarp. Memoir of Edward Calvert, artist. By his third son. Illustrated with reproductions from his own paintings and sketches. Limited to 350 copies. Sampson Low. £3 3s. Farrar, F. W., D.D. Our English Ministers. With ’ illustrations by Herbert Railton and others. Isbister and Co. 3s. 6d. Groves, Lizut.-Cou. Percy. Illustrated Histories of the Scottish Regiments. Book No 3. Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders (79th Foot). Illustrated by Harry Payne. W. and A. K. Johnston. 3s. net. Hitt, Gzorerana. A History of English Dress, from the Saxon period to the present day. 2 vols. Bentley. Historical RecoxDs OF THE 14TH REGIMENT from 1685 to 1892. Edited by Captain H. O’Donnell. Printed for subscription by A. H. Swiss, 111 and 112, Fore- street, Devonport. 21s. net. Joyce, HERBERT, C.B. The History of the Post Office, from its establishment down to 1836. Bentley. Kinesrorp, Witiiam, LL.D. The History of Canada. 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Title A name given to the resource The Author, Vol. 04 Issue 06 (November 1893) Subject The topic of the resource <em>The Author</em>, Vol. 04 Issue 06 (November 1893) Type The nature or genre of the resource Publication Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1893-11-01-The-Author-4-6 publications The Author https://historysoa.com/files/original/5/457/1893-12-01-The-Author-4-7.pdf 0956c91c846381ee83d64d12ddc90b55 PDF Text Text ���������������������������������������������� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Author Subject The topic of the resource <em>The Author</em> Description An account of the resource A digitised run of the Society of Authors' monthly periodical, <em>The Author</em>, 1890<span>–</span>1914, made available together for the first time.<br /><br />Currently users can browse issues and <a href="https://historysoa.com/items/browse?search=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Index&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;tags=&amp;exhibit=&amp;date_search_term=&amp;submit_search=Search+For+Items&amp;sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CTitle">indices</a> (not available for all volumes). Full text search for all issues, and other additional search functionality, will be added in 2022. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1890–1914 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context The-Author-Issues Publication Date The date of an event (in YYYY, YYYY-MM or YYYY-MM-DD format) 1893-12-01 Volume 4 Issue 7 Pages Page range in volume 229–280 Ngram Date Version of the date in YYYYMMDD format for use by the Ngram plugin 18931201 Ngram Text Version of the text with no HTML formatting for use by the Ngram plugin The Hutbor. (The Organ of the Incorporated Society of Authors. Monthly.) BONDUCTED BY WALTER SESANT. Vou. IV.—No. 7.] DECEMBER 1, 1803. [Prick SIXPENCE. i PAGE Warnings and Advice Book Talk. By J. W.S.... as wee aoe Ae cee eer How to use the Society The Lowell Memorial in Westminster Abbey... ee eae ap eee ae Authors’ Syndicate Thackeray's Women— otices ... Bes ane as ves ee bee 4.—By J. Hill The Annual General Meeting of the Society ... ae os oe 5.—By Jessie Barker ... os one ee os Certain Useful Facts— - American Women as Journalists. By Elizabeth Banks 1.—On Corrections oes eee ae ae rae vee see 233 The Society of Authors and Copyright Questions ... oe «+. 253 2.—On Deferred Royalti 234 Pas Son Rahal oo + nes <= ss see "O35 Correspondence.—1l. A Dubious Charge.—2. Left to Pay.—3. The Lit oP oes a — i are i: Sess | Editor again.—4. Beyond the Agreement —5. Why rejected ? : on OG, Brothers 6. The Germans’ Turn. —7. Authors and _ Publishing.— ; ae oo . — s. Literary Insurance.—9. Illustrations —10. Religion in Daily — f ce : Life ... <a ae ES fae vee oe ts as ves 260 | Oa i tiection ** At the Sign of the Author’s Head”... cee Sco aye wan 269 5.—A Nondescript Agreement oe os What the Papers say— Dal oo ay 6.—What Constitutes a Claim to Copyright? eke Penny N oveletia. Pa 1 Mall Gazette oa a 27) Omnium Gatherum for December. By J. M. Lely ... SS Pronunciations. By Andrew Tuer. St James The Lit , Agent. the Editor e a | razette See me Se es eae Res She mee eee es ee By she Hii: | 3.—The Humourist’s Regimen. By Robert Barr 272 Erotion. By William Toynbee Eas ae one Notes and News. By the Editor... tbe aes a 4.—Advertising as a Fine Art. By W. T. Stead. Daily Feuilleton— Paper... ae nee tee ace Js 273 1._The Leaden Plum ... toe s es pe sae wee 244 5.—Lectures and Libraries. City Press eee see we 274 2—The Island of the Dead... 2 ae ae ane sige a tO New Books and New Editions... see es is ees sen OU PUBLICATIONS OF THE SOCIETY. 1. The Annual Report. That for January 1893 can be had on application to the Secretary. 9. The Author. A Monthly Journal devoted especially to the protection and maintenance of Literary Property. Issued to all Members. 3. The Grievances of Authors. (The Leadenhall Press.) 1s. The Report of three Meetings on the general subject of Literature and its defence, held at Willis’s Rooms, March, 1887. Literature and the Pension List. By W. Morris Coxuus, Barrister-at-Law. (Henry Glaisher, g5, Strand, W.C.) 35. + 6. The History of the Société des Gens de Lettres. By 5. Squire Srriacr, late Secretary to 6 the Society. Is. The Cost of Production, In this work specimens are given of the most important forms of type, size of page, &c., with estimates showing what it costs to produce the more common kinds of books. Henry Glaisher, 95, Strand, W.C. 2s. 6d. 7, The Various Methods of Publication. By S. Squire Spriaae. In this work, compiled from the papers in the Society’s offices, the various forms of agreements proposed by Publishers to Authors are examined, and their meaning carefully explained, with an account of the various kinds of fraud which have been made possible by the different clauses in their agreements. Henry Glaisher, 95, Strand, W.C. 3s. 8. Copyright Law Reform, An Exposition of Lord Monkswell’s Copyright Bill now before Parlia- ment. With Extracts from the Report of the Commission of 1878, and an Appendix containing the Berne Convention and the American Copyright Bill. By J. M. Leny. Eyre and Spottiswoode. ts. 6d. . The Society of Authors. A Record of its Action from its Foundation. By WauTEer BrEsanr (Chairman of Committee, 1888—1892). 1s. oO  ADVERTISEMENTS. IMPORTANT TO AUTHORS AND ARTISTS. AN AUTHOR’S CO-OPERATIVE PUBLISHING COMPANY. E IMPERIAL PREss ro ED. Registered by Special Permission of the Government. PROVISIONAL DIRECTORATE : JOHN HAWKINGS, Esq., Manager and Proprietor of the | FRANCIS GEORGE HEATH, Esq., Underwood, Kew Central Press, 22, Parliament-street, S.W. Gardens, Surrey. SAMUEL STEPHENS, Esq., 9, Stone-buildings, Lincoln’s-inn, W.C. (With power to add to their number.) CAPITAT. = = = = = £25,000 DIVIDED INTO 25,000 SHARES OF £1 EACH. Payable: 5s. per Share on Application, 5s. per Share on Allotment, and the balance in calls at intervals of not less than One Month. 230 “The Imperial Press” Limited has been formed to afford to those of its members who are Artists or Authors the unique advantage of Sharing, as publishers as well as originators, in the Profits accruing from their own works, and (to the extent to which they are Shareholders) in the General Profits of the Business. N.B.—Authors will have free access to all accounts, papers, or books of the undertaking relating to their own productions. Copies of the Prospectus may be obtained at the Offices of the Company, The Sociefy of Authors (Bncorporated). PRESIDENT. GHORGH MBEREDITE. COUNCIL. Str Epwin ARNo_Lp, K.C.LE., C.S.1. Tue Eart or DEsartT. Lewis Morris. ALFRED AUSTIN. AusTINn Dosson. Pror. Max MULLER. J. M. Barrie. A. W. Dupoure. J. C. PARKINSON. A. W. A Brecxert. J. Eric Ericusen, F.R.S8. Tur EARL oF PEMBROKE AND Mont- RoBERT BATEMAN. Pror. Micuart Foster, F.R.S. GOMERY. Str Henry Berens, K.C.M.G. Rieot Hon. HERBERT GARDNER, Str FREDERICK Po.tock, BArt., LL.D. WALTER BESANT. M.P. WALTER HERRIES POLLOCK. AUGUSTINE BIRRELL, M.P. RicHaRD GARNETT, LL.D. A. G. Ross. Rev. Pror. Bonney, F.RB.S. EpmMuND GossE. GrorGEe AuausTuS SALA. Rieut Hon. James Bryce, M.P. H. River HaGearp. W. BAprisTE ScooNngEs. HA CAINE. Tuomas Harpy. G. R. Sms. EGERTON CAstTLe, F.S.A. JEROME K. JEROME. S. Squire SPRIGGE. P. W. CLAYDEN. Rupyarp KIPuine. J. J. STEVENSON. EpwaArp CLopp. Pror. E. Ray LANKESTER, F.R.S. Jas. SULLY. W. Morris Couues. J. M. LEty. Wiiiiam Moy THomas. Hon. JoHN COLLIER. Rev. W. J. Lorrie, F.S.A. H. D. Traitt, D.C.L. W. Martin Conway. Pror. J. M. D. MEIKLEJONN. Baron Henry DE Worms, M.P., 2s F. Marion CRAWFORD. HERMAN C. MERIVALE. FE.R.S. OswaLD CRAWFURD, C.M.G. Rev. C. H. MrppLteton-WaAkgz. EpmunpD YATES. Hon. Counsel—E. M. UnpERDOWwN, Q.C. Solicitors—Messrs. Fraup, Roscox, and Co., Lincoln’s Inn Fields. , Accountants—Messrs. OscaR Burry and Carr, Monument-square, H.C. Secretary—G. HerBert THRine, B.A. wy OFEICES: 4, Portuaat Street, Linconn’s Inn Fruups, W.C.  Che Flutbor. (The Organ of the Incorporated Society of Authors. Monthly.) CONDUCTED BY WALTER BESANT. Vou. IV.—No. 7.] DECEMBER 1, 1893. [Prick 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. : ge 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 on all subjects connected with literature, but on no other subjects what- ever. Articles which cannot be accepted are returned if stamps for the purpose accompany the MSS. re 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 :— 1. SprraL 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 1T.—Remember that an arrangement as to a 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. Lirerary AcEntTs.—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 OF PropuctTion.-—Never sign any agreement of which the alleged cost of production forms an integral part, until you have proved the figures. 6. CHorcEe 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 accownt whatever, bind yourself down for future work to anyone. 8. Royatry.—Never accept any proposal of royalty until you have ascertained what the agreement, worked out on poth a small and a large sale, will give to the author and what to the publisher. g. PERSONAL Risk.—Never accept any pecuniary risk or responsibility whatever without advice. 10. ResEctED 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 Ricuts.—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. Cesston or Copyricgut.—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. Te  232 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 Fieups. Coo HOW TO USE THE SOCIETY. 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 sofar. 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. oe 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 vooking 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. set 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 ; ; { 3  = 4% THE AUTHOR. 233 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 canbe procured; but a printer’s, or a binder’s, bill is so elastic a thing that nothinz more exact can be arrived at. Some remarks have been made upon the amount charged in the “ Cost of Production” for advertising. Ofcourse, 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. spe<t THE GENERAL MEETING OF THE SOCIETY. HE formal general meeting to adopt the iL report of 1892 was held at the rooms of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society, 20, Hanover-square, W., on Thursday, Nov. 23, at five o’clock p.m. 1n the absence of Sir Frederick Pollock, the chairman, Mr. J. M. Lely was voted into the chair. The chairman then proposed that the report should be taken as read,as it had already been circulated to all the members earlier in the year, and he made a short speech commenting on the success of the Society during the current year. He touched on the case of Macdonald v. The National Review ; and explained the importance of the case to all authors. He then spoke of the Chicago conference, and the fact that Mr. Besant and Mr. 8. S. Sprigge, as representatives of the Society, acted as delegates free of expense to the Society. He then made some remarks about the current copyright law, and suggested that, if it were impossible to bring in a law codifying the copyright law as generally, it might be possible to bring in a law amending the most serious faults in the present state of copyright. These serious faults he grouped under four heads: Dramatisation of Novels, Abridgment, Magazine Copyright under the 18th section of the Act of 1842, and Newspaper Copyright. He further stated that the Society had pro- gressed in numbers and power during the current year, and that 1140 members was the present number on the books. Lastly, he invited any member present to bring forward any other points for the consideration of the Society, touching the Report or otherwise. Sir William Thomas Charley, Q.C., then got up and thanked the secretary for the valuable help and infor- mation he had given with regard to some matters he had laid before him. As the meeting was merely formal, and none of the members present had points that they cared to discuss, the adoption of the report was moved by Mr. J. M. Lely and seconded by Sir W. T. Charley. Mr. Arthur 4 Beckett then moved a vote of thanks to the chairman, which was seconded by Capt. Claude Harding, who thanked the chairman for the interest he had always taken in the Society from its commencement, and the labour he had bestowed as a lawyer on the copyright laws. The vote of thanks was carried unanimously, and the meeting then dissolved. 2 0 CERTAIN USEFUL FACTS. I.—On Corrections. NE of the most interesting items in a pub- lisher’s account is that called ‘“ author's corrections,” and one of the most valuable features in Mr. Sprigge’s ‘“‘ Methods of Publish- ing” is his exposure of the casual way in which this item is charged. It is there shown that the allowance to be made the author for corrections varies from one agree- ment to another; there is no fixed rule; there is not even uniformity of practice in the same firm. The following cases are cited : (1) The author is allowed ros in all for cor- rections. After that he has to pay for them. In the book referred to it means 6d. a sheet. (2) He is allowed tos. per sheet for corrections. (3) Nothing is said about corrections. (4) The sum of £6 was allowed for the author. (5) The sum of £3 was allowed. (6) Nothing was said about corrections, but the author was liable for “any loss” in the pub- lication of the book. (7) The author was allowed 10s. per sheet of sixteen pages. Thus it is proved that there is no uniform charge. But what do these varied forms of limitation mean? What are “corrections to the extent of 10s. a sheet of sixteen pages ?”  234 Tt has been ascertained that whatever sum was named in the publisher’s account the price charged by the printer for corrections was 1s, 2d. or 1s. 3d. an hour. This is something gained. It enables an author, for example, to show that a charge for £106 13s. made in a certain account for corrections, meant the work of one man for 1706 hours, so that at eight hours a day it meant one man’s work for 213 days and two hours, or 35 weeks, three days, and two hours, or eight months, three weeks, three days, and two hours ! Now, the setting up of the whole book could be done in much less time. Obviously, therefore, the charges made for corrections are often merely capricious—or worse. The first duty of the author is to satisfy him- self that the charge has been rea'ly made by the printer and really paid by the publisher. Here, however, is an attempt to connect work with time as well as time with money. Inexperienced persons correct expensively because they are inexperienced. They may note the following points: 1. The mere substitution of one word for another about the same length can be done in three or four minutes—say, in three minutes and a half, Therefore, this kind of correction allows about seventeen words in an hour, and costs 1s. 3d. an hour. 2. If, however, the author strikes out half a line bodily, so that the type has to be shifted for some lines or for a quarter of a page, the single correction may cause work for ten minutes or half an hour, or even longer. This is all that can be said about the connection between work and time. Let the author remember not to disturb the lines, and he will probably avoid a long bill for corrections. A safe rule is to have duplicate proofs, and to enter the corrections on both proots. In case of dispute the copy kept can be referred to. To sum up. The allowance of tos. a sheet means about eight hours’ work per sheet, or about 136 words—a very fair allowance. A better plan stil], though it means a tax on the author, is to type write the whole at a charge of 1s. to 1s. 3d. per thousand words, or about £4 for a book of 70,000 words, correct, it care- fully, and hand it in to the printer as a first proof corrected for press. II—Tue Dererrep Royatry. “Tn consideration of a royalty of 2d. in the shilling on the published price, to begin when two thousand copies have been sold.” THE AUTHOR. We take a six-shilling novel. An edition of 3000 was printed. The following was the cost (see “ Cost of Pro- duction,” p. 27): Composition, 17 sheets at £1 7s. 6d. £ s. d, per sheeh oe 23 7 © Printing, 17 sheets at 16s. 2d. per sheet... 21.2260 eee eG 13 14 Paper cgccreec i ee Binding, at 5d. a volume ............... 62 10 0 Advertisine (,...0.. ee se 25 0 © Moulding, at 5s. a sheet................. 4 5 © Stereoty ping, at gs. asheet ............ 713 6 Corrections: ....5..65005 bo 210.9 #185 10 | It would be only in the case of a book pretty certain to prove successful that a publisher would begin with an edition of 3000. The price of the book to the trade would be generally 3s. 73d. We may however, making allowance for bad debts, call it 3s. 6d. We have, thus, these figures : By the first 1500 copies— £ sd The publisher would gain ............ 76.19 98 The author would gain ............... Nil. By the first 2000 copies— The publisher would gain ............ The author would gain ............... By the first 3000 copies— The publisher would gain ............ 289 9 8 The author would gain ............... 50.0.0 164 9 8 Nil. It may be said that is an extreme case, and one not likely to happen. But such a proposal was actually made, a short time ago, to a very distinguished man of letters, that his royalty should begin after 2000 copies. Or, a deferred royalty may be proposed to begin after 400 or 500 copies. It is often deferred beyond the point where the circulation is likely to end. And the royalty that is then offered gives the publisher by far the greater share. For instance, suppose a royalty of 2d. in the shilling, to begin on such a 6s. book after 500 copies are sold. The cost of the first thousand (all copies bound) would be, approximately, £100. If only 500 are bound, about £90. : The sale of 500 copies (supposing only 500 bound) brings in £87 10s., showing that the pub- lisher has thus recouped his expenditure. The sale of the next 450 (allowing 50 for Press copies) brings in £78 15s. ‘I'hese copies have to be bound at a cost of about £10. The author takes £22 10s., the publisher about £46—more than twice as much. If, however, under a deferred royalty to begin  THE AUTHOR. 235 after 500 copies, the book is such that the pub- lisher can reckon on a large sale, and can print 3000 copies, the following is the pleasing result : The publisher makes £215 The author makes £125 On a royalty of 2d. in the shilling from the begining the author makes £150 and the pub- lisher £190, so that in everyone of these cases the publisher gets the better of the author. If a deferred royalty is offered, care must be taken to ascertain (1) whether the postponement covers all, or more than, the cost of production ; and (2) what the royalty afterwards proposed means. For instance, a royalty of 2d. in the shilling to begin after the cost of production is defrayed, thus : First, a certain number having defrayed the cost, there remains of the edition of 1000, say of a 12s. book, 400 copies. They sell at about 7s. 6d. a copy. The 400 copies realise £150. The author takes £40. The publisher takes £110. The deferred royalty, therefore, it will be seen, may become a most potent means of defrauding the author, and in such a proposal it is above all things necessary to work out the figures carefully before signing. i by this arrangement. II[.—On Spectat, or RepucEep, PRICEs. A publisher, writing recently in the Athenxun, tried to make a great point of the wonderful difficulties presented by special sales; .e., sales at a reduced price, to meet exceptional circumstance —in plain language, to “ make a deal.” Now, it may very well happen that in order that this deal may be made, the publisher may sacrifice books in which the author has an interest in order torun books entirely his own. Therefore, it would be quite right to insist on the mainten- ance of the royalty—if there is a royalty—what- ever the publisher’s terms may be, and to insist on the usual trade terms if it isa profit-sharing agree- ment. A better plan would be to have nothing whatever to do with a publisher who proposed to reduce terms in order to suit his own convenience, unless the author chooses to sell his interest outright on terms to be agreed upon, with the help of someone who understands these things. Suppose, however, that circumstances arise which may make it desirable for “ special” terms, the author being consulted in this matter. We may consider the approximate figures as a guide. The ordinary 6s. volume is taken, which costs (approximately) 1s. a copy when an edition of 3000 is printed, and sells for 3s. 73d. (gene- rally) a copy. This shows a profit of 2s. 73d. on every copy, supposing the whole edition of 3000 to go off. A royalty of 21°9, or nearly 22 per cent., gives author and publisher half profits. If, f.r any reason, special terms are offered, say at 2s. a copy instead of 3s. 75d., the profit is reduced to 1s. a copy, and the royalty, giving half profit to both publisher and author, would be reduced to 83 per cent. But in the case of a large success a half profit system is unfair, because it puts the services of administration and collection on an equality with the work of crea- tion, so that the preceding must only be taken as an illustration. eas LITERARY PROPERTY. I.—Hieu Court oF 'Justice—CHANCERY Division. (Before Mr. Justice STrRLING.) RUSKIN UV. COPE BROTHERS AND CO. (LIMITED). This was a motion on behalf of Mr. John Ruskin, the well-known author, asking for an injunction to restrain the defendants from selling or offering for sale any book or works being piracies of the plaintiff's works or infringements of his copyright therein, and particularly a book entitled ‘Cope’s Smokeroom Booklets, No. 13. . John Ruskin.” The defendants were manu- facturers of and dealers in tobacco, and it appeared that for advertising purposes they had published a series of booklets consisting of extracts from the works of celebrated authors, prefaced by introductory notices and accom- panied by advertisements of their tobacco and cigars. It was their practice to send these book- lets out with the goods sold by them, and, although a small price was put upon them, they alleged that it was not their practice to offer them for sale, and that they had in fact not sold them for profit. The particular booklet in question in this action consisted almost entirely of passages reprinted from Mr. Ruskin’s ‘‘ Fors Clavigera,”’ and it appeared that as soon as it came to the knowledge of Mr. Ruskin’s secretary the writ in this action was immediately issued. An injunc- tion was now applied for in the same terms. Mr. Buckley, Q.C.. and Mr. Bramwell Davis appeared for the plaintiff. Mr. Hastings, Q.C. (with whom was Mr. Dunham), for the defendants, said that he could not dispute that what had been done was legally wrong ; but as soon as the defendants found out that Mr. Ruskin objected to it they at once took steps to call in the copies already issued by them, As counsel on behalf of the defendants, he was willing to submit to a perpetual injunction in  236 the terms of the notice of motion, and his clients were ready to give an undertaking not to issue any further copies of the booklet and to do their best to get in the copies which they had already called in, and to make an affidavit verifying the number of copies published and the disposal thereof, and to deliver up to the plaintiff for cancellation all such parts of the booklets in their possession as were piracies of the plaintiff's works, and, moreover, to pay the costs of the action. They were also willing that the hearing of the motion should be treated as the trial of the action. These terms having been accepted by the plain- tiff, the case came to an end.—From the Tvmes, Nov. 25, 1893. : TI.—Botron County Court. (Before His Honour Judge Jones.) ACTION BY A JOURNALIST ARTIST. Charles George Harper, artist, of London, who was represented by Mr. Cannot, barrister, in- structed by Messrs. Judge and Priestley, London, sued Messrs. Tillotson and Son for £30 9s. 10d., alleged to be due for drawings and contributions supplied by him for publication in the Wheeler. Mr. M. Fielding, solicitor, appeared for the defence.—Mr. Cannot said plaintiff was an artist of distinction, and a contributor to various impor- tant newspapers of sketches and articles upon topics of interest. On March 26, 1892, he received a communication inviting contributions, and plaintiff thereupon sent a letter with a sketch and an article, fixing his price. From April, 1892, down to June, 1893, he supplied various drawings and sketches, amounting in all to £81 14s. 10d. Certain of these were used, and £51 5s. had been paid to him for them. The balance constituted the claim. The reason that had not been paid was that defendants contended they had not to pay for things they did not use, but plaintiffs contention was that their letters indicated an agreement that he should send them sketches and articles for which he should be paid whether used or not.—Mr. Fielding intimated that his defence was that his clients were not to pay for unused material.—A lot of correspondence was then gone through by Mr. Cannot. In conclusion he pointed out that defendants had mistaken their legal position. The fact that they had received certain blocks established plaintiff's claim —Harper was then sworn. He tendered evidence in accordance with counsel’s opening statement. In cross- examination he admitted that many of his drawings would have been just as good three years hence as they would if published in 1892. —Mr. Fielding, for the defence, remarked it THE AUTHOR. might have been better had the parties had a more explicit agreement. Harper had been told both in Bolton and at the Crystal Palace that he was not to be paid until articles were used.— Mr. Wm. Fairhurst deposed to having several conversations with Harper, whom he told they would not pay for unused matter. Further, Harper admitted to him, in regard to another case, that the contributor ought not to be paid till the contributions were used.—Mr. Win. Brimelow, one of the partners in the firm of defendants, said he also told Harper they did not pay for unused contributions. Cross- examined by Mr. Cannot, he said they could keep matter sent to them till the sender requested its resurn.—His Honour summed up, and held that the letter early in 1892 was an agreement that Harper should be paid whether his contri- butions were used or not. The subsequent con- versations did. not constitute a fresh agreement. He gave a verdict for the plaintiff, less £2 2s., the price of a drawing rejected.—Bolton Evening News. Til.—“ A Royvauty AGREEMENT, The following is a printed form tendered recently to an author :— “Memorandum of agreement made this day of between (author), for himself, his executors, administrators, and assigns, of the one part, and (publisher), for himself, his executors, administrators, and assigns, of the other part. Whereas the author is the proprietor of the copy- right in a work entitled , which he has requested the publisher to publish on the terms and conditions hereinafter appearing, it is hereby agreed between the author and publisher as follows :— 1. The author guarantees that there is copy- right in the said work in the United Kingdom, and that he is the proprietor thereof. Should the publication of the said work subject the pub- lisher to any legal proceedings, civil or criminal, the author undertakes to indemnify the publisher against all fines, damages, costs, expenses, OF liabilities which the publisher may incur in or in connection with such legal proceedings. 2. Subject to the provisions of this agreement, the publisher shall have the sole right to publish the said work in the British Dominions during the term of copyright by law conferred therein upon the author, and shall further have the sole right as between himself and the author, to publish the said work in all other countries unless and untii the right of publication in any such country is assigned as provided in clauses 9 and 10 hereof. 3. All details as to the time and manner of  THE AUTHOR. publication, production, and advertisement, and the number and destination of free copies, sball be left to the sole discretion of the publisher, who shall bear all expenses of production, publication, and advertisement, except the amount (if any) by which the cost of corrections of proofs, other than printer’s errors, at per printer's invoice, exceeds an average of five shillings per sheet of sixteen pages of printed matter, which amount shall be borne by the author. 4. When the first or any later edition of the said work has been sold out, the publisher shall not be bound to reprint the said work if he con- siders its past sale not to warrant such reprint ; but if, when any such edition is exhausted, the publisher shall not, within one month after receiving a request in writing from the author to publish a further edition, decide to publish such further edition, the author shall be at liberty to make such arrangements as he thinks fit for the publication of any further edition or editions of the said work, provided that he take over the moulds, stereo-plates, or electro-plates, or other similar plant used for or taken from any previous edition at their net cost as per invoice. 5. The published price of the first edition shall, on publication, be 3s. 6d. per copy, but the publisher shall have the power in his discretion to alter the published price of any edition as he may think fit, and to sell the residue of any edition at a reduced price, or as a remainder. 6. Subject to the payment of the royalties hereinafter mentioned, all proceeds of the sale of editions, remainders, or copies of the said work in the British dominions, or elsewhere, shall be received by and be the property of the publisher. 7. The author shall be entitled to receive on publication, six presentation copies of the first edition of the work, and three copies of every subsequent edition, and shall be entitled to pur- chase further copies for personal use at half the published price net. 8. The publisher shall pay to the author no royalty on the first 1000 copies sold, but on all copies after the said 1000 have been disposed of the publisher shall deliver to the author on the 29th day of September in each year a statement of the number of copies sold, whether singly, or in editions, or remainders, and whether in the British dominions or elsewhere, during the year before the preceding 30th day of March, with the price or prices at which such copies were sold, and shall, at the time of such delivery, pay to the author on all such copies sold at above half their published price a royalty of 10 per cent. on their published price, and all such copies sold at or below half their published price, a royalty of 10 per cent. on the net receipts of such sales. In VOL, Iv. 237 calculating such royalties, thirteen copies shall be reckoned as twelve, and no royalties shall be paid upon any copies presented to the author, or others, or to the Press, or upon copies destroyed by fire. g. Except as provided in clause [reference omitted, but apparently 11] hereof, the copy- right, whether English or foreign, in the said work, including the rights of translation, drama- tisation, and publication of any dramatic version thereof, shall not be sold, assigned. or trans- ferred by the author, either as a whole, or for a limited time, or over a limited space, without the consent of the publisher. 10. In the case of works which have not copy- right in the United States, and in view of the frequent necessity of immediate action in such cases, the publisher shall have full power, without consulting the author, to sell, assign, or transfer advance rights, or stereo-plates, electro-plates, or shells of the said work for use in the United States, together with ‘control of the market,” meaning thereby an agreement that no right to publish the said work in the United States shall be sold or assigned to any other person by the author or original publisher thereof, and the author agrees to execute on request any do ‘ument which may be necessary or expedient to carry this clause into effect. 11. That the proceeds of the sale or transfer of copyright, as defined in clause 9 hereof, or of the sale, transfer, or assignment of any of the interests defined in clause 10 hereof, for use in the United States, shall be received by the publisher, and be divided in the proportion of one-half to the author and one-half to the publisher, such amounts to be payable as and when provided in clause 8 hereof. In the case of stereo-plates, electro-plates, or shells, sold under clause 10 hereof, the net proceeds of the sale, after deducting the invoiced cost of their production, shall be received, divided, and paid over in the same way. 12. The author undertakes, at the request of the publisher, and on receiving a suitable indem- nity against costs (if any), to take all proceed- ings necessary to enforce his copyright in the said work, whether in the British dominions or else- where, and to allow his name to be used by the publisher in all proceedings, and to comply with all formalities of registration or deposit of copies necessary to acquire or protect copyright, whether in the United Kingdom or elsewhere, aid to allow his name to be used by the pub- lisher for the purpose of compliance with such formalities. 13. The author guarantees to buy from the publisher for cash 500 copies at 2s. per copy U 238 net. As witness the hands of the parties hereto, the day of the year first above written.” The preceding is the actual agreement repro- duced word for word. The following are a few notes of explanation : Clause 1. For instance, if the publisher be pro- ceeded against by the printer for not paying his pill, would the author have to indemnify him? For, certainly, this might be described as an action arising out of publication. Clause 2. What is the meaning of the words in the second clause, “as between himself and the author”? Does this clause mean that the publisher shall have all the rights—American and continental ? If not, what does it mean ? Clause 3. This is a very comprehensive clause. The publisher claims complete control: (1) Over time of publication. He may therefore put it off as long as he pleases. (2) Over the manner of production. Does this mean the form and price of the book? (3) Corrections are allowed up to five shillings a sheet. What is the connec- tion between words and money and time in the item of corrections ? Clauses 8 and 13. The author is to pay £50 down on account of expenses, é.e., he is to buy 500 copies at 2s. each. One would like to know what will be the further expense in the production of the book. Then the publisher puts in his own pocket, as well, the whole proceeds of the next 500. When 1000 copies are sold the author’s royalties begin at the magnificent rate of 10 per cent., 2.e., 4id. a copy. But the publisher may sell it at half, or less than half the price, in which case the author is to get only 10 per cent. of the sum realized. Clause 9.—The author seems called upon in this clause, for no consideration whatever, to place all his dramatic rights, and the right of translation, in the absolute power of the pub- lisher. Clauses 10 and 11.—The publisher demands 50 per cent. for acting as a literary agent in placing the book in America. The agent does it for 10 per cent., and sometimes less. It would seem, also, that if the literary agent does the work, the publisher shall also have 50 per cent. These are a few points rising out of this remarkable agreement. A publisher is certainly within his right in making any stipulations and terms he pleases. We do not deny that right. It is for the author, before accepting these terms, to ascertain what they mean. IV.—A PossisLE APPLICATION, We have abstained from figures in considering he clauses of this agreement because we do not THE AUTHOR. know the length of the MS. or the proposed form of the book. Let us now, however, take an imaginary case worked out on the terms of the agreement. We will set down—see “ Cost of Production,” p. 27—the cost of producing and advertising a book of 192 pp., in small pica, 29 limes to a page, and 253 words to a page, as, for the first 1000, £70, the cost of production of the next 3000 as £110. Now, the publisher sells to the author 500 at 2s., and to the trade 450 at 1s. 11d. He then prints a second edition of 3000, of which he sells, say, 1500 at 1s. 11d. He then, we will suppose, reduces the price to half, and sells the remaining 1500 at that price. He sells advance sheets to America for £50, and the right of translation into French for £10. How does the account stand according to our figures ? Receipts :— £ 3.8 From the author’s contribution ...... 0 0 6 From the trade for the first edition, abs) lid. 95 43.2.8 From the second edition, 1500 at 18, LiQs ose ee 143 15 O 1500 ab 18. OG. cevcsecpeer nruerensseeees 2ST 5 @ £368 2 6 Cost of production :—- 2 se The first 6d1Hi0On = 00s eee 70 0 8 The second edition ................006- 110 6 @ Author’s royalties, 10 per cent., 4id. On 1500 COpies ..............-.+ 26 5 © Author’s royalties 10 per cent. on SUM FORMBCO |... 132.8 Publisher’s profit: ...............0s:eeeee 148 15 0 £368 2 6 So that by this agreement, after the whole 4000 are gone, the author's little perquisites amount to £39 7s. 6d., towards his first advance of £50, and the publisher’s to £148 15s.! There are also the American rights and the rights of translation, of which the publisher takes 50 per cent. ! And the author has, one supposes, the right to dispose, somehow, if he can of the 500 for which he paid. It may be objected that we have taken an imaginary case: that the book in question would not sell to anything like this extent; that it had illustrations, but none were mentioned in the agreement; that the figures of cost, &c., are all wrong. The answer 1s, that it is permissible to apply the terms of any agreement to any imagi- nary case, if it is a reasonable and a possible case. But we have taken a possible and a common case, and on the supposition of certain sales have shown THE AUTHOR. what this agreement would, in such a case, lead to. Another way of looking at the agreement is this: According to our figures every copy after the first 1000, would cost 84d. At the trade price of 1s. 11d. we should have this result : The author, after the first 1000, having advanced already £50, would receive 43d. a copy. The bookseller would receive a profit of 73d. The publisher would receive a profit of 10d. At the half price rate the author would receive 10 per cent. on the amount realised, 7.e., 10 per cent. on 21d., or 2;,d.—poor wretch ! The bookseller makes a profit of gid. The publisher makes a profit of 9 ‘od. V.—A Nonpescriet AGREEMENT. Here is another agreement which may be added to the many in the “Methods of Publishing.” We live and learn the ways of the ingenious pub- lisher. This time the terms are very simple. The author is to receive £25 if the three volume novel sells 250 copies. He is to receive £25 if a new edition is produced. Finally, he is to receive a third and last payment of £25 if 5000 copies are sold of the cheap edition. We are not concerned with what happened to this book, whether it was successful or not. The point for our readers to consider is that terms were offered which in the event of the greatest possible success limited the author’s returns to £75, and gave the publishers all the rest ! ViI.—Wuar Constirures a CxLaim to Copy- RIGHT ? Mr. Fisher Unwin refuses permission to pub- lish the correspondence mentioned in the last number of the Author, on the ground that it would be incomplete. He does not state in what respects it would be incomplete ; nor how he knows that it would be incomplete ; nor does he offer to make it complete. Therefore the answer to this question wil] want the interesting illustration we proposed to give it by publishing this correspondence. Oe OMNIUM GATHERUM FOR DECEMBER. What is good for the swarm is good for the bee.—M. AURELIUS ANTONINUS. Subjects for Treatment.—Texts from the Tal- mud, as enunciated in the Quarterly Review article of July, 1867; the Mending of the House of Lords, with special reference to Lord Salis- bury’s and Lord Dunraven’s Bills of 1888; the VOL. Iv. 239 Riddle of the Universe, as solved by Mr. Faw- cett; Mr. Keir Hardie’s Nationalisation of Mines Bill; the Choice of an Executor; Professional Etiquette ; the Cultivation of the Cranberry ; the Special Taxation of Pluralist Directors, and of Foreign Barley; the Bank of England; the Consolations of Illegitimacy; Overwork; the Subjugation of Dipsomania by Hypnotism ; Christmas in Dublin. Grace Aguilar.—She was (so Ilearn from Mrs. Crosland’s “Landmarks of a Literary Life’’) descended from one of those Spanish-Jewish families who fled from persecution under Ferdi- nand and Isabella. Though by no means rich, she refused Mr. Colburn’s liberal offer to write a history of the persecution of the Jews in England because she did not choose “ to revive the memory of half-forgotten wrongs.” A little later, her income having slightly increased, she wrote to the editor of a magazine to which she contri- buted, volunteering to accept half the sum which she had been accustomed to receive, so that there might be a surplus for those who wanted the money more than she did. “ The Daily Paper.’—This remarkable literary adventure of Mr. Stead deserves, I think, the cordial support «f authors, if I may judge from the sample number published with the “ Review of Reviews Annual.” It is with great satisfac- tion that I see it is to have machine-cut pages, a front paged indexed table of contents, and adver- tisements careful y distinguished from news Absit all spookage ! Control of Literature by Advertisers.—Writes Mr. Vizeteily in his “Glances Back through Seventy Years,” ‘‘ Cyrus Redding,” writes he, “ mentions that Colburn used to say that a hundred pounds laid out discreetly in advertising would make any book go down with the public, as the expenditure of this amount materially influenced the criticisms.” How we have changed since Col- burn’s time! The Lind Abridgment.—It is good news that an abridged edition of J. Lind’s biography is about to be issued by the authors. It is dis- tressing to reflect that it might be no breach of copyright if this were done by strangers, but consoling that other intending biographers may take the hint and cut their stories short. Very few of the biographed are worth more than one volume of 800 pages, and even Lord Shaftesbury and Dr. Pusey might have been presented in some 1000 pages apiece, whereas the one had three volumes, and the other is now having four. Publication of our Names.— We of the Authors’ Society now number 1141 persons. Rightly or v2  240 wrongly, we have hitherto abstained from divulg- ing our names. Why should not this secrecy cease, and a printed list of all our members be circulated amongst us? Our too modestly budding Shakespeares and Sapphos, and any other members who wished to remain anonymous, could still have their wishes respected, as the name list might conclude with the words, “In addition to the above there are also [39 or 47 or as the case may be] members of the Society, who for various reasons do not wish their names to be published.” Finis.—“ There is an end to everything, even to Wimpole-street,” as Sydney Smith said just before his death, and these Omnium Gathera, in which I have been babbling on since January last, now have their end, as it is high time they should. A merry Christmas to all! J. M. Lety. es THE LITERARY AGENT. HE onslaught upon the Literary Agent, lately made by a publisher in the Athenewn, will prove useful if it leads us to consider the position and the functions of the Literary Agent, and the reasons, for or against, the placing of business arrangements in his hands. Those of us who choose to work through an agent are actuated by the following reasons (they are put as briefly as possible) :— 1. We desire to free ourselves from the trouble and worry of managing our own affairs. 2. Trouble and worry and fighting—not to say humiliation—seem to us inevitable in the present chaotic condition of publishing, unless the author is foolish enough to place himself unreservedly in the hands of his publisher; that is to say, to accept a business man’s own estimate of the value of his services. 3. We desire to have a man of business to make our arrangements for us with a man of business. He must be a man who understands thoroughly what is meant by every form of publishing agreement; he must be a man of undoubted integrity ; and he should be a persona grata to honourable publishers. 4. We desire also to have a man of business thinking and working for us, not only administer- ing the affairs of the present, but also arranging those of the future. 5. We certainly do not desire that injustice should be committed towards publishers in our interests. 6. We do not find that the employment of an agent has in the slightest degree affected the THE AUTHOR. friendly relations which exist between ourselves and our publishers. 7, We find that the freedom of mind and the absence of pecuniary anxiety which we enjoy in consequence of an agent’s care for our interests is a boon which cannot be measured by money. 8. Given a publisher who desires to treat an author honourably, that is to say, on terms which between men of business are considered honourable, what objection can he _ possibly have to arranging these terms with an agent instead of an author ? g. It is alleged that the literary agent insists on a life long agreement. We have never made any such agreement. 10. When a publisher cries out upon the literary agent it must be remembered that it is not he, but the author, who pays the agent. Why, then, does he complain? The answer is obvious. Why, the thing is so thin that a child can understand it. 11. When a publisher cries out that the literary agent deprives him of his friend, why was the friendship destroyed? That friendship which survives the appearance of the literary agent upon the scene is the only kind of friendship between author and publisher which is desired. 12. When a publisher complains of the literary agent taking ten per cent. for his services, the answer is that the amount of the commission must always be an arguable quantity, but it is at least a good deal lower than that demanded by many publishers when they propose to take 50 per cent. for arranging American copyright or continental rights. On the other hand, it may be stated— 1. That the agent may be dishonest. That is very true. For instance, there is an agent who is said to have a commission for taking authors to a certain House. Against dishonesty the only guard is experience. At the Society we have experience and cannot only warn, but recommend. Between a dishonest publisher and a dishonest agent the choice is between the devil and the deep sea. 2. There are authors who think themselves strong enough to conduct their own affairs and to arrange their own engagements. One or two may be, and are, actually srtong enough. Many of those who think themselves so are living in a fool’s paradise. But undoubtedly those who do know the truth about publishing and are not afraid or ashamed to make their own terms do not want an agent. 3. The young writer who is as yet unknown and has no clientele does not want an agent. Let  THE AUTHOR. him work on, making some kind of a name for himself gradually or by a single coup. When he has done so an agent may advantageously take him in hand. ee EROTION. Martial Epig. : Book V., 38. Far fairer did my darling seem Than ev’n the full-plum’d swan ; No lamb beside Tarentum’s stream Matched my Erotion ! More exquisite she was to me Than the most lustrous pearl Of Lucrine lake or Persian sea, My peerless little girl! The lily in its purest prime, The snow’s unsullied fall, The ivories of Orient clime, Whiter was she than all! Her hair surpassed the coils that crown The maidens of the Rhine, The dormouse with its golden down, Theria’s fleeces fine. Sweet was her breath as Paestan bowers, As amber all a-glow, Or honey freshly hived from flowers That on Hymettus blow. The squirrel by her side had been Bereft of all its grace, The peacock paltry ’mid its sheen, The Phoenix commonplace ! * * * * * * * Scarce cold upon the new-made pyre My pretty darling lies ; The Fates were wrought with envious ire To rob me of my prize; And ere six years she’d counted quite, In her sixth winter-tide, My pet, my plaything, my delight, My own Erotion died ! Yet Paetus who himself displays The wildest of despair, (He’s pummelled now his chest for days, And pulled ont half his hair !) Paetus is pleased to rally me On being a little sad— “ What! snivelling for a slave!” sneers he, ‘You surely must be mad! “Why I have lost a wife, endowed With all the world could give, Riches, position, lineage proud, Yet I contrive to live!”’ With resignation truly rare Our friend ’gainst trouble strives ; He finds himself a millionaire, Yet, strange to say, survives ! Wiiiiam TOYNBEE. 241 NOTES AND NEWS. \ CARD is before me bidding me to the unveil- ing of the Lowell window at Westminster on Wednesday, the 28th. The address will be—by this time has been—given by the ight Hon. Arthur Balfour. It will certainly be—have been —an excellent address. Mr. Balfour has shown on several occasions, but especially in a certain Rectorial address, the possession of what are recognised asthe literary gifts. But why should Mr. Balfour be called upon to speak on this occasion? The gift of the window was set on foot chiefly by a committee of literary men and women; the subscriptions, although they include some from Lowell’s friends not of the literary craft, came chiefly from literary men and women. Tt is essentially a gift from literary folk to a man of letters. Therefore the address should have been delivered by an English man of letters. Why did not the chairman of the com- mittee himself, Mr. Leslie Stephen, perform this duty? He would have been acknowledged by everybody as the right man. In the selection of Mr. Arthur Balfour I recognize the same spirit which excluded men of letters from the great Function in Westminster Abbey of 1887. Let them stand aside—humbly—in a corner, while their betters speak. In the same way, to speak of a smaller thing, when the Jeffries bust was put up in Salisbury cathedral, not a single member of the committee—who were all men of letters—was invited. In the same way, at the annual dinner of the Royal Literary Fund the nen of letters are made to know their place, which is down below, while the Chairman is sup- ported right and left by a row of noble lords. When will men of letters learn to take their proper place in all things literary’ That place is in the front; if oratory is wanted, it is for them tofindit. The emancipation of the author from the man with the bag must be accompanied by the elevation of the author to the leadership in his own craft and all that belongs to it. -—e ~-- The above was written in anticipation. As everybody has learned, with the greatest regret, Mr. Balfour was on the day confined to his room with influenza. Mr. Leslie Stephen did, after all, deliver the address, and proved the fitness of a literary man in things literary. What has been written, however, may stand. One may conjure with the name of Bronte. Everything connected with that strange family ig curious and significant. All their history, from the great-grandfather downwards, goes to build  242 up Charlotte. Dr. William Wright’s new book («The Bronté Family”: Hodder and Stoughton) takes us back to the ancestors, and restores them to the world. Now we know how they got their gift for story telling and from whom. ‘This is a season wonderfully rich in biographical work and memoirs and reminiscences, but this book is to me by far the most striking and the most interesting —even more interesting than Sir Walter Scott’s Letters. To say that it is as interesting as a novel is nothing, because novels are very often horribly dull. To say that no novel of the year equals it in interest is nearer the cold, unvar- nished truth. There are no shilling shockers this year. Were there any last December? Or the year before ? Is it possible that they have all perished without a single tear? Only yesterday, standing at a bookstall, I became aware of their absence. Some- thing jarred. The coloured Christmas pictures had just awakened a fond reminiscence of the bilious- ness peculiar to the joyous festival now within sight. One had become seasonably uncomfort- uble — Christmassy irritable. ‘I'hen, to repeat, something jarred. Where were the shilling Christmas stories ? Where indeed? Where are they gone, the old familiar covers ? And to think that in my time I have written about fifteen, more or less! Six—from 1876 to 1881—were written in collaboration for Mr. Charles Dickens. One as a private venture, and a very good venture, too. Five more alone for Mr. Charles Dickens. And then four for Mr. Arrowsmith. And now, I suppose, no one will ever write any more. Is it, then, a lost industry ? But the illustrated papers remain. Courage, camarades, le Diable est mort! I beg to express in this column my appreciation of Rider Haggard’s Mexican story. I do so while I am fresh from reading it at two pro- longed sittings. The glow and glamour of the romance are still upon me. I have been, I am still, in Mexico among the Aztecs. Long years ago, when I read Prescott’s “History of the Conquest of Mexico,” something of the same glamour fell upon me. He, too, could charm his readers, and take them with him to the wondrous city of Mexico. The great distinguish- ing quality of Rider Haggard, which he un- doubtedly possesses in a very high degree, is this magic power of seizing and holding his readers, so that they become absorbed and abstracted from all earthly things while their eyes devour the page, and their minds are far away among the creations of the author's brain. This is a great gift. One would not compare in these pages one living THE AUTHOR. writer with another, nor would one assign to this man so much, and to another so much more or less. Also a writer’s power is not the same over every reader. His mesmeric influence is strong over some minds, weak over others. My own mind, for instance, is most readily subjugated by Rudyard Kipling and by Rider Haggard. I read a notice of “ Montezuma’s Daughter ” inan evening paper. It was not so much a notice as a dissection. ‘“ Here,’ said the writer, “we have a shipwreck; we know very well that the hero will get to shore; and we guess what will happen next; here is a coincidence—why—we knew it was coming.” Andso on. All this was quite true, perfectly true. But—without coinci- dence, dangers, escapes, where is pure romance of the sixteenth century? There is but one bag of tools for the romance writer. You might just as well complain because an architect follows well-known plans, and has his arch, his Corinthian column, or his porch of columns. The dissection was perfectly correct, no doubt. But when you have finished the dissection, what next? Can anyone, by assisting at the dissection, become a writer of romance? Will the learned dissector, if he is a novelist, take his bag of tools and make a romance and let it be compared with ‘“ Monte- zuma’s Daughter”? Or, if he is not a novelist, but a critic, will he name a romance of adventure which he would compare with “ Montezuma’s Daughter”? A romance must have “ grip’— that is the first essential ; it must hold the reader spellbound to the finish. This romance possesses the quality of “grip” in an eminent degree. What should a novelist most pray for? Grip. And next? Grip—And then more grip. Mr. Robert Sherard’s book on Zola will be read by everyone who reads the “Master.” A man’s life is not, it is true, completed until it is closed. Many things may happen to Zola before the end—great and good things, one hopes and expects. But the world is not content to wait; it wants to know something about the young days, the days of small things, the wrong starts, the struggles to win the lowest rung of the ladder. These are things of the greatest interest, and it is well that they should be written of Emile Zola. The one indispensable condition of an incomplete biography is that it should be written with the full consent and knowledge of the subject. In this case not only did Emile Zola consent to the work proposed by his friend and disciple, but he gave the writer every possible assistance and information. The result is a work conceived and executed in perfect taste, with the  THE AUTHOR. proper reticences, and yet the fullest information. We see how Zola, the son of a man who was half Venetian and half Greek, and of a mother who was wholly French, brought up in Provence, inherited the imagination and the ardour of the South with the common sense and the artistic sense of France. The story of his father’s struggles and success, and of his death at the very moment of success, is told too briefly. How Zola worked ; how he starved; how he climbed upwards, making his failures, as Augustine made his sins, stepping-stones to achievement ; this is a new chapter in the history of men who have made their literary way. Paris has always its Balzacs and Zolas, starving and working and hoping. It has also those who starve and work and hope in vain. Young Zola, or young Balzac, in this country, would find a temporary home on the Daily News or the Daily Chronicle. A writer, under the nom de plume of “Tngenue,” sends me, in vindication of her remarks upon critics, a small collection of critical remarks upon her recent work. These extracts show most astonishing disagreement on the book. If they were seriously advanced as an example of the present condition of English criticism, they would at once prove criticism to be a mockery, literary standards as not existing, and literary judgment as much a matter of chance as the deci- sions of the great Judge Brid’oison. Here are the conflicting gems. Is it possible to explain— to reconcile—judgments so opposite? Ihave not read the book, and therefore I am not expected to add another judgment to this long list of oppo- sites : 1. The temerarious reader who pursues this story to the end will put straws in his hair, and be dealt with by the Commissioners of Lunacy. 2. There are points about it which make portions not merely readable, but even exciting and engrossing. 3. We have never read a more absurdly-planned book. 4. The tale itself is highly emotional, cleverly constructed, and ably written throughout. 5. This is a clever book in parts. . . It is the kind of book to keep one awake all night, for it defies the best intentions of the reader to lay it aside. 6. An outstanding merit of the novel is that the writer has a secret worth the keeping, and that he keeps it securely locked till almost the very close of a delightful novel. 7. It is difficult to believe that any but an enforced reader will arrive at the end of this ill-constructed, ill-imagined story. 8. Confusion reigns supreme. A farrago of weari- some improbability put together in a manner that makes it a sort of puzzle not worth while to solve. g. The plan is hardly a success. . . The story is odd, oe and exciting—altogether a most tantalising ook, 10. This curious story keeps the reader wide awake from cover to cover. We gladly recommend as a dish 243 likely to suit all who relish humour, pathos, romance, and unconventionality. 11. The two talk such tiresome twaddle that the bored and bewildered reviewer gives the whole thing up. 12. To attempt a description of the plot would be to destroy the prospective reader’s pleasure. The reader is hurried from in a most bewildering and exciting manner. Thestory . is well written and amusing. 13. The author may have aimed at originality or at a practical joke; but the originality is elaborated to boredom, and the joke is hidden by a pile of words. 14. The confused jumble the stilted phraseology will be taken as evidence of the amateur’s ineptitude. 15. We must find room to commend to all who want a good story. We should hope that, like all the novels of its class, this story will have success. Unlike many in its class, it will have deserved it. 16. Mr. is not a genius, and his freak distinctly bores us. 17. Difficult to come across a more utterly foolish novel. — It is only in works of imagination—poetry, drama, fiction—that one comes across such extra- ordinary opposite opinions. How, one asks in wonder, can the same work strike men of sound mind and, presumably, literary experience so differently ? It may be suggested that some of the opinions come from the critics of the Stoke Pogis Express. Not so ; they appear in the papers to which one commonly sends books. I do not, of course, suggest for a moment that any one of these judgments is wrong, Nothing would induce me, after these judgments, to read the book with the intention of adding another. But, like “Ingenue” herself, whose language and thought seemed to me those of exaggeration, I ask whether a book can be at the same time dull and exciting, foolish and interesting, successful and a failure, ably planned and absurdly planned, twaddling and well written, a confused jumble and likely to suit all who like humour and pathos? The one truth which seems to come out of these contradictory opinions is that the book possessed at least strength and originality enough to compel attention. It was able to exercise a a certain amount of magnetism over its readers. This is evident from the direct outspoken abuse and praise which it called forth. Feeble books get feeble notices; commonplace books are dismissed with commonplace remarks; the first proof of the critic’s ignorance, as of his incom- petence, is his hesitation about saying a single word of direct praise; it is easier to find fault. Anyone can pretend to pick holes; to praise a book for its style, its dialogue, its characters, is to pin yourself down. In order to go so far the critic must not only read the book, but he must know something of his trade. 244 ’ « Add to your ‘ Warnings,’” writes a corre- spondent, “this very necessary one, ‘ Do not sign any agreement or consent to any terms after lunch or dinner.’ When the champagne is flowing keep a head cool enough, at least, to refuse the discussion of business. And keep also one eye upon your host; if he lets his glass stand full while you are atways filling your own, put on the whole armour of suspicion’? This seems excel- lent advice. Is not the custom of taking a glass over a bargain, part of the old game of getting the better of the other man by making him drunk ? “ Will you walk into my parlour ?” said the spider to the fly. ‘Here is champagne—let us drink. Your glass stands full—pass the bottle—drink about. Another y Nonsense, man, it won’t hurt you. So—and another. What a good, what an excellent writer you are! Iam honoured only by your acquaintance! To publish your books is more than an honour; it is immortality. Here is the agreement—allow me to fill up—Ah!- success to your new book! We must drink that. Here is the agreement—and a pen; your name here, if you please. Thanks—thanks—one more glass? John, a cab for th's gentleman.” One may be mistaken, but there seem to me signs of an approaching change in the treatment of love by women in fiction. It is not going to be of less importance to life than men have made it; on the contrary, it will be of greater import- ance. But it will be treated more realistically from the womau’s point of view, which is a com- paratively new thing, a sign of independence. This change is illustrated by a story in Olive Schreiner’s little bundle of three. It is the last of the three, and is called “The Policy in Favour of Protection .’ The author makes one of her characters speak of love and when it means marriage. She says— Have you thought of what love is between a man and a woman when it means marriage? That long, long life together, day after day, stripped of all romance and distance, living face to face: seeing each other as a man sees his own soul? Do you realise that the end of marriage is to make the man and woman stronger than they were ; and that if you cannot, when you are an old man and woman and sit by the fire, say, ‘ Life has been a braver and a freer thing for us, because we passed it hand in hand, than if we had passed through it alone,’ it has failed? Do you care for him enough to live for him, not to-morrow, but when he is an old, faded man, and you an old, faded woman? Can you forgive him his sins and his weaknesses, when they hurt you most? If he were to lie a querulous invalid for twenty years, would you be able to fold him in your arms all that time, and comfort him, as a mother comforts her little child? ~ This is essentially the woman’s view. The man cares nothing and thinks nothing except of the woman whom he loves. All novels have hitherto ended THE AUTHOR. in the man obtaining his desire. The wedding bells rmg. Thetaleis ended. And afterwards The woman thinks of that, you see. For her the story is only beginning. Again—another glimpse of womanhood : The mother heart had not swelled in me yet; I did not know all men were my children, as the large woman knows when her heart is grown. “ T’homme qui fait des souliers est stir de son salaire: homme qui fait un livre n’est jamais stir de rien.” The above comes from Marmontel. It is sent to me asa contribution to the subject of the author’s position. The same kind of thing has been said over and over again. And it seems to me foolishness. And since a good many of my readers have literary aspirations, I will show them why they must not adopt such an illustration of the literary profession. The author who wants to sell a book may be exactly like the shoemaker who wants to sella shoe. ‘hat is to say, if the shoemaker is engaged to make a shoe he always gets paid ; if an author is engaged, he gets pad too. If the artist in leather is not engaged for the job, but simply offers his shoe as a work of art to the public, he is just like the author who offers a book which the public have not asked for. If he is a popular author, the public do, in a sense, invite him or engage him. The profound Marmontel, like so many other people, confuses the literary and the commercial value of a book. The author who does good work and gets it pub- lished is quite sure, sooner or later, of getting recognition for his genius, his scholarship, his powers. But he is not quite sure, until he becomes popular, of getting dollars to any extent that will recompense him for his labours, as other kinds of work are recompensed. That is one reason why we should dissuade everybody from relying on literature as a profession. It can be followed very well with other and more lucrative work. One who does so follow it—as supplemen- tary to the bread winning—may lead the happiest lite in the world, because the attempt to make literature is the happiest kind of work that there is in the world. Watter BxEsant. aa FEUILLETON. I.—Tue Lrapren Puivm. T was, to look at, a lovely plam, ripe, covered with a delicate bloom, delicately coloured, sweetly rounded ; it was such a plum as one would choose out of the whole heap; it looked as if it had been gathered that very day from a southern wall, built by ancient men of good red brick, warmed through and through by three  THE AUTHOR. hundred summer suns—a wall well known to wasp and humble bee ; and it lay upon the mantelshelf in Alf Kerb’s room. And when he had finished the simple toilette with which he prepared for the day’s labours, he put that plum in his pocket, lit his pipe, assumed his hat, and sallied forth. There was no one in the coster trade who could surpass Alf Kerb, whether as a salesman or as one who always guessed, by singular prescience, that delicate and uncertain thing—what the public want. He was proud of his cart, and proud of his trade. He did himself well, and he did his girl well. In the matter of honesty especially he prided himself. Some costers give short weight. Not Alf. His scales were open to the inspector at any time. And as for value— of course, one only had to taste ’em and try ’em before you buy ’em. “It’s plums to-day,” said Alf; and he dropped that lovely plum from the mantelshelf into his pocket—one would think, to the total destruction of its delicate bloom. There was certainly no more honest coster in the whole town. Alf always said so himself. Religious, too. He had several times been seen at evening service before the costers’ supper. _ In his early manhood he was one of those who subscribed towards the famous Presentation Donkey, the testimonial of the trade to Lord Shaftesbury. And at a friendly lead, or in case of any trouble connected with the coppers and the beak, no one was readier than Alf Kerb. He had every reason, therefore, to be satisfied with himself, and he sallied forth that morning, his long coat tails flying all abroad, a little red feather in his hat, a scarlet tie-handkerchief round his neck, and his pipe in his mouth, the envy of his less successful rivals, the object of deepest admiration to the ladies of the model dwelling houses where he lived. But he was un- moved by envy as by admiration, He would have wished, such was the nobility of his nature, that a success equal to his own might be achieved by all who followed the fortunes of the coster’s cart. And, as regards the latter, his heart was true to his own gal. Other maidens might sigh, but they had no chance. The top of the profession. lay that lovely plum. “It’s plums to-day,” said Alf. A beautiful day in early September. The strong and swift tide of human life swept and surged, high tide at nine in the morning, low tide at noon, high tide again at five, round the asphalted road opposite Broad-street Station and Broad- street, where the costers ever crawl, and the news- paper men continually do bawl. Among the carts was that of Alf Kerb himself. It was VOL. Iv. And in his pocket 245 moving at a snail’s pace—no one could “ move on” with less alacrity than Alf, and he was inviting the passers-by to taste ’em and try ’em—taste ’em and try ’em, before you buy ’em. The cart was piled up with plums, rapidly diminishing in bulk, and tickets in blue and gold proclaimed the amazing nature of the “value” and the wonder- ful lowness of the price. A customer—another— a third. The eyes of the policeman at the corner watched the plum merchant as he rapidly weighed out his fruit by the pound—by the two pound— by the three pound. Presently, from a look of curiosity the policeman’s eyes changed to a look of the deepest interest. For he remarked a very singular thing. The coster, with every purchase, pulled a plum out of his left-hand pocket, placed it in the scale among the other plums, took it out, and dropped it in his pocket again before he poured the plums of that purchase into the paper bag. The policeman drew nearer; he watched more intently; had any of the people rushing past observed him they might have warned Alf Kerb that he was under surveillance. But the un- happy young man noticed not. He was driving a brisk trade, and the plum went backwards and forwards continualiy. Then a hand was laid upon his shoulder. * What have you got in your pocket ?”’ asked the policeman. * Nothink,” Alf replied, in the language of his profession. “Let me see that plum in your pocket.” “TL ain’t got no plum.” “You come along o’ me,” said the official. ‘“ Bring yer barrer.”’ Worship-street is not far off. Before the luck- less merchant could realise what had happened, his cart was in charge of the police, and he himself was waiting his turn. The evidence against him stated that he had seen the man take a plum out of his pocket, lay it in the scale, and put it back in his pocket with every purchase, so that the customer was defrauded to the extent of the weight of that plum, which was, in fact, constructed of lead, and artfully painted so as to appear only a simple natural plum. He also informed his worship that this false plum weighed 73oz. so that the customer who bought a pound of plums only obtained 850z., which was a fraud to the extent of nearly 50 per cent. Asked what he had to say, Alfred Kerb declared, with tears in his eyes, that everybody always did it; that a man must live; that his expenses of rent, barrow, stock, and scales, living, and keeping company with his girl, rendered it absolutely necessary for him to practice secret x  248 Mozely gave us a record of clerical life, as well academic as parochial, and the profession of letters is not unfairly represented by the similar works of the two ‘Trollopes, To us, Mill’s Autobiography seems to be as in- comparably — the English classic of the former kind, as Pepys’ Diary is generally acknowledged to be of the latter. The author of the memorial verses in Punch (whoever he may have been) wrote of Mill: “ This rebel craved one loved and loving rule,’ which seems to sum up the whole matter, showing us why his doctrines— being rebellious—are often severely handled, while his autobiography is always treated with respect and reverence. But it is rather with the works which aspire to be classed with Pepys’ Diary that we have to deal with here, bemg the more frequent. A recent writer says somewhere that when he writes a work of travel he will tell what people said, rather than what he saw and what they did; which remark led us to reflect that, of all literary tasks, to record talk and conversation must be one of the most difficult—if we would be faithful. It is to this art that “ Boswell’s Johnson ” owes its charm, but then that work, though it might fairly be called a volume of reminiscences, is not autobio- graphical. We have one book in which an excess of conversation is recorded, but in such a way that the author made himself conspicuous as the typical example of a parasite and a political hanger-on, and that book is the “ Diary of George Bubb Dodington, Baron of Melcombe-Regis.” It is often said that it is a great point in literature so to open the discourse as to excite interest in the main rather than in any minor motif of the work. In his “Life of Balzac,” Mr. Wedmore says : “The very first sentence of the Curé de Tours is a proof how well the craftsman knew his craft. ‘In the beginning of the year 1826 the principal person in this history—the Abbé Birroteau—on his way home from the house at which he had been spending the evening, was surprised by a shower.’ The sentence strikes the keynote ; it is never lost sight of—the abbé and his small dis- comforts are in our mind to the end.” On this principle the opening sentence of Dodington’s Diary ought to excite our very greatest sympathy. “ The Diary. 1749.—In the beginning of the year I was grievously affected with the first fit of the gout, which with a fall that strained one leg and wounded the other, confined me to my chamber near three months.” With our compassion thus aroused, let us con- sider some of his conversations as he records them. We may note it as curious that Dodington, like Pepys, held a post in the Admiralty, but at a time when the quarrels of the king and the THE AUTHOR. prince made them tout to the courtiers for their support quite as often as the courtiers ever begged for place at the royal hands. The prince desired to secure the services of Dodington, and the interview is thus described :— Juxy 18.—After dinner, he took me into a private room, and of himself began to say, that he thought I might as well be called treasurer of the chambers as any other name; that the Earl of Scarborough, his treasurer, might take it ill if I stood upon the establishment with higher appointments than he did; that his royal highness’s destination was, that I should have £2000 per annum. That he thought it best to put me upon the establishment at the highest salary only, and that he would pay me the rest himself. I humbly desired that I might stand upon the establishment without any salary, and that I would take what he now designed for me when he should be king, but nothing before. He said that it became me to make him that offer, but it did not become him to accept it, consistent with his reputation, and there- fore it must be in present. He then immediately added, that we must settle what was to happen in reversion, and said that he thought a peerage with the management of the House of Lords, and the seals of Secretary of State for the southern province, would be a proper station for me, if I approved of it. Perceiving me to be under much confusion at this unexpected offer, and at a loss how to express myself, he stopped me, and then said, “I now promise you on the word and honour of a prince that, as soon as I come to the crown, I will give you a peerage and the seals of the southern province.’ Upon my endeavouring to thank him, he repeated the same words, and added (putting back his chair), ‘and I give you leave to kiss my hand upon it now by way of acceptance ; ” which I did accordingly. If this interview really took place, and the offer was really made, we do not see how Dodington could have described it better. Let us take a conversation four years later which Dodington had with the princess. She [the princess] thought they [the ministry] had very few friends, and wondered at their not getting more, and that it was their cowardice only which hindered them ; that if they talked of the king she was out of patience; it was as if they should tell her, that her little Harry below would not do what was proper for him; that just so, the king would sputter and make a bustle, but when they told him that it must be done, from the necessity of his service, he must do it, as little Harry must when she came down. I replied, I was sincerely sorry, not for the present, but that I apprehended this want of real, attached, and declared friends might produce ugly consequences and contests in case of a demise. . . That for the ministers she had never seen them in her life. Madame, says I, your royal highness will forgive me, but if I had not catched myself I was just going to say, lord, madam! what do you mean?—I mean, answered she, just as I say; the only way I could see them in the prince’s time I don’t call seeing them; and since that time, I have never seen the Duke of Newcastle what I should call more than once, but as I am speaking to you with great exact- ness, it was twice; and I have not seen Mr. Pelham at all, no—not once. These and similar conversations are found between records of matters of fact, some of great moment, such as (1751)— Dec. 12.—This day died Lord Bolingbroke ;  THE AUTHOR. and others of trivial such as R754) I went to the House to vote for the liberty to import champagne in bottles. Lord Hillsborough moved it; Mr. Fox seconded it. We lost the question—ayes, 74; noes, 14]. We have afterwards conversations at one time with Mr. Fox, and at another with Mr. Pitt, in which, even if their opinions are misrepre- sented, they are made to talk very sensibly. When we remember that Dodington considered himself a patriot—and dedicated his book to such—we ought surely to consider that some of the evil attached to his name is due to the fact that it is impossible to record the sayings and doings of men in high places without seeming to put oneself and one’s own concerns more in the foreground than is proper. So that Doding- ton’s Diary is as much a warning to the would- be diarist as Pepy is an example. When we pass from our own literature to other times and other tongues, two classics confront us, the “ Confessions of Augustine ” and the “ Confes- sions of Rousseau.” They are held to be the only writers who have ever been able to lay bare their inmost selves to the delight or disgust of their readers. Some think that Augustine’s life as he records it has quite a modern aspect, if we make due allowance for the difference in manners of different ages. The clever youth who passes with success through the educational course of his time, and afterwards leads a somewhat idle and perhaps a somewhat godless life, becomes con- verted, he takes orders, and eventually becomes a bishop. If that were the whole story there must be many such men in every Christian com- munion. But it is not the whole story, for if we correct our estimate of the “ Confessions” by, e.g., the Oxford translation of Fleury, which deals with Augustine, his other writings, and his epis- copate, it is clear how the spirit of intolerance was the main spirit, the life and soul of Christendom. No person of authority m any communion, Puritan, Anglican, Roman, or Greek, would be allowed to-day to disturb the peace for the sake of teaching theology. We are to remember also that Augustine speaks of himself as a professor of rhetoric, and there is certainly a rhetorical insincerity about his “ Con- fessions’”? which make us value it far less than “‘ Pilgrim’s Progress”’ as a record of that strange mental attitude and its consequences which the religious call “conversion.” It must also be admitted that the atmosphere of such literature is an artificial one. With Rousseau, however, matters are quite different, he never steps much out of the world with its ordinary human passions ; but we cannot find ourselves able to sympathise importance, 249 with those who speak of Rousseau as selfish and vain. We think him of all men the most to be pitied. Too little attention has been paid to one or two facts he has recorded, because they are not of nature to be discussed, except perhaps by the surgeon and pathologist. It is sufficient to say that he tells us he had been an invalid and a sufferer from childhood. If we place this fact beside his susceptibility to feminine influence, it is not surprising that he should have been morbidly sensitive lest his malady should be dis- covered. The last translation of Rousseau’s “ Confessions” we have seen is that in the “Masterpieces of Foreign Literature” (Stott), and, though a very useful edition, it is as well to remember that George Eliott said it would be worth while learning French to read the original. Je WS: [We were in error last month in saying that Mr. Saintsbury’s prefatory essay to the “ Pen- tameron” was not published for the first time. ] set THE LOWELL MEMORIAL IN WEST- MINSTER ABBEY. N R. LESLIE STEPHEN, on Nov. 28, NN unveiled the memorial which has been placed in honour of the late James Russell Lowell at the entrance to the Chapter-house, Westminster Abbey. The memorial includes a window and a bust underneath, which is said to be an admirable likeness of the late American Minister. The window has been erected by Messrs. Clayton and Bell, and consists of three lights. In the centre is the figure of Sir Launfal, from Lowell’s poem of that name, below is an angel with the Holy Grail, and in the lowest compartment the incident of Sir Launfal and the leper is repre- sented. The right light has the figure of St. Botolph, the patron saint of the church at Boston, Lincolnshire, from which the Massachusetts city, Lowell’s birthplace, derived the name; below is the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers. The light on the left contains the figure of St. Ambrose, one of the reputed authors of the Te Deum Laudamus; below is a group representing the emancipation of slaves. In trefoils above the side-lights are shields bearing the arms of the United States and the United Kingdom. Mr. Leslie Stephen said that he was under- taking a task which had been imposed upon him very much against his will. He had hoped that the address in commemoration of Lowell would have been delivered by Mr. Arthur Balfour, who had unfortunately fallen a victim to the fiend influenza. As he had the honour of being chair-  252 to fill it sufficiently taxes our powers. But when we were eighteen it was otherwise. We then stood on the threshold of the world, and were most anxious to take up a great deal of room in it. We were desperately afraid of lead- ing a dull life. We longed for a career. We wanted something to do that seemed worth doing, and that others thought worth doing, for at that age we attached immense importance to the opinion of those around us. It was this phase Thackeray realised when he made Ethel plunge headlong into the social com- petition she despised, because she could see no other channel for her energy and ambition, and I should like to claim for him that, if he failed to compre- hend women, at least he understood girls. Jussie M. Barrer. — — exc. AMERICAN WOMEN AS JOURNALISTS. N England women journalists are something of an experiment. In the United States they are a firmly established institution. There no newspaper worthy of the name is with- out one woman special at least, while the majority of the large dailies employ all the way from three to fifteen on the staff. In London only occasion- ally do we hear of a special woman commissioner. I attribute this fact not so much to the prejudices of the newspaper proprietors and editors as to the difference between the English and the American woman. The English girl is brought up in the belief that ‘ A woman’s noblest station is retreat,” while the American girl, from her earliest childhood, has instilled into her mind the principles of independence, and she begins early to ponder on the subject of how to earn her own living. An English woman, although she may write just as well as her American cousin, con- siders it more womanly to confine her talents to the making of poetry and sending contributions to the various weekly and monthly periodicals, than to go into an office and do general newspaper work. Not so with the American. She has a longing to be in the world of men, to become part and parcel of the great bustle of our large cities. She goes to an editor and says, “I want to bea reporter. I can write well, and I’m not afraid of work. Have you any room forme?” Then she is asked to go out and write up the opening of a fashionable millinery establishment, bring in an account of the next fire that occurs in her neigh- bourhood, or to furnish an original idea that will make the paper go. If she proves herself capable in any of these lines, she will probably go to work at space rates, taking assignments from the city editor, doing her work always under the super- THE AUTHOR. vision of his blue pencil. Then if she is discovered to possess the requisite talent, nerve, and what is known in journalistic circles as “ getthereative- ness,” she is given a place as a regular salaried member of the staff and left to work her way from the bottom rung of the ladder to the top. To be a success as an American journalist, it is not necessary to be an eloquent or deep writer; but brightness, originality, and perfect fearless- ness are essential qualities. The woman journalist knows from the start that she must make her copy “snappish”’ and entertaining, and her great ambition always is to get a “ scoop” on the other city papers. About a year ago Miss Blank, a young woman employed on a Chicago paper, dis- covered that the society writer on another daily had got hold of some important news in relation to a fashionable divorce case, an account of which was to be published the next morning. It was late in the afternoon, and Miss Blank could think of no legitimate means of obtaining the desired information, but she went somewhat on the prin- ciple that ‘“All’s fair in love and war and journalism.” She disguised herself, and, mas- querading as a book agent, made a tour of the . composing-room of the opposition paper, and while petitioning the foreman and the proof reader to look over her wares, she ran her eye along the corrected proofs of the divorce scandal, made a mental note of certain important items, returned to her own office and fixed up her copy. In the morning her rival did not make its expected “scoop.” But let it not be supposed that American women journalists are cold - hearted and unprincipled. The girl who accomplished the above feat is one of the most indefatiguable workers among the poor and outcast women in Chicago. In all our large cities many a criminal has been run down and brought to justice by women reporters, and hundreds of hungry children are fed and clothed through the same agency. Thus these women are enabled to do much good while they are making notes for startling newspaper revelations, and it will be seen that sensational journalism has its good as well as its bad points. A really successful woman journalist does a man’s work and receives a man’s pay. If employed on a morning paper she rarely leaves the editorial office before two o’clock in the morn- ing, and sometimes later, for she generally revises her own proofs and writes her own headlines. She must be ever ready with ideas, and when asked to write on a certain subject, she seldom says “I can’t.” Ishall never forget an incident that happened to me when I first started out in my journalistic career. I had been employed about a year as reporter on a prominent western paper,  THE AUTHOR. and was the only woman on the staff. One Sun- day morning, about two o'clock, I was putting on my wraps preparatory to leaving the office, when the managing editor rushed over to me, and said, “ There’s half a column editorial space. I wish you would write me an editorial on ‘ Are Women Natural Liars ?’ taking the affirmative side.” I had no time to argue the pros and cons of the question with him. It was, ‘‘ Mine not to reason why.” At 2.301 knew all the editorial page must be set up, and I had only half an hour, so I wrote the article, giving many reasons that might go to prove that my own sex were natural hars, and handed it to the editur, who read it and sent it upstairs. “You used very convincing argu- ments to prove the point, didn’t your” he said, with a suspicion of a twinkle in his eye. ‘ Yes,” I answered. “And did you believe what you wrote?” “No, certainly not,” I retorted. “I can give better points on the negative side.” “Well,” said he, laughing, “I should say that the fact of your writing that editorial would go to prove that you were right in taking the affirma- tive side.” But I had myreward. The next day my salary was increased, and I was sent off with a commission to write up the evil doings of the State Legislature, then in session, and from that time I ranked third on the staff of the paper. In the United States, journalism is one profes- sion in which women are as well paid as men, and very high salaries are received by competent workers. In some offices a number of the women reporters do not write at all. They are employed as detectives, putting themselves in the most perilous surroundings in order to obtain their notes, which are daily sent to the newspaper, and written up in proper shape by a less daring, but perhaps more eloquent person. There is always a spirit of gallantry among the male members of a staff where a woman is em- ployed, and though there is a general good cama- raderie existing between her and the men, it is never forgotten that she is a woman and entitled to certain courtesies. Very often she finds her desk brightened up with flowers, the gift of various members of the staff, and a cab is always at her service when she is doing night work and obliged to go home late. She has a notable influence on the moral atmo- sphere of the office, and although on summer days and nights many of the men do their work in shirt sleeves, which she always excuses, there is never any profanity made use of in her presence. The proprietor of a certain southern newspaper, who had always held to the old-fashioned notion that a newspaper office was no fit place for a woman, was, about two years ago, induced to take a woman on the staff on the plea that the men 253 would show better behaviour. Two months afterwards he declared he should always have a woman about the place, as his managing editor had not been drunk once since the young woman entered his employ. The majority of American women journalists are young women, not by any means of the crank or dress reform order, but graceful, stylish-looking girls, who from choice or necessity go out into the world to make their way. In age they range from twenty to thirty, very few women older than that being employed. In the majority of cases, if they do not marry before that time, they give up active reportorial work and devote their talents to amore solid kind of literature. When they do marry, it is generally in their own profession, and they go on with journalistic work in conjunction with their husbands. The number of women journalists in the United States is steadily increasing, and there are many American editors who insist that the best, cleverest, and most thorough work on our news- papers is done by women. EuizasetH L. Banks. —— oi ont ————___—— THE SOCIETY OF AUTHORS AND COPY- RIGHT QUESTIONS.* By S. S. Spriaax, late Secretary to the Committee of Management, and W. Ourver Hopes, late Hon. Secretary to the Copyright Sub-committee. HE English Society of Authors, though always, it is hoped, in sympathy with abstract principles of justice, has been so busy with the practical evils besetting the calling of letters, that it has had but little time to spare from the ills that are, for the consideration of the good that might be. True Copyright—Should it be World-wide and ’ Time-long ? That true copyright should be world-wide and time-long is just one of those propositions that we have never tried to find much time to con- sider, for, whatever it should be, it never will be either. All those who are in the habit of talking or writing concerning literary property from the standpoint of persons desiring to safeguard it, fall into the habit of comparing it as much as possible with other forms of property, because they find by experience that it is easy to get an * This paper was read before the Congress in Literature at Chicago in July, 1893. The cross-headings in italics are the subjects upon which the organizers of the Congress desired the representatives of the Society of Authors to inform them. ¥.  254 audience to appreciate the sanctity of the owner’s right in—say—houses, stocks, shares, &c., and so, by transition, easy to demonstrate the sanctity of the rights of an author in his brain-work, while it is very difficult to convince even an author of this sanctity by merely alluding to copyright questions. But this does not, or should not, blind the most enthusiastic champion of the writer's rights to the fact that there are differences— practical and sentimental—between a house and a book, between a mine and a poem, between a ground-rent and a copyright. That True Copyright should be World-wide. To put this thesis in other words is to propose that the author should have the sole right to permit multiplication of copies of his work in other lands, and in other languages. In this way it sounds so reasonable that it might be thought impossible to suggest anything against it. And there is nothing serious to say. The author may not know what is best for himself with regard to translation, and if his work is produced in a tongue of which he is ignorant, he will certainly be in this plight. And he may be ignorant of what constitutes his best chance of favourable reception in a foreign land, even though he is sufficiently master of the foreign tongue to see for himself that his work is adequately rendered. But this is nothing. The literary property is the author’s, and he has the right, among other rights, to mismanage it if he likes. But a word must be said about translation, and the position of the adequate or artistic translator. While we thoroughly recognise the right of the author in his property to extend over all the world, it must not be forgotten that the intermediate assistance of the translator is often brain-work of the highest sort, and that the translator’s right in that property is as sacred as the author’s right in the original work. The position of the trans- lator is one that must be arranged between him- self and the author, a point which was carefully provided for by the terms of the Berne Conven- tion. (Selected Artieles of the Berne Convention, I, 2, and 11.) That True Copyright should be Time-long. That true copyright should be time-long is equally a beautiful proposition, but is much more open to objections. In a developing scheme of things a finite vested right must always lead to abuse. Ground-rents, to which copyright is very aptly comparable in many ways, have led to gross abuse in more than one country, and it wants no imagination to see that, for the protection of the author’s own reputation as much as for the pro- tection of the public, it is right that a time should be fixed at which the work should pass from the THE AUTHOR. private hands of the possessor to the public care of the community. Two examples will illustrate the truth of this, and will serve as well as fuller illustration. First, suppose that the copyright of Shakespeare’s works in these days were in the possession of a very hard business man. He might corner the market in Shakespeare to the serious detriment of the public, and, perhaps, to the impairment of the poet’s reputation, he might depress the circulation. Or, again, a prudish owner might consider it his duty to omit certain passages, or even certain poems, and the result might be the mutilation or suppression of a masterpiece. These considerations make the question of time-long copyright a difficult one, We should like to say that, inasmuch as a man’s brain work is his own property, he ought to be able to be- queath it to his heirs for their good, and to secure it to them as tightly as he could desire ; and it is clear that this is the only logical opinion that can be held on the matter. If we assume that the existing law in all countries with regard to pro- perty—real or personal—is right, then an author should be given copyright in perpetuity. Weare aware that the arguments for allowing the public to enter into public possession of private property, if logically applied to other sorts of property, would land us in pronounced communism. Yet, from motives of expediency, we are not prepared to uphold the proposition that true copyright should be time-long, but inclined to think that its duration should have a limit for the protec- tion of the author’s fame; though that limit should be a very long one for the protection of his purse. That is to say, that, although it is convenient to describe literary property as exactly analogous to other property, it is for the good of the private proprietor as much as to the advantage of the public to allow an illogical dis- tinction to exist with regard to its ownership. It may be mentioned that this view of the matter was very practically taken in the first Copyright Act of England (The Act of Anne, 8 Anne, c. 19). For that Act was granted as much for the protec- tion of the public as of the author, and designed to protect the public’s interests in good books from the very abuses that we have suggested might occur if the time-long copyright, which sounds so fittmg in sentiment, were to be put into practice. For, as far as authors are con- cerned, it is doubtful whether that Act was an unmixed blessing. It conferred upon them a qualified right, whereas they already possessed in all probability an unqualified right, and, by recog- nising for them the smaller, it lost for them the greater position. But the preamble to the Act points out that copyright was granted to authors as much for the good of the public as of  THK AUTHOR. the author, as it was seen that unless “learned men” receive ‘‘encouragement to compose and write useful books,’ they, probably, would not trouble to do so. How very sensible is this utilitarian view by comparison with the sentiment that an author should be hysterically willmg to take out his reward in glory! The danger that the market might be cornered, to the public detriment. was also foreseen, and power granted to the Archbishop of Canterbury to regulate the price of books. This provision is, m Mr. Lely’s opinion,‘ the origin of the existing enactments, by which the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council may, after the death of an author, licence the republication of books which the proprietor of the copyright refuses to re- publish. Some such arrangement as this might be designed, in the case of time-long copyright, to get over the difficulties arising from an abuse of property by the copyright owner; but such a body as the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council could never be an easy one to approach or move, aud it is difficult to believe that an abuse that could only be rectified by appeal to such a tribunal would not soon spring up and flourish. Another proposition has been made, which also invokes the aid of the Privy Council, and also is something in the nature of a compro- mise, being designed to benefit the private owner while protecting the public interest. It has been suggested that the author, or rather his heirs or assignees, should be placed in the existing posi- tion of a patentee, who is able to go to the Privy Council at the expiration of his privileged period, and on proving that he hasas yet not been benefited - by his privilege, to obtain an extension of that period. But the idea isnot of any great practical value, because of the small number of authors who would ever benefit under such a scheme. Those who know anything of the book market know that it has hardly ever occurred (and can hardly ever be expected to occur) that books which have failed to be profitable wares during the legal team of copyright have become more valuable property after the expiration of the term. Words- worth, however, is one such case. A third sug- gestion has been made, borrowed evidently from the jubilee regulations of the Hebraic Law. Tt is that the copyright vf an author’s work, after being public property for some reasonable time, so that the community may reasonably enjoy it, should pass back to the owner, who had inherited it or purchased the reversion. The practical difficulties in the fulfilment of any such scheme can be seen at a glance to be enormous. The objections to a time-long copyright are 1 Copyright Law Reform. By J. M. Lely, Barrister-at. Law. Office of the Incorporated Society of Authors. 259 very valid, but to a world-wide copyright there are none. To pass to the next suggested theme :— * Domestic Copyright: what changes in present laws are desirable from the author’s standpoint ? The first Copyright Act was the Act of Anne (8 Anne, ¢. 19), passed in 1709, which applied to “books and writings”’ alone, and gave to authors of books then existing a copyright for twenty- one years, and to authors of books to be in future published fourteen years from publication. During the next 110 years this was supplemented by the following eleven Acts :— In 1735.8 Geo. 2, c. 13, giving copyright in engravings. In 1739, 12 Geo. 2, ¢. 36, to prohibit the importation of British books reprinted abroad, and to repeal so much of the Act of Anne as empowered the limiting of the prices of books (repealed). In 1767, 7 Geo. 3, c. 38, to render the Act of 1735 more effectual. In 1777, 17 Geo. 3, ¢. 57, to render the Acts of 1735 and 1767 still more effectual. In 1798, 38 Geo. 3, ¢. 71, giving copyright in busts and new models (repealed). In 1801, 41 Geo. 3, ¢. 107, extending copyright in books for fourteen years more, if author still living at the end of the first fourteen years (repealed). In 1814, 54 Geo. 3, ¢. 56, giving copyright in every kind of sculpture. In 1814, 54 Geo. 3, c. 156, extending copyright in books to a term of twenty-eight years certain, and the residue of the life of the author (repealed). In 1833, 3 Will. 4, c. 15, giving author of play sole liberty of representation. (Bulwer Lytton’s Act.) In 1835,5 & 6 Will. 4, c. 65, to prevent the publication of lectures without consent. In 1838, 1 & 2 Vict. c¢. 59, the first Interna- tional Copyright Act (repealed.) In 1842 came the Act under which we at pre- sent lie (5 & 6 Vict. c. 45). The essentials, from the author’s point of view, were that the term of copyright was extended to forty- two years from publication, or till seven years from the death of the author, whichever shall be the longer, and that dramatic copy- right was also extended to musical composi- tions. During the next forty years this was supplemented by nine more Acts :— * The authors, of course, confined themselves to con- sideration of the domestic copyright of their own land, but the debate at Chicago chiefly raged round the domestic copy- right of the United States.  256 In 1844, 7 Vict. c. 12, the principal existing International Copyright Act. In 1847, 10 & 11 Vict. ¢. 95, the Foreign Re- prints Act, allowing the suspension by Order in Council, of the prohibition of importation of pirated books into the colonies. In 1852, 15 Vict. c. 12, an International Copy- right Act, allowing translation of political articles in foreign periodicals. In 1862, 25 & 26 Vict. c. 68, for the first time giving copyright in paintings, drawings, and photographs. In 1875, 38 Vict. c. 12, the Canada Copyright Act, and 38 & 39 Vict. ¢. 53, to allow the Royal assent to be given to the Canadian “ Copyright Act of 1875.” In 1876, the Customs Consolidation Act, 1876, 9 & 40 Vict. c. 36, s. 42, by which there is a prohibition of importation of, and a forfeiture and power of destruction of, “ Books wherein the copyright shall be first subsisting, first composed, or written or printed in the United Kingdom, and printed or reprinted in any other country, as to which the proprietor of such copyright or his agent shall have given to the Commissioners of Customs a notice in writing, duly declared, that such copyright subsists, such notice also stating when such copyright will expire.” In 1882, the Copyright in Musical Compositions Act, 45 & 46 Vict. c. 40, to protect the public from vexatious actions for unauthorised per- formances of musical compositions. In 1886, the International Copyright Act, 49 & 50 Vict. ¢, 33, to enable Her Majesty to accede to the Berne convention. In 1888, a second Copyright in Musical Com- positions Act, further to amend the law in the subject-matter of the Act of 1882. The result of all this legislation has been to render the copyright law of England complicated, inconclusive, incoherent, and disorderly, to a degree that is hardly credible. ‘“‘ The law,” said the Commissioners of 1878, “is wholly destitute of any sort of arrangement, incomplete, often obscure, and even when it is intelligible upon long study, it is in many parts so ill expressed that no one who does not give such study to it can expect to understand it.” ‘It cannot be said,” says Mr. Lely,? “that even the recent statutes dealing with copyright in musical com- positions show much improvement in form upon those which preceded them,” but he allows that the International Copyright Act of 1886 forms a bright exception. The Society of Authors, immediately upon its foundation, set to work to remedy this state of THE AUTHOR. from the author's standpoint 2 2 Op. cit. affairs, being reimforced in the belief in the necessity for remedial legislation by the know- ledge of the many hardships that authors have to- undergo in the present state of affairs, and by the sight of the descendants of more than one splendid literary creator in poor circumstances. A scrutiny of the names of those who have benefited by the pension list* bears out well the fact that literature has too often brought its votaries no solid reward, but those names not only do not represent the true state of affairs, but they absolutely misrepresent it. For the pensions have been granted, by Liberal and Conservative Governments alike, in a manner that is entirely at variance with the designed purpose of the fund, and the numbers who have properly obtained assistance from time to time because of their distinction in literature, science, and art, bear no proper numerical proportion to the numbers who have been pensioned for other reasons. Many of these latter had not only no claim whatever to assistance from this particular fund, but, as surviving relations of persons in the various Crown services, were actually entitled to pensions from other sources. This abuse is one to which the Society of Authors has invited the attention of responsible statesmen, and one it hopes to see righted ere long. Tf a list of un- successful applicants for a place on the Establish- ment, and a list of the persons who have at different times been helped by the Royal Literary Fund could be published, they would reveal a state of affairs that would make very clear to the most thoughtless how necessary in England a society for the protection of authors’ interests is and has been. So that the first task the Society of Authors set itself ‘was to procure the draught- ing of a Bill that should give to authors larger rights in and a securer hold upon their property. The Bill, whose memorandum and more essential clauses follow, was drafted by Mr. Underdown, Q.C., and laid by him before the Board of Trade in 1886 on behalf of the Society of Authors. ‘Afterwards it became necessary, in view of the passage of the International Copyright Bill of 1886, to revise it, and this was done in 1892, when it was placed in the hands of Lord Monkswell. Tt will be sufficient here to quote the chief amendments of the bill now in Lord Monkswell’s charge in the House of Lords, as they will sufficiently answer, with regard to the United Kingdom, the question suggested for conference, viz.: What changes in present laws are desirable 3 Literature and the Pension List.” By W. Morris: Colles, Barrister-at-Law. Office of the Incorporated Society of Authors. o  ae BY ne ee ke IO O Bale ae iG 383 ite 1 1G THE AUTHOR. LORD MONKSWELL’S BILL. MEMORANDUM. Scope of Bill—This Bill is intended to con- solidate and amend the law of copyright other than copyright in designs.’ Existing Law.—The existing law on the subject consists of no less than eighteen Acts of Parliament, besides common law principles, which are to be found only by searching the law reports. Owing to the manner in which the Acts have been drawn the law in many cases is hardly intelligible, and is full of arbitrary distinctions for which it is impossible to find a reason. [See paragraphs 9 to 13 of the Report of the Royal Commission on Copyright of 1878.] Instances of Defects of Existing Law.—For instance, the term of copyright in books is the life of the author and seven years, or forty-two years from publication, whichever period is the longer ; in lectures, when printed and published, the term is (probably) the life of the author, or twenty-eight years; in engravings twenty- eight years, and in sculpture fourteen years, with a possible further extension for another fourteen years, while the term of copyright in music and lectures, which have been publicly performed or delivered but not printed, is wholly uncertain. Again, the necessity for and effect of registration is entirely different with regard to (1) books, (2) paintings, (3) dramatic _ works. Arrangement of Bill—tIn consolidating these enactments (all of which it is proposed to repeal) it has been thought advisable to deal separately with the various subjects of copyright, viz.: (1) literature, (2) music and dramatic works, and (3) works of art, and to make the part of the Bill dealing with each of these as far as possible complete in itself. This will account for certain repetitions which might otherwise seem unneces- sary. Foundation of Amendments.—The alterations proposed to be made in the law are for the most part those suggested in the Report of the Royal Commission on Copyright of 1878, and embodied in a Bill introduced at the end of the Session of 1879 by Lord John Manners, Viscount Sandon, and the Attorney-General, on behalf of the then Government. References will be found in the margin of the present Bill both to the Report of the Commission and the Bill of 1879. * The law of copyright in designs is contained in Part III. of the Patents, Designs, and Trade Marks Act, 1883 (46 & 47 Vict. c. 57), repealing and re-enacting with amendments the Copyright of Designs Acts of 1842 of 1843, of 1850, of 1861, and of 1875, ao? Summary of Chief Amendments.—The most important of these alterations may be summarised as follows :— 1. A uniform term of copyright is introduced for all classes of work, consisting of the life of the author and thirty years after his death. The only exceptions are in the cases of engravings and photographs, and anony- mous and pseudonymous works for which, owing to the difficulty or impossibility of identifying the author, the term is to be thirty years only, with power for the author of an anonymous or pseudonymous work at any time during such thirty years to declare his true name and acquire the full term of copyright. [See Clause 15 (books), Clause 29 (music and drama), Clause 36 (works of fine art and photographs). | . The period after which the author of an article or essay in a collective work (other than an encyclopedia) is to be entitled to. the right of separate publication is reduced from twenty-eight years to three years. [ See Clause 15. | 3. The right to make an abridgment of a work is for the first time expressly recognised as part of the copyright, and an abridgment by a person other than the copyright owner is made an infringement of copyright. [See Clauses 5 and 21. | 4. The authors of works of fiction are given the exclusive right of dramatising the same as part of their copyright, and the converse right is conferred on authors of dramatic works. [See Clause 21, par. 2.] 5. The exhibition of photographs taken on commission, except with the consent of the person for whom they are taken, is rendered illegal.2 [See Clause 41. | 6. Registration is made compulsory for all classes of work in which copyright exists, except paintings and sculptures; that is to say, no proceedings for infringement or otherwise can be taken before registration, nor can any proceedings be taken after regis- tration in respect of anything done before the date of registration, except on payment of a penalty. [See Clause 90.] This penalty, it should be wentioned, was not recom- mended by the Royal Commission, but is introduced in order that an accidental omission to register may not entirely deprive the copyright owner of his remedies. Regis- tration of paintings and sculpture is made optional owing to their being so frequently bv ® At present it seems to be merely a matter of implied contract. See Pollard v. The Photographic Company (40 Ch. Div. 345). 260 and, unless they be published in print by the author, the exclusive right of re- delivering them in public: “ Publication” shall have the following mean- ings Tn the case of books, the first act of offering for sale, notifying, or exposing as ready for sale to the public any work or copy of a work, or the depositing or registering of any copy of a work in the manner pro- vided in this Act: In the case of a lecture, piece for recitation, address, or sermon which is printed, any act which constitutes publication in the case of a book, or, if such lecture, piece, address, or sermon be not published in a printed form, the first delivery in public: “Translation’’ shall include an abridgment or adaptation of a book in a language different from that in which it was previously pub- lished. 11.—(1) Every assignment of copyright or performing right other than an assignment by operation of law or testamentary disposition, shall be in writing, signed by the assignor or his agent, duly authorised in writing. (2) Noassignment of or other dealing with any subject of copyright or performing right (other than an assignment by operation of law or testa- mentary disposition) shall pass the copyright or performing right therein unless the intention to assign the same shall be expressly evidenced in writing, signed as aforesaid. 12. If the owner of the copyright or perform- ing right in any work shall give permission to another person to copy, imitate, perform, or otherwise repeat such work, such permission shall not, in the absence of an express agreement to the contrary, disentitle such owner from giving a similar or any other permission with respect to the same work, even though the first person to whom such permission was given has acquired copyright or performing right in his work. 15. Duration of Copyright in Literary Works. —Copyright in books, lectures, pieces for recita- tion, addresses, and sermons, shall endure for the following terms: (1) If the work is published in the lifetime and in the true name of the original copy- right owner, for the life of the original copy- right owner, and thirty years after the end of the year in which his death shall take place : (2) If the work is written or composed by two or more persons jointly, for the life of the longest liver, and thirty years after the end of the year in which his death shall take place: (3) In the case of posthumous works, for THE AUTHOR. thirty years from the end of the year in which the same shall have been first pub- lished : (4) In the case of an anonymous or pseudo- nymous work, for thirty years from the end of the year in which the same shall have been first published: Provided always that upon the original copyright owner thereof or his personal representative, during the continuance of the said term of thirty years, with the consent of the registered copyright owner, making a declaration of the true name of the ‘“ original copyright owner ”’ and the insertion thereof, in the form set forth in the Schedule Three of this Act in the Register, the copyright shall, subject to the provisions of this Act, be extended to the full term of copyright under this Act. 16. Copyright in Articles in Collective Works. —(1) In the case of any article. essay, or other work whatsoever, being the subject of copyright, first published in and forming part of a collective work, for the writing, composition, or making of which the original copyright owner shall have been paid or shall be entitled to be paid by the proprietor of the collective work, the copyright therein shall, subject as is hereinafter mentioned, and in the absence of any agreement to the con- trary, belong to such proprietor for the term of thirty years next after the end of the year in which such work shall have been first published : (2) Except in the case where such article, essay, or other work is first published in an encyclopedia, the original copyright owner thereof and his assigns shall, after the term of three years from the first publication thereof, have the exclusive right to publish the same in a form, and shall have copyright therein as a separate publication for the term provided by section fifteen of this Act, and notwithstanding anything hereinbefore contained, the proprietor of the collective work shall not, either during the said term of three years, nor afterwards during the continuance of copyright therein, be entitled to publish such article, essay, or other work, or any part thereof, in a separate form, without the consent in writing of the original copyright owner or his assigns. 19. Newspaper Copyright.— The copyright given by this Act in respect of newspapers 8 extend only to articles, paragraphs, communica- tions, and other parts which are compositions of a literary character, and not to any articles, para- graphs, communications, or other parts which are designed only for the publication of news, or to advertisements. 21. Infringements.—The following acts by any person other than the copyright owner, and with- THE AUTHOR. out his consent in writing, shall be deemed to be infringements of copyright, unless such acts shall be specially permitted by the terms of this or some other Act not hereby repealed : (1) In the case of books, printing or otherwise multiplying, or causing to be printed or other- wise multiplied, for distribution, sale, hire, or exportation copies, abridgements or trans- lations of any copyright book or any part thereof; exporting for sale or hire any such copies, abridgements, or translations, printed unlawfully in any part of the British domi- nions; importing any such copies, abridge- ments, or translations, whether printed unlawfully in any other part of the British dominions, or printed without the consent of the copyright owner in any foreign state; or knowing such copies to have been so printed or imported, distributing, selling, publishing, or exposing them for sale or hire, or causing or permitting them to be distributed, sold, published, or exposed for sale or hire: (2) In the case of a book which is a work of fiction, it shall also be an infringement of the copyright therein, if any person shall, without the consent of the owner of the copyright, take the dialogue, plot, or incidents related in the book, and use them for or convert them into or adapt them for a dramatic work, or, knowing such dramatic work to have been so made, shall permit or cause public perfor- mance of the same : (3) Inthe case of lectures, pieces for recita- tion, addresses, or sermons, whether before or after they are published in print by the owner of the copyright, the same acts as here- inbefore declared to be infringements in the case of books, and if they be not published in print by the owner of the copyright, re-delivering them or causing them to be re-delivered in public. 22, Extracts—Notwithstanding anything in this Act contained, the making of fair and moderate extracts from a book in which there is subsisting copyright, and the publications thereof in any otherwork, shall not be deemed to be infringement of copyright if the source from which the extracts have been taken is acknowledged. 23. Reporting Lectures—It shall not be deemed an infringement of copyright ina lecture, piece for recitation, address, or sermon, to report the same in a newspaper, unless the person delivering the same shall have previously given notice that he prohibits the same being reported. 24. New Editions.—For the purposes of this Act any second or subsequent edition of a book which is published with any additions or altera- 261 tions, whether in the letterpress or in the maps or illustrations belonging thereto, shall be deemed to be a new book. Copyright in Works of Fine Art and Photographs. 34. Definitions—In addition to the interpreta- tion given in Part I. of this Act the following expressions in this Part ITI. shall, unless the context otherwise requires, have the following meanings : “ Painting ’”’ shall mean and include a painting either in or with oil, distemper, water, or other vehicle, and drawing, either in crayons, charcoal, pastels, chalk, pencil, ink, or any other material, executed by hand and not by printing impression, or any mechanical or chemical process ; and “ painter” shall mean any person who executes a painting as above defined : “ Photograph” shall mean and include the photographic negative and any positives or copies made therefrom : “Publications” shall mean— In the case of engravings and photographs, the first act of offering for sale, or of delivering to a purchaser, or advertising, notifying, or exposing as ready for sale to the public or for delivery to a purchaser, any copy of a work, or delivering at the registration office established under this Act a written request for the registration of such work as herein- after provided ; and the verb “ to publish, ’ in all its moods and tenses, shall have a meaning corresponding with that of the publication. “Replica” shall mean a repetition of a paint- ing executed by the painter thereof, or caused by him to be executed in the same material, and of, or so nearly of, the same size as to render doubtful the identity of the original work : “Work of fine art” shall mean and include a painting, sculpture, and engraving as defined in this Act. 35. Artist to have Copyright in his Work, and in the Design if Original.—(1) Every person, being a British subject, or domiciled in some part of the British dominions, who from or according to his own original design shall execute, or cause to be executed, any work of fine art, shall have copyright therein, that is to say, the sole right ot copying, reproducing, repeating, and multiplying copies of that work, and of the design thereof, of any size, and either in the same material or by the same kind of art in which such work shall have been first executed, or in any other form or material or by any other kind of art, and the word “ copyright,” when used in relation to works 262 of fine art executed under the conditions in this first sub-section set forth, shall mean such right as aforesaid. (2.) Not in the Design if not Original.— Every such person who, from the design of another, shall, without infringing any copyright, lawfully execute any work of fine art, shall (except when employed to execute the same by the author of that design, and in the case of an engraving except further when employed to execute the same by any other than such author) have copyright therein, that is to say, the sole right of copying, reproducing, and multiplying copies of the same work, but not, save as expressed in that work, the design thereof, and the word “ copyright,” when used in relation to works of fine art executed under the condition in this second sub-section set forth, shall mean such right as aforesaid. (3.) In the case hereinbefore excepted of an engraving executed by some person employed for that purpose by another, the copyright shall belong to the employer if a British subject or domiciled as aforesaid at the time when such engraving shall be published, although not the author of the design. (4.) Nothing herein contained shall have the effect of giving any person copyright in a copy or repetition of a painting by a painting, of sculp- ture by sculpture, or of an engraving by an engraving, except in the case of a copy or imita- tion by a painting in black and white or mono- chrome of a painting in polychrome. (5.) This section shall apply to works of fine art executed either before or after the passing or commencement of this Act; Provided as to works executed before the passing or before the com- mencement of the Act, that the same, if paintings or sculpture, have not been sold, and, if engravings, have not been published, before the commencement of the Act. 36. Duration of Copyright.—The copyright hereinbefore given shall, in the case of paintings and sculpture, endure for the life of the person to whom the same is so given, and thirty years next after his death; and in the case of engravings not published in or forming part of a book, for the term of thirty years next after the end of the year in which they shall be published. 37. Painter of Portrait on Commission not to repeat it.—If the subject of or the principal object in any painting executéd on the order of any person for valuable consideration be the likeness of that person or of any person whose likeness was stipulated in the agreement for the painting, the painter or other owner of the copyright shall not by virtue of his copyright be entitled, with- THE AUTHOR. out the consent in writing of the owner for the time being of the painting, to repeat, copy, or reproduce the said likeness in any way or by any kind of art. 38. Replica not to be made without leave of Owner of Original—Whenever any painting shall have been sold, and the copyright therein shall remain the property of the painter, he shall not, without the consent in writing of the pur- chaser or other owner of the painting, be entitled by virtue of the copyright to make or cause to be made a replica of such painting, and if, before selling the painting, the painter shall have made or caused to be made a replica of it, and shall afterwards sell the one, he shall not, without the consent of the purchaser, or owner of that one, be entitled to sell, exhibit, or part with the property in the other. 41. Photographs taken on Commission not to be Sold or Exhibited—(1) Whenever after the commencement of this Act any protographic likeness of any person is taken on commission, neither the photographer, nor any other person, whether he owns the copyright therein or not, shall, without the consent in writing of the person for whom the work was executed, sell, offer for sale, or exhibit in public in any shop window or otherwise any copy of such likeness. (2.) If such photographer or other person shall sell, offer for sale, or exhibit any copy of such likeness in manner aforesaid, every copy of such likeness in his possession shall be forfeited and delivered up to the person for whom the work was executed. Copyright in the British Colonial and other Possessions. 51. Saving for Colonial Legislative Powers. —Nothing in this Act is intended or shall be construed in such manner as to lessen or to dero- gate from any power at present possessed by the legislative authorities in any British possession to legislate with respect to copyright in that possession, nor in such a manner as to deprive any person in a British possession of any copy- right or performing right he may be entitled to or may hereafter acquire in such possession under any law now in force or hereafter to be made in such possession, or to interfere with or lessen such right. Penalties and Procedure. 87. Damages.—(1.) If any person shall infringe copyright or performing right, the owner thereof may, in addition to any other remedy, maintain an action or other proceeding allowed by the law of the place where the wrong has been committed ro damages and for an injunction, or either of them.  THE AUTHOR. (2.) All actions or other proceedings for any such infringement shall be commenced within twelve calendar months next after the same is committed, or else the same shall not be main- tainable. go. No Action, $c., before Registration.—(1.) No action, prosecution, or summary or other legal proceeding shall be maintained or maintainable m respect of any infringement of copyright or performing right under this Act, except as is hereinbefore provided as to foreign works, and except it be for infrmgement of copyright in a painting or work of sculpture, until the work has been registered at the Copyright Registration Office established under this Act, or at a registra- tration office in some British possession, and no such action, prosecution, or summary or other legal proceeding shall after registration be maintained or maintainable in respect of any infringement committed before the date of regis- tration of the work, unless or until in any such proceeding a penalty of ten pounds, or such less sum as the court may direct, shall have been paid. (2.) If any copies, repetitions, or imitations of the work have been made before registration of the work, no action or other proceeding shall (except upon payment of such penalty as afore- said) be maintained or maintainable after regis- tration in respect of the circulation or sale of such copies, repetitions, or imitations, or to enforce any forfeiture or penalty in respect thereof. (3.) Provided always that registration of any work within one month from the first publica- tion thereof shall enure for the benefit of the copyright owner as from the date of the publica- tion. gt. Summary Remedy for Infringement.—ln lieu of any action or other proceeding for damages it shall be lawful in every case of infringement of copyright or of performing right, except of per- forming rights in musical compositions, for the owner of the right to apply ina summary manner to a court of summary jurisdiction in that part of the British dominions where the wrong has been committed, or where the person who has been guilty of the infringement dwells; and such court may, on production of the certificate of registration, or in the case of paintings and sculp- ture, on other proof of the title of the applicant, order the person who has been guilty of the in- fringement to pay a penalty not exceeding five pounds and all costs, and the money so paid as penalty shall be given by way of compensation to the owner of the copyright or performing right. Provided that only one sum or penalty shall be 263 recovered in respect of any infringement of the performing right in a dramatic work.® The remaining themes, viz.: The present Status of International Copyright, and The Desirability of a Conformity of Copyright Laws among all Nations, will be best considered together, for they open up identical questions. With us the present status of International Copyright is determined by two things, the Statutes of the Berne Convention, and “ An Act to amend title sixty, chapter three, of the Revised Statutes of the United States relating to Copyrights,” commonly called in England ‘“‘ The American Copyright Bill;” but the enormous colonial possessions of the British Empire make of Colonial Copyright a question that has to be considered from something the same point of view as International Copyright. The British owner of a copyright has three markets in addition to the domestic one, viz., the Continent of Europe (largely still a matter of translation), America, where of course the circula- tion is enormous, and the Colonies, where the demand for books has lately much increased. The question of Colonial and Canadian copy- right need not be gone into here. It will be sufficient to say that the present law, which has been so heartily abused by the Royal Commis- sion, 1s nowhere in a condition of less working efficiency than it is in our colonies, while the colonial demand is getting larger daily. In the Straits Settlements and at the Cape the Society of Authors have been enabled to interfere in behalf of home copyright owners, and to exact the payment of the miserable duty on foreign reprints, but the sums so obtained are wretchedly inadequate, and the whole question is one that requires thorough investigation with a view to thorough reform. International copyright in Europe, as well as in Haiti and Tunis, is regulated by the Berne Convention, of which the following articles form the foundation :— 1. Authors of any of the countries of the Union (Great Britain, Germany, Belgium, Spain, France, Haiti, Switzerland, and Tunis) or their lawful representatives, shall enjoy in the other countries for their works, whether published in one of those countries or unpublished, the rights which the respec- tive laws do now or may hereafter grant to natives. 2. The enjoyment of these rights is subject to the accomplishment of the conditions and 6 The selection of clauses has been made by Mr. J. M. Lely, in his pamphlet, from which we have previously quoted. 264 formalities prescribed by law in the country of origin of the work, and cannot exceed in the other countries the term of protection granted in the said country of origin. . The country of origin of the work is that in which the work is first published, or if such THE AUTHOL. 12. It is understood that in the case of a work as regards their unauthorised reproduction in the countries of the union. for which the translating right has fallen into the public domain, the translator cannot oppose the translation of the same work by publication takes place simultaneously in other writers. several countries of the Union, that one of them in which the shortest term of protection is granted by law. 4. For unpublished works the country to which the author belongs is considered the country of origin of the work. . The stipulations of the present Convention apply equally to the publishers of literary and artistic works published in one of the countries of the Union, but of which the authors belong to a country which is not a party to the Union. 6. The expression “ literary and artistic works ” comprehends books, pamphlets, and all other writings; dramatic or dramatico-musical works, musical compositions with or without words, works of design, painting, sculpture, and engraving; lithographs, illustrations, geographical charts, plans, sketches, and plastic works relative to geography, topo- graphy, architecture, or science in general; in fact, every production whatsoever in the literary, scientific, or artistic domain which can be published by any mode of impression or reproduction. 7, Authors of any of the countries of the Union, or their lawful representatives, shall enjoy in the other countries the exclusive right of making or authorising the transla- tion of their works until the expiration of ten years from the publication of the original work in one of the countries of the Union. 8. For works published in incomplete parts (“‘livraisons”) the period of ten years com- mences from the date of publication of the last part of the original work. g. For works composed of several volumes pub- lished at intervals, as well as for bulletins or collections (‘ cahiers’’) published by literary or scientific societies, or by private persons, each volume, bulletin, or collection is, with regard to the period of ten years, considered as a separate work. 10. In the cases provided for by the present article, and for the calculation of the period of protection, the 31st of December of the year in which the work was published is admitted as the date of publication 11. Authorised translations are protected as original works. They consequently enjoy the protection stipulated in Articles 1 and 2, The Society of Authors was, of course, not officially represented at the Berne Conference, only the chosen representatives of the contract- ing natiens being present, and no external evi- dence or assistance being invited. But the late Sir Francis Ottiwell Adams, who was Plenipo- tentiary for Great Britain, was one of the founders of our Society, and we were so com- pletely in touch with his individual views on the subject, that it is a matter of no surprise that we have no fault to find with the terms of the Berne Convention.” They seem to us reasonable, to give to the public that facility of access to good books in all tongues, to which the public has a right, and yet to reserve to the author sufficient proprietary control over his property to make it easy for him to obtain proper pecuniary reward, if he sets about it properly. Great Britain has posed largely as a deeply injured country, because of the way her authors have been exploited in the past by other nations, but the fact is that, as far as the continent of Europe is concerned, the country most benefited by the Berne Convention is France, while the sinner, whose depredations have. been most checked by the Convention is Great Britain. The reason of this is not far to seek. There was and is a certain and by no means small number of French story- tellers, whose works all English people read, in French if they can, and in translation if they cannot. The result of this high development of the art of fiction in France was to encourage the issue in England of an enormous amount of translations from the French—good, indifferent, and bad—which all, however, had their one common characteristic, that they were unautho- rised, and that their sale contributed nothing to the author, and very little to the translator. The statutes of the Berne Convention have corrected this evil. For the extension of protection to “authorised translations ’? makes it necessary for the translator to approach the author or owner of the copyright so as to obtain the necessary autho- risation. This must lead to the question of price being discussed between them, and by the corre- spondence passing through the Society of Authors we know that this is the case. Both parties are benefited. The translator will receive terms and vi ™ See paper by Sir Henry Bergne in November Author, - Pp. 198.  {+ ig (ie ut = 3 ; Ae THE AUTHOR. the cachet of authorisation for his work, and the owner of the copyright, having selected a person fit to discharge the duty of translator, need no longer fear the abuse of his property at the hands of incompetent or dishonest workmen. He can leave it to the person whom he has authorised to act as his translator to maintain his rights under the Convention, for their interests are identical. There are certain anomalies in the working of the terms of the Berne Convention that can be traced to the want of uniformity in the period of copyright in the different countries. And this want of uniformity is very striking. For instance, in Great Britain the period is life and seven years, or forty-two years from publication, which- ever may be the longer; in Germany, life and thirty years beyond; in Italy, life or forty years from publication, whichever may be the longer ; in Belgium, life and twenty years beyond; in Spain, life and eighty years beyond; in France, life and fifty years beyond; in Haiti, life, and the widow’s life beyond, or for twenty years to benefit children, or for ten years to benefit other heirs ; and in Mexico, where the native output is very small, time-long copyright is granted. How can absolutely fair reciprocal terms be arranged between nations whose first notions of what is due to the author and what to the public differ so fundamentally ? Only a world-wide and time- long copyright would ever get rid of these anomalies. For it is impossible to imagine all the nations of the earth deciding in conclave that, say, life and fifty years is the just term of protection. No limited term can ever seem right to everybody. It is possible to conceive a yveneral admission that literary pro- perty, beg in no way distinguishable from other property, belongs to its owner in perpetuity. But this is the proposition, which, though strong in logic is, for reasons of practical expediency, very weak. Nearly all that can be done at present to give the author and the publisher a fair chance in foreign lands has been done by the Berne Con- vention, in behalf of copyright owners happening to be citizens of one of the contracting States, And it should be mentioned that it is open for any State to join the union by providing domestic legislation that will enable her to comply with the conditions demanded by the statutes. And allusion is made to this because there are note- worthy absentees from the number of contracting States. For instance, Russia is still outside, and it is difficult to over-estimate the influence that Russia has had upon European literature. One great author, Count Tolstoi, is believed to desire no pecuniary return for his work; but the Russian school of novelists alone is a large one, and as 265 they may not all acquiesce in Count Tolstoi’s creed, it seems to us a little odd that Russia does not join the union. For it must be noted that it is fiction, and fiction in translation, that is chiefly going to be benefited by the terms of the Berne Convention. Scientific and abstruse monographs will circulate in their original language, because, firstly, scientific language has been thoughtfully arranged upon a classical basis, so as to be very similar in all tongues; and, secondly, the people to whom such works are necessary, will generally make light of the task of translating them for themselves. Norway and Sweden, again, should join, having regard to the boom in Norse litera- ture. In the next two markets, the American and the Colonial, the British author has only to consider English-speaking people. And here he may grumble with justice that he has been hardly used. For no doubt his works, requiring no intermediary translation, have, in days gone by, been more pirated than have the books of even the popular French novelists. The new American Act will right this, for it has conceded to foreign authors, of whom the English are, by identity of tongue, far the most important, rights in their works. It is too soon to criticise the working of the Bill in all its details, but it is not too soon to recognise that the new legislation is bound to be of the greatest possible service to all our popular authors of both nations. It is strongly felt by us, however, that the enactment compelling simultaneous publication should give way to a six months’ period of waiting on either side. The Report of the Copyright Commission deal- ing with the question of American Copyright before the passage of the Bill runs as follows, and states very fairly what was felt to be the posi- tion at the time :— “When deciding upon the terms in which we should report upon this subject, we have felt the extreme delicacy of our position in expressing an opinion upon the policy and laws of a friendly nation, with regard to which a keen sense of injury is entertained by British authors. Never- theless, we have deemed it our duty to state the facts brought to our knowledge, and frankly to draw the conclusions to which they lead. Although with most of the nations of the Con- tinent treaties have been made, whereby reciprocal protection has been secured for the authors of those countries aud your Majesty’s subjects, it has hitherto been found impracticable to arrange any terms with the American people. We pro- ceed to indicate what im our view are the diffi- culties which have impeded a settlement. “The main difficulty undoubtedly arises from 266 the fact that, although the language of the two countries is identical, the original works pub- lished in America are, as yet, less numerous than those published in Great Britain. This naturally affords a temptation to the Americans to take advantage of the works of the older country, and at the same time tends to diminish the induce- ment to publish original works. It is the opinion of some of those who gave evidence on this sub- ject, and it appears to be plain that the effect of the existing state of thimgs is to check the growth of American literature, since it is impos- sible for American authors to contend at a profit with a constant supply of works, the use of which c sts the American publisher little or nothing. “Were there in American law no recognition of the rights of authors, no copyright legislation, the position of the United States would be logical. But they have copyright laws; they afford protection to citizen or resident authors, while they exclude all others from the benefit of that protection. The position of the American people in this respect is the more striking, from the circumstance that, with regard to the analogous right of patents for inventions, they have entered into a treaty with this country for the reciprocal protection of inventors. “Great Britain is the nation which naturally suffers the most from this policy. The works of her authors and artists may be, and generally are, taken without leave by American publishers, sometimes mutilated, issued at cheap rates to a population of forty millions, perhaps the most active readers in the world, and not seldom in forms objectonable to the feelings of the original author or artist. “Incidentally, moreover, the injury is intensi- fied. The circulation of such reprints is not confined to the United States. They are exported to British Colonies, and particularly to Canada, in all of which the authors are theoreti- cally protected by the Imperial law.” There is only one point which it seems to us the commissioners rather missed, though it must be remembered that it was not so evident then as it was just previous to the passage of the American Copyright Bill. And that is, that American literature itself was becoming an enormous thing. At the time of the Copyright Commission, American lterature certainly meant, to many English people, the highly artistic and delicate work of two or three poets and two or three novelists, and the incomparable exponents of a new sort of humour—the humour of quiet exaggeration. But all this has been changed now, and there are a score of American authors whose names are household words in England. And how has this been accomplished ? THE AUTHOR. By piracy. While the English author has been lifting up a justly aggrieved voice against the action of the American, he was apparently in ignorance that he was treating the American author at that very time in the same larcenous manner. All English authors have welcomed with pleasure the passage of an Act that bids fair to set at rest a question whose consideration and debate have given tise to an acrimony that can be well understood. sec CORRESPONDENCE. Correspondeuts 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 Dvusious CHARGE. OP ene eae years ago I not only wrote verses, but had my verse printed at my own expense—but not published. A friend, if I may speak of a relation as a friend, Mr. E. C. J. we will call him, declared, upon hearing that I had written a book of verses, that he was “ much concerned for my reputation as an author,” or perhaps it was “as a poet,” and urgently begged that I would allow him to look through my verses ; he said nothing about any revision, or any charge for his services. It was, he gave me to understand, a spontaneous outcome of good feeling and anxiety for my literary reputation that urged him to offer his advice. To his taking a copy of the book away with him I could of course make no objection, in fact, he was quite welcome to any volumes he might require. My friend was highly intellectual, fairly well read, and well educated; a man of good position and recognised authority on certain subjects, but he had, however, no literary tastes, and he was, more- over, strictly matter of fact, with not an atom of sentiment about him, and painfully unpoetical. I should not imagine that he had ever read a line of our great poets in his life, and yet he took upon himself the task of revising a book of poems. My friend who bore away with him my book was even ignorant of the most simple laws of versification. When the book was returned to me it was marked here and there on the margin in red ink, and remarks were made in what I thought to be his handwriting. Whoever made them could not have been occupied for more than an hour in the task, since there were not more than fifty of these red ink corrections throughout the book, which consisted of about  THE AUTHOR. one hundred pages, and such corrections as were made displayed in many places utter indifference to the rules of English grammar and literary construction. For this unmasked for service, thrust upon a youth who perhaps would have fared better had he been dealt with by competent reviewers, I was asked to pay £10; and in utter ignorance of the value of the service thus thrust upon me, I wrote and despatched to my friend a cheque for that amount. Now that I am acquainted with matters relating to book pro- duction and the profession of literature, now that I know how hard it is to earn £10, I_ begin to suspect that I dil very wrong to admit this claim; that I was, in fact, imposed upon, and my reason for writing to the Author is to obtain from that best friend, not only to literary aspi- rants, but to veteran authors, é.e., the Editor, his opinion of the facts I have related. A. M. [Of course there can Le no doubt whatever on the subject. As the facts are related, the young writer should have refused to pay this impudent demand. It was, however, twenty-eight years ago. Perhaps such a demand would not be made in these days.—Ep. | Il.—Lert To Pay. The following story may be of use perhaps to somebody unversed im the ways of editors, so I tell it:—-An article of mine went to a paper for which I have often written, and was duly accepted. But the letter announcing this fact expressed a wish for a few photographs to illus- trate the article, and mentioned five or six as the number likely to be required. I accordingly, after considerable trouble—for the views were difficult to get—bought five photographs and despatched them to the paper, and my article appeared, illustrated, however, by only two out of the five. After a while I received an envelope containing all the photographs, but no money beyond the sum due for the letterpress. So I had to pay for things quite useless to me, and got simply at the suggestion of the editor, a mode of procedure which I thought, and think, very shabby on his part, and which took some of the “gilt off the gingerbread,” never too highly gilt at its best for struggling authors. N. D. I11.—Tue Epiror Acatn. In view of the many, no doubt deserved, charges of editorial neglect of unknown authors, a personal experience on the other side may perhaps be interesting. Between two and three years ago I submitted a manuscript to the editor 207 of a well-known monthly magazine, whose rule I had previously discovered to be courtesy to all contributors, immediate notice of MSS., and prompt payment for such as were accepted. The MS. in question was a short story of about 8000 words. This the editor considered too long. He returned the story, and asked me to curtuil it, which I could not consent to do, and I wrote expressing my inability and regret. More than a year and a half afterwards the editor wrote to ask me to let him have the MS. back, as he could then place it. The story had meantime appeared in another publication. Now, that is the part which I consider noteworthy —that a sympathetic and experienced man could know so little of the ways of authors as to imagine that a writer could afford to keep copy on hand for such a period. But this is not all. A year later, namely, during the present week, the editor wrote again, and without any communication between us in the interval. He had obviously forgotten my last letter, as well as the title of the story, and merely said that, having returned a story of mine some time ago, he begged to have it again for recon- sideration. To specify the story in question he thereupon supplied me with the whole plot in brief. Now, this from a very busy man, at the head. not only of a publication, but of a publishing house, and after an interval of between two and three years, strikes me as an incident well worth recording. A letter in verification of the above statement is inclosed. Nov. 11. EK. Rentout Esuer. IV.—Bryonp THE AGREEMENT. I have heard of a piece of generosity on the part of a publishing firm which should be recorded if only pour encourager des autres. They bought the copyright of a certain book, which thus became their property absolutely, the author baving no further claim upon them. The serial rights of this work were purchased by a journal, the publishers thereupon voluntarily forwarded to the author, above and beyond their purchase price, a moiety of the sum they had received from the journal in question. L. 8. [The publishing tirm in question was that of Messrs. Ward, Lock, Bowden, and Co.—Ep. | V.—Wuy Resecrep. J. B. urges that editors should state why a MS. has been rejected. He also points out that a single adjective—dull, unsuitable, uninteresting, too long, too short—would generally convey all the information wanted. But has J. B. any idea of the work of an editor as it is’ Iv is enough 268 to read a bundle of MSS. without the additional labour of affixing to each a form containing, if only in a single word, the reason for rejection. VI.—Tue Germans’ Turn, At various annual dinners of the Authors’ Society, and at the lesser feasts of the Authors’ Club, we have honoured and feted Americans and Frenchmen, Dutchmen and Belgians, but up to the present time, for some curious reason, certainly not out of respect for their literature, we have never yet given a dinner to German authors. And yet their literature has an immense influence for good upon our English art of writing ; and how very great an influence their scientific work has had upon our scientific writers will quickly be seen by a reference to any modern English scientific work. The preface of these works generally refers to the German works quarried from and used, whatever branch of science is being studied.: Could we not do honour to such writers as Jordan, Ebers, and Dahn, Eckstein and Freytag, Bodenstedt, Scheffel, or Stinde, or to a language that has produced in our day such writers, even though they may not, nay, some cannot, be present? When we remember the number of Germans in England, probably many German authors would avail themsclves of an invite from the English authors to visit England ; and although the language of Goethe and Schiller, Humboldt and Mommsen, may not be so widely and lightly known as the language of Moliére and Hugo, yet enough English speakers of German could easily be found to entertain our guests. The present day literature of Germany is worthy of highest honour. Her plays have been adapted, and proved immense successes on our English stage ; her history and her science is accepted in our Universities as the highest authority, and latest developments of thought and research ; her novels are stirring and elevating; her poetry is thoughtful, and in touch with nature; her humorists are being copied by our most modern wits; and yet our Authors’ Society has up to now not done the literature of the German people honour in the persons of the professors of that literature. It is an oversight; but I am nor only speaking my own thoughts when I express a hope that a dinner, followed by a conversazione, will ere long be arranged by the English Society of Authors to German writers. Jams Baker. VII.—AvtuHors anD PUBLISHING. As one who has written and published several books which have brought much “grist” to the vublishers, but very little to their author, I must THE AUTHOR. take exception to Mr. Andrew Lang’s statement in this month’s Author, when he says: “ As to the author’s ignorance of the sum which should be his due, I presume that he finds out his market value, like other people, as soon as he is ‘ quoted,’ in all senses. His first effort is a shot in the dark. Let it even ‘make an outer,’ and he begins to know what he should be paid.”’ This is so misleading, and so contrary to my own experience (albeit, not quite ‘‘ an idiot,” as Mr, Andrew Lang would term all authors ignorant of the ways of publishers), that I must be pardoned for stating my own case. After various essays in authorship I “made a hit’? in book form; but. got little thereby, for I had sold the copyright for £15. At my second venture (generally con- sidered my best work), my publishers, as I know now sorrowfully, must have netted hundreds, where I received tens, of pounds. For my third book I received less than tor my second; a little more for my fourth; a little more for my fifth— altogether less than £100. It is only now, that by means of the Society of Authors, “The Methods of Publishing,” and “ The Cost of Pro- duction,’ I am beginving to know the value of my literary work. And but for our Society I should beas much in the dark now, after publish- ing some dozen books, as to what remuneration an author ought to receive for his work, as all authors and literary men generallv were fifty years ago! The Incorporated Society of Authors is doing a good work, and a great work, by letting in a flood of light upon matters formerly en- veloped in the darkness and mystery of “trade secrets.” CLERICUS. VIII.—Lirerary Insurance. T observe that in the current 1.umber of the Author Mr. J. M. Lely raises the question of insurance of MSS.,.and expresses the belief that they are uninsurable. Allow me to state my experience. I have a considerable number of literary MSS., notes, and memoranda; and, as their destruction would mean the loss to me of the results of a very large amount of labour and research, I last year sought to insure them. After the risk had been declined by more than one good office (including that in which my household effeets are insured), it was at last accepted by the Fine Art Insurance Company Limited, of 28, Cornhill, E.C., and I now hold a policy in that office. Mr. Cecil T. Davis, of the Public Library, Wands- worth, is, I believe, the agent for literary insurances, and to him all communications from those who wish to insure either books or MSS. should be addressed. Miter CuHRIsTyY. Pryors, Broomfield, near Chelmsford.  > aT. id } F } ; t id ia (fe it . THE IX.—ILuvstRaTIons. Surely the difficulties connected with the cost of illustrations would be surmounted if the artist furnished the blocks ready for printing. If the illustrator did this, he could, if he desired, make fresh drawings, when the blocks turned out un- satisfactorily, at his own expense; and the author would know exactly what his illustrations would cost. There is nothing more unsatisfac- tory to an artist than to see bad illustrations bearing his name; and, if the expense of re- doing a drawing came out of his own pocket, he would willingly sacrifice part of his profits. But if the author or the publisher has to bear the charge of the artist’s mistakes, he naturally objects. I have illustrated some books in this manner, stating my price, and bearing all risks of occasional failure, and I find that 1s. to 2s. per square inch is fair payment for ordinary land- scape and architectural work (or simple figure subjects), inclusive of process blocks ready for the printer. Figure subjects requiring several models, or elaborate or historical costumes, would, of course, be more costly. This is a far more satisfactory manner of working to the artist, because it is impossible always to be perfectly sure that a drawing will reproduce well. Just as one sees faults in print which were overlooked in MS., so one sees mistakes in the engraving which remained undiscovered in the drawing. 35, Albany-street, N.W. SopHta BEALE. X.—Reticion in Darty Lire. Some months ago I agreed to supply a serial story for the pages of a new religious weekly. I was to be paid at a certain rate per chapter, and at the request of the editor I forwarded copy well in advance of the date of publication. Long ere all the chapters had appeared in the paper the whole of the MS. of them was in the editor’s keeping. I had dismissed the story from my mind, when one morning I was surprised by a visit from one of the editor’s clerks, bringing me ap urgent letter from him saying that the MS. of the forthcoming chapter of my story had some- how been lost at the office, and entreating me to help him out of this “ awkward dilemma.” Could I supply a second copy? I explained to the messenger that Thad no copy of my work. AIlI could do was to look up my notes of the story and rewrite that particular chapter. Was that what the editor wished? Iwas told that it was, and that the MS. must be at the office not later than the first postal delivery on Monday morning. It was then midday on Saturday, so I set about the distasteful task of endeavouring to recall and reconstruct matter which had lost its interest AUTHOR. 269 for me. It was a most irksome task, and occupied me for some five hours that evening and a couple of hours on the following day. On Monday evening I received the printer’s proofs. Imagine my chagrin on perceiving that they were printed from the original MS., which apparently had turned up in the interval! At this time I had received payment for all the chapters except the last four, of which this was one. These were not paid for, and after waiting for several weeks I wrote to the editor asking for a settlement, and drawing his attention to the fact that, although only four chapters remained unpaid for, I was really entitled to payment for five, as I had rewritten one at his request. After a delay of some weeks I received a reply to this effect. “In view of the fact that material for the story which you rewrote was in drawer at office all the time, and that the matter you furnished was not origi- nal, we have made the cheque so much, and hope you will approve.” The amount of the cheque provided tos. 6d. as the magnificent remuneration for my seven hours’ work. Was this or was it not very shabby treatment ? Oct. 25- A Member OF THE SOCIETY. ee AT THE SIGN OF THE “AUTHOR'S HEAD.” N Mr. Black’s new novel, “The Handsome Humes” (Sampson Low and Co.), the author has discovered and made use of the fact that the pugilist of to-day has an opportunity of making more money than he used to do when the P.R. was the fashion, and so we have in this story an ex-prize- fighter who has had his daughter educated in a clergyman’s family. When she is of age to keep her father’s house, his first care is to hide her away from his earlier acquaintances, only one of whom makes any appearance. Accident brings the girl a handsome lover, and she has to con- tend against the old difficulties of family pride and pedigree, with the addition ofa titled rival. However, as becomes her father’s daughter and Mr. Black’s heroine, her beauty soon “knocks them out of time’’—though, all unwittingly, she makes her father sacrifice himself for her sake. It is a charming story, but the reader may perhaps feel inclined to ask, as usual, if anything is known of the heroine’s mother. The author would probably adapt Balzac’s answer to a somewhat similar question, and say, “I did not know Miss Summers during her mother’s life- time.” From a small volume of verse by Mr. Arthur Hood, entitled ‘Smiles and Tears,’ we give the  270 following extract, being part of ‘A Poor Man’s Song” :— The pride that holds its head aloof Above life’s common pains, And boasts because some grandsire made A hoard of ill-got gains. * * * * * Or that still viler boasting that On marriage rears its head, And nestles in the riches left By the uncared for dead. * * * * * Let Genesis be written fresh, The old one’s out of date: It could not be one man was made With Mother Eve for mate. But two, as species for the race That was to follow after— One rich—the angels’ special care ; One poor—the devil’s laughter. The author of “ Somnia Medici” has put for- ward another volume of poetry, entitled “ Tales in Verse,” of which there are seventeen in various metres, interspersed with songs, all too long for quotation except the followimg:— Then he sang The taunt of cowardice that hides in gloom. A lord and a king thou hast bid me to sing. I have sung of thy hateful realm ; And I sing thy affright in the fall of night, And the death that shall overwhelm. For where are thy arms and thy lying charms, And thy slaves that bow the knee, Thy hall of state and each breathing hate, In this shadow where none may see ? But I know thee near, and I have thee here, For a coward in vain shall flee; And my song is a spear to thy open ear, And its point shall be sharp to thee. Of dainty books, beautiful books, books in artistic bindings, books in artistic print, books with lovely illustrations, there is certainly a revival growing and spreading very fast, imso- much that there may be a danger before long of the outside appearance becoming of more value than the text itself. Certainly there will be col- lectors of books for their outside alone. Here is an exquisitely beautiful book called “ A Book of Pictured Carols,” designed under the direction of Arthur J. Gaskin, and published by George Ellen. A new translation of Andersen’s Fairy Tales has been published by Mr. George Allen, also with illustrations by Arthur J. Gaskin. It is safe to say that no illustrations to any previous edition can compare for a moment with these. As to the accuracy of the new translation, Danish scholars may speak; at least one may say that the English is good, and that it shows no sign of being a translation. The general presentation and appearance of the book are most artistic. ‘THE AUTHOR. “Men and Men,” a love story, by V. 8. Sim- mons, author of “Green Tea,” is a story to be noted and read. It is not long; itis not new in its place or in its people; yet it is fresh, and seizes the reader. The book of the month is Wright’s “ Brontés in Treland.” The following arrangements have been con- cluded through the Authors’ Syndicate: Mr. George Meredith’s new story, “Lord Ormont and his Aminta,” will run serially through the Pall Mali Magazine, commencing in the December number. Mr. Hall Caine’s story of the sale of the Isle of Man to the English Crown will, under the title of “The Manxman,” commence in the Queen and a limited syndicate of provincial newspapers in January. Mr W. E. Norris’s story, “ Matthew Austin,” will begin in the January number of the Cornhill Magazine. Mr. William Patrick Kelly, author of “Some Exciting Adventures,’ now running in the Million, has arranged with a Swiss newspaper proprietor for the translation and serial publica- tion of the “ Adventures” in his paper. Eden Phillpotts, whose new book, “In Sugar Cane Land,” is to be published shortly, and whose new novel, ‘Some Everyday Folks,” appears through Messrs. Osgood, McIlvaine, and Co., before Christmas, has also found time to do a good deal for the coming Christmas numbers. He will be represented in the Graphic, Black and White, English Illustrated Magazine, Hearth and Home, and the Magazine of Short Stories. In the list of books published last month there oceur three misprints. For “ Rossetti” was printed “ Rossette,” for “ Barabbas” was printed “Barnabas,” for ‘Daudet” was printed “ Dandet.” Miss Mary Rowsell’s comedietta ‘‘ Richard’s Plan,” her joint drama with H. A. Saintsbury, “The Gambler,” and the play by Edwin Gilbert adapted from her story of ‘‘ Petronella,” called “White Roses,” have all been. taken and printed by Mr. Samuel French, 89, Strand, who will give information as to the terms of per- formance. Esmé Stuart will publish this season, through Messrs. Bentley and Son, a new novel called ““The Power of the Past.” The same author has also produced this autumn “A Woman of Forty: a Monogram” (Messrs. Methuen and Co.).  THE AUTHOR. “ Penshurst Castle” is the title of Mrs. Emma Marshall’s new novel. It is a historical romance, the period laid in the time of Sir Philip Sidney. It will be published immediately by Messrs. Seeley and Co. The same author produced in October a story for girls called “The Close of St. Christopher” (publishers, Nisbet and Co.). “Into the Silent Land ” is the title of a volume of epitaphs copied chiefly from tombstones, by E. M. T., published by Simpkin, Marshall, and Co. (Crown 4to., illustrated, price 5s.). “The Desert Ship” (Hutchinson and Co.), which is now well before the re.ders of adven- ture stories, will be followed shortly by two serials from the pen of its author, Mr. John Bloundelle- Burton. One, dealing with the attempted colo- nisation of Darien (1698-9), and entitled ‘The Gentleman Adventurer,” will commence in Young England in January, and run through the year ; and another, “The Adventures of Viscount Anerly,’”’ will commence in the People a month or so later. Who wrote “Captain Clutterbuck’s Cham- pagne” ? We learn from the publishers, Messrs. W. Blackwood and Sons, that the author was General William MHamley, elder brother of General Sir Edward B. Hamley. It is strange that two brothers should both make a literary mark, and each with a single novel which sur- vives, and will survive when all their other work is forgotten. The first number of a new sixpenny monthly magazine will be issued shortly. It will be called the Imperial Magazine, and will be con- ducted by Mr. Francis George Heath. We have received a copy of Cream, together with a prospectus of the Imperial Press, Limited, also conducted by Mr. Heath. A new novel by Miss Peard, called “ An Inter- loper,”’ will form one of the serials in Temple Bar for 1894. The thirteenth volume of Arrowsmith’s “Three- and-Sixpence ” Series contains a story by Harold Vallings, author of ‘The Transgression of Terence Clancy,” &c. It is entitled “Three Brace of Lovers,” and is illustrated by G. P. Jacomb- Hood aud Frank Feller. A cheap edition of Mr. Payn’s new novel, “A Stumble on the Threshold,” illustrated by Hal Ludlow, is just announced. (Horace Cox.) “A Step Aside,” by Gwendolen Douglas Galton (Mrs. Trench Gascoigne); and the “Martyrdom of Society,” by Quillim Ritter. (Horace Cox.) 271 “Doing and Daring” is a Christmas book for boys, a tale of New Zealand. There is plenty of adventure in it; there are plenty of hairbreadth escapes; there is plenty of bravery and pluck. What can boys want more? ee WHAT THE PAPERS SAY. I.—Tue Penny Novetette. To the Editor of the Pall Mall Gazette. Str,—In the allusion made to the ‘penny novelette’” in your review of my last book, “ A Strange Temptation,’ your reviewer touched, perhaps unconsciously, on a question which is beginning to be one of great importance to myself and my fellow-novelists. We have two distinct classes of readers, and the danger is, lest in providing for the delicate, long-necked stork we may starve the hungry fox. It pleases one’s conceit to be called upon to write for the higher class of readers, which is becoming daily more fastidious, and demands a style which must be epigrammatic, packed with meaning, and as dainty in phraseology as Théophile Gautier’s. But I am not sure that it is good for us. The fear is that in attempting to cater for this public we may fall into what Dr. John Brown called “the sin of effort or of mere cleverness.” And there is a much larger second public, con- sisting of readers coming up not only from the lower middle classes, but from the board schools. Their name is legion, and we are obliged to take their needs into consideration. They not only buy our cheap editions, but they read our stories when they are first of all published by the news- paper agencies; and it is I suppose, an open secret that we novelists make most of our profits in serial publication. This is alow argument. A better one is the true one, that we are proud of providing these readers with good and unobjec- tionable reading. But for them the phraseology must not be too studied, nor the allusions too subtle, and the plot must be more or less exciting. It is painful to receive a message from one or other of them that your last book was so ‘‘ deep”’ that they “could not understand it,” and to know that what Mrs. Brown calls “deep”? may at the same time seem shallow to a critic who belongs to the educated minority. You have often started good controversies, and if you or any of your readers can tell us writers of fiction how to solve this problem they will oblige—Yours faithfully, Lity SPENDER. Bath, Nov. 14. 272 THE AUTHOR. Il.—Cocxnrey PRONUNCIATION. By ANDREW W. TUER, F.S.A. To Messrs. CHEVALIER, Du Maurier, ANSTEY, SULLIVAN, and others, in the hope that this scientific paper may pro- mote, even among distinguished students, greater untfor- mity in the pronunciation of a classic tongue. There would almost seem to be an opening for a dictionary of Cockney pronunciation. But it might pall, and at the moment a short list of words as yow pronounce them, and as he pronounces them, together with a few applica- tions, may suffice. You. Always Asked Assure As Away Baby Bank Been Boot-lace Came Carpet Carriage Cab Can Champagne Cheer Child Coffee Cross Daisy Day Decided Don’t Dozen Door Do you here? Drawing Duke Else Ever Face Far Fat First Five Flowers Fried Froze Garden Get Going Good morning ! Gone Got your Gradually Gravel Guineas Hammersmith Harvest Have Headache Hear, hear! Here (Look her Home HE. Allwiz Ahst Asshaw Ez A-wy Bi-bee Benk Bin Boot-lice Kime Carpit Kerridge Keb Kin Shempine Chur Chahld Cawffay Crawss Di-zee Dy Dissardid Down’t Dezzin Dawer J’eer? Drawrin’ Jook Elsh Ivver Fice Fur Fet Fust Fahve Flahs Frahd Frowze Garding Git A-gowin Mawnin ! Gawn Gotch Gredjooly Grevvil Guinnays Emma Smith ’Arvist "Ev *Ed-ike Yur, yur! e) He-yer ,Owm You. Horses How is Idiot Isn’t Lady Last Like News No Now Noses Obituary Odious Off Ob! Paper Pardon Particular Partner Perhaps Prospect Pure Put your Quite Rain Railway Recollect Regular Ridiculous Right Row Roses Same Say Says Showers Sit Smoking So Soft Society Stones Straight Surely Such Suppose Tired To-day Tract Tremendous Violets Ways Wept Worse He. > Awsiz Owzh Idjit Eyen’t Li-dee Lahs Lahk Nooz Now Nay-ow Nowziz Obitchooary Ojus Awf Ow! Piper Parding Purtickler Pardner Preps Prospick Pee-aw Putch Quaht Rine Rahlwy Reckerlec’ Regler Ridiklis Raht Ray-ow Rowziz Sime Sy Siz Shahs Sid Smowkin’ Sow Sawft Sussarty Stowns Strite Shawly Sitch Spowze Tahd Ter-dy Trek Tremenjis Vahlits Wize Wep’ Wuss You. He. You. Hz. You { Yus, yas, yis, You Joo or yahss You You You Yer You Jer You Choo Yours Yaws St. James's Gazette. T1I.—A Humorist’s Recirmen. Robert Barr (whose pseudonym, ‘‘ Luke Sharp,” is familiar to the readers of the Detroit Free Press) has written an article on “ How a Literary Man Should Live,” of which the conclusion is cited by his permission :— “JT am not,” he says, “an advocate of early rising. I believe, however, that every literary man should have fixed hours for getting up. I am very firm with myself on that score. I make it arule to rise every morning in winter between the hours of six and eleven, and in summer from half-past five until ten. A person is often tempted to sleep later than the limit I tie myself to, but a little resolution with a person’s self at first will be amply repaid by the time thus gained, and the feeling one has of having conquered a ten- dency to indolence. I believe thata literary man can get all the sleep he needs between eight o'clock at night and eleven in the morning. I know, of course, that some eminent authorities disagree with me, but I am only stating my own experience in the matter, and don’t propose to enter into any controversy about it. “ On rising I avoid all stimulating drinks, such as tea or coffee. They are apt to set the brain working, and I object to work, even in its most disguised forms. A simple glass of hot Scotch, say half a pint or so, serves to tide over the period between getting up and breakfast time. Many literary men work before breakfast, but this I regard as a very dangerous habit. I try to avoid it, and so far have been reasonably successful, I rest until breakfast time. This gives the person a zest for the morning meal. “ For breakfast the simplest food is the best. I begin with oyster stew, then some cold chicken, next a few small lamb chops and mashed potatoes, after that a good-sized beefsteak and_ fried potatoes, then a rasher of bacon with fried eggs (three), followed by a whitefish or two, the meal being completed with some light, wholesome pastry, mince pie for preference. Care should be taken to avoid tea or coffee, and I think a word of warning ought to go forth against milk. The devastation that milk has wrought among literary men is fearful to contemplate. They begin, thinking that if they find it is hurting them, they can break off, but too often before they awaken to their danger the habit has mastered them. I avoid cayling at breakfast except a  large tumbler of brandy, with a little soda water added to give it warmth and strength. “No subject is of more importance to the literary aspirant than the dividing of the hours of work. I divide the hours just as minutely as I can, and then take as few of the particles as possible. I owe much of my success in life to the tact that I never allow work to interfere with the sacred time between breakfast and dinner. That is devoted to rest and thought. Much comfort can be realised during these hours by thinking what a stir you would make in the literary world if you could hire a man like Howells for five dollars a week to do your work for you. Such help, I find, is very difficult to obtain, and yet some people hold that the labour market is overcrowded. ‘The great task of the forenoon should be preparation for the midday meal. The thorough enjoyment of this meal has much to do with a man’s success in this life. “ Of course, I do not insist that a person should live like a hermit. Because he break- fasts frugally, that is no reason why he should not dine sumptuously. Some people dine at six and merely lunch at noon. Others have their principal meal in the middle of the day, and have a light supper. There is such merit in both these plans that I have adopted both. I take a big dinner and a light lunch at noon, and a heavy dinner and a simple supper in the evening. A person whose brain is constantly worried about how he can shove off his work on somebody else has to have a substantial diet. The bill of fare for dinner should include everything that abounds in the market—that the literary man can get trusted for. “ After a good rest when dinner is over, remain quiet until supper-time, so that the brain will not be too much agitated for the trials that come after that meal. “T am a great believer in the old adage of ‘early to bed.’ We are apt to slight the wisdom of our forefathers; but they knew what they were about when they advised early hours. [ always get to bed early—say two or three in the morning. I do not believe in night work. It is rarely of a good quality. The brain is wearied with the exertions of the day, and should not be overtaxed. Besides, the time can be put in with iess irksomeness at the theatre, or mm company with a lot of congenial companions who avoid the stimulating effects of tea, coffee, and milk. Tobacco, if used at all, should be sparingly in- dulged in. I never allow myself more than a dozen cigars a day ; although, of course, I supple- ment this with a pipe. ‘When do I do my literary work ? Why, next day of course ”’ Rosperr Barr. THE AUTHOR. 273 TV.—ADVERTISING AS A FINE Arr. It is about time that advertisements were edited. Even the largest papers are feeling this, and for our pocket-paper it is mdispensable At present advertisement pages are put together anyhow. The advertiser pays his money and takes his choice as to what he puts in. He will sometimes in the plenitude of his autho- rity transform a whole broadsheet into a staring and hideous poster in which the man who has purchased the space proclaims in the largest capitals what goods he has for sale. It seems to me that the interests, both of the advertiser and of the public, would be served if it were to be regarded as an axivm that advertising payes ought to be as interesting as those devoted to news. They should be kept distinct, there should be no mixing of the two; but advertisements should be readable. An uninteresting adver- tisement ought to be refused equally with an uninteresting piece of copy. Of course to news- papers at their wits’ ends to know how to fill their columns with advertisements, such an ideal may be impossible; but in a small and handy paper such as this, if an advertiser cannot make his advertisement interesting, he will have to leave it out. Here and there an advertiser has made an effort to make his advertisement read- able, but often this movement has been rendered worse than useless by the insertion of such an advertisement in the news part of the paper. There are few things more objectionable than advertisements palmed off as if they were news. Every advertisement ought to be marked, and not mixed up with the news, but put where people will know where to find them. In addition to having advertisements interesting they ought to be honest. T hope that The Daily Paper will never publish an advertisement which will be calculated to injure, to mislead, or to defraud the public. At present the ethics of news- paper proprietors in this respect are very rudi- mentary. It is tacitly accepted that you can adver- tise what you please; as long as the money comes in it makes no difference A rule that no financial advertisements should be inserted which invited the public to subscribe to what, in the opinion of our City Editor, was a barefaced swindle, would exclude a good number of advertisements. Of course with the most vigilant scrutiny now and then an advertisement will tind its way into our columns which should not have appeared. In those cases if any reader should have reason to complain of having been defrauded by any adver- tisement appearing in these columns he will be invited to send in a statement of his case, and if it is proved to be well founded, the advertisement will be immediately discontinued, and when it is 274 found that the advertiser has rendered himself liable to prosecution by obtaining money on false pretences, or by rendering himself in any way amenable to law, The Daily Paper will under- take the cost of his prosecution. Of course it will be said this will limit the number of adver- tisements which may be accepted, but I have no wish to make my paper an advertising board for swindlers, and I hope that I shall have the co- operation of my readers in making it difficult for these gentry to obtain possession of their neigh- bours’ money.—From the sample number of The Daily Paper, by W. T. Stead. V.—Lectures AND LIBRARIES. The combination of public libraries and popular lectures is not altogether a novelty, though it is not often found’as a systematic and perma- nent arrangement. It will, however, be the dis- tinctive feature of the new Bishopsgate Institute which is being erected in the parish of St. Botolph, Bishopsgate, mainly through the efforts of the Rev. William Rogers, the well-known rector. The scheme, which was prepared by the Charity Commissioners, presumably under Mr. Rogers’ inspiration, has now reached the stage at which the governors are able to consider the question of appointing the directors, and it is hoped that it may be fully at work next winter. A sum of some £50,000 has been spent on the buildings, and a permanent income of £2000 assured, so that the scope of its operations will be of special interest. One of its principal objects, as laid down in the scheme, is the provision of public lectures and entertainments, or industrial and art exhibitions, under such conditions as will make them available for the poorer classes, and for this purpose the University Extension Society, the Society of Arts, and the Sanitary Society, are specifically named. Power is taken to defray either a whole or in part the cost of such lectures, and the hall may also be used for public meetings not being poli- tical, denominational, or sectarian. A reference reading-room, a newspaper reading-room, and a lending library are to be established, the use of the latter to be confined to persons residing in the eastern parishes of the City, but the others open to the public generally. The site of the new institute is at 62 and 63, Bishopsgate-street Without.— City Press. THE AUTHOR. NEW BOOKS AND NEW EDITIONS. History and Biography. Axnoup-Foster, H. O. Things New and Old, or Stories from English History, for the use of schools. Llus- trated. Standard III. Cassell. 1s. Asuron, Jonn. A History of English Lotteries. _ trated. The Leadenhall Press. 12s. 6d. Brut, Cora H. The Life of Marie Antoinette, by Maxime de la Rocheterie, translated from the French by. 2 vols. Osgood, M‘Ilvaine. 218. Benyowsky, Count. The Memoirs and Travels of Mauritius Augustus Count de Benyowsky in Siberia, Kamchatka, Japan, the Liukin Islands, and Formosa, from the translation of his original manuscript, 1741- 1771, by William Nicholson, F.R.S., 1790, edited by Capt. Pasfield Oliver. Illustrated. Fisher Unwin. 7s. 6d. Buew, Wiui1am ©. Brighton and its Coaches: a History of the London and Brighton Road, with some Account of the Provincial Coaches that have run from Brighton. With twenty illustrations from original water-colour drawings by J. and G. Temple. John C. Nimmo. 21s. net. Booru-Tucker, F. pe L. The Short Life of Catherine Booth. 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What’s the World Coming to? A novel of the 21st century, founded on the fads, facts, and fiction of the 19th. Elliot Stock. Wuurr, Mrs. Joun. Nesta. A novel. Simpkin, Marshall. © Paper covers. Is. Wiutarp, Mrs. E. S. Kin-da-shon’s wife: an Alaskan story. R.T.S. Witson, H. Mary. Storm Tossed. R.T.S. Wincep Wo r, THE, and other Fairy Tales. Collected by Ha Sheen Kaf, with illustrations by Arthur Layard. Edward Stanford. 6s.  ADVERTISEMENTS. 279 THE STANDARD says :—‘‘ Indispensable to Members of Parliament, Journalists, Public Speakers, and all who desire to be well informed.” @ TWENTIETH EDITION, REVISED, CORRECTED, AND ENLARGED THROUGHOUT, AND BROUGHT DOWN TO THE AUTUMN OF 1892 Medium 8vo., cloth, 18s.; half-calf, 24s. ; full or tree calf, 31s. 6d. \HHAYDN’S DICTIONARY OF DATES. COMPRISING ABOUT 4150 pop, 11.000 DISTINOT ARTICLES, 130,000 DATES AND FACTS, EMBRACING THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD TO THE AUTUMN OF 1892, ‘« The most universal book of reference in a moderate compass that ‘ So altogether indispensable that it is difficult to imagine a period +s we know of in the English language.” —Times. when it was not in existence.’’—Spectator. PROSPECTUS, WITH SPECIMEN PAGE, POST FREE ON APPLICATION. Po LONDON: WARD, LOCK, AND BOWDEN LIMITED, SALISBURY SQUARE, E.C. cease YMr. HORACE COX’S NEW NOVELS. NOW READY, AT ALL LIBRARIES. In Two Vols., crown 8vo., price 21s. ae CMM TU RY Ss BBB. By CYPRIAN COPE. In Three Vols., crown 8vo., price 31s. 6d. = ew ter ASTDE- By GWENDOLEN DOUGLAS GALTON (Mrs. TRENCH GASCOIGNE). ‘““* A Step Aside’ is a stirring story, in which deep tragedy alternates with light comedy and tender pathos with sparkling humour. = In -A Step Aside’ there is not a single dull or redundant page. . . . Ina word, the book is worthy of unqualified praise.’—Daily Te 9t Oct. 20. “ A most interesting novel, in which the humour, pathos, and vivacity of the numerous characters are happily blended with some capital *= descriptive writing of Italian scenery.”—Zssex Times, Oct. 20. Uf egra ‘ph, Crown 8vo., with Illustrations, price 3s. 6d., Cheap Edition of \ A STUMBLE ON THE THRESHOLD. By JAMES PAYN. ue ‘*Mr. James Payn’s pleasant story contains a startling novelty. The leading actors are a group of undergraduates of Cambridge ‘i University. Mr. Payn’s picture of University society is frankly exceptional. Exceptional, if not unique, is the ‘ nice little college’ of St. Neot’s. Cambridge men will have little difficulty in recognising this snug refuge of the ‘ ploughed.’ An ingenious plot, clever characters, and, above all, a plentiful seasoning of genial wit. . . . The uxurious master of St. Neot’s ischarmingly conceived. If only for his reminiscences of his deceased wives, ‘ A Stumble on the Threshold’ deserves to be treasured. We turn over Mr. Payn’s delightful pages, so full of surprises and whimsical dialogue. . -’—The Times. ‘© A very interesting story, and one that excels in clever contrast of character and close study of individualism. . The characters make the impression of reality on the reader. . . . Extremely pleasant are the sketches of University life.”—Saturday Review. ‘*Mr. James Payn is here quite at his usual level all throngh, and that level is quite high enough to please most people. . . . The “4 character drawing is good. The story of the master sounds strangely like truth. . . . A book to read distinctly.” —Daily Chronicle. + he dramatic unity of time. place. and circumstance has never had a more novel setting. . . ”_Daily Graphic. “‘ The most sensational story which the author has written since his capital novel, ‘ By Proxy.’ Never flags for a moment.”—The wh World. 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By QUILLIM RITTER. “ Por his satirical arrows he has chosen promising game—the heiress who would reclaim the East-end and all humanity : the working man M.P.. who thinks to run the nation as easily as a Hyde Park demonstration; the man about town who, to be in the swim, forswears drink to talk about the inequality of social punishment and the mystery of human misery; the irrepressible busybody, who starts societies for the suppression of vice in high life; all familiar types in an age of sentiment and fads and Mrs. Besants, The most successful passage is that recording the final catastrophe, when the benevolence of the West leads, not to the building of palaces of delight, but to its own destruction by an East-end weary of being patronised; and there is a laugh in the fate of heiress and working man left to punt in peace on a placid river.”— Pall Mall Gazette. “This is a powerful one-volume story.”—Publishers’ Circular. , _ “Itis an odd world that Henry Jacobson sways. Mr, Quillim Ritter has put it all very cleverly, and added some neat epigrams o “99 his own.”—Black and White. WINDSOR HOUSE, BREAM’S BUILDINGS, BC.  280 ADVERTISEMENTS. MESDAMES BRETT & BOWSER, TY PISTS, SELBORNE CHAMBERS, BELL YARD, TEMPLE BAR Authors’ MSS. carefully and expeditiously copied, from Is. per 1000 words. Extracarbon copies half price. Refer- ences kindly permitted to Augustine Birrell, Esq., M.P. THE AUTHOR’S HAIRLESS PAPER-PAD. (Tur LeapEnHALL Press Lrp., H.C.) e——___— Contains hairless paper, over which the pen slips with perfect freedom. Sixpence each: 58. per dozen, ruled or plain. TYPEWRITING. SCIENTIFIC, LITERARY, AND MEDICAL MSS. CAREFULLY AND PROMPTLY COPIED BY RAYNE & CO., 40, NORFOLK STREET, STRAND, W.C. PRIVATE Room FoR DICTATION. SearcHes MADE. HigHEst REFERENCES. TRANSLATIONS. MISS E. ALLEN & CO., TYPE AND SHORTHAND WRITERS, Scientific Work and Translations a Special Feature. 39, LOMBARD ser., ECG. References to Authors. Office No. 59 (close to Lift). A. 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DOVETON, Author of ‘‘Snatches of Song,” ‘‘ Sketches in Prose and Verse,” ““ Maggie in Mythica,” &c. London: Horace Cox, Windsor House, Bream’s-buildings, E.C. Cloth lettered, price 5s. rLYRIics. Dr. J. A. GOODCHILD. London: Horace Cox, Windsor House, Bream’s-buildings, E.C. Cloth lettered, price 5s. TALES IN VERSE. BY Dr. J. A. GOODCHILD. London: Horace Cox, Windsor House, Bream’s-buildings, E.C. Published every Friday morning; price, without Reports, 9d.; with — Reports, 1s. HE LAW TIMES, the Journal of the Law and the ~ Lawyers, which has now just completed its fiftieth year, — supplies to the Profession a complete Record of the Progress of al Reforms, and of all matters affecting the Legal Profession. The Reports of the Law Times are now recognised as the most complete — and efficient series published. Offices: Windsor House, Bream’s-buildings, E.C. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Author, Vol. 04 Issue 07 (December 1893) Subject The topic of the resource <em>The Author</em>, Vol. 04 Issue 07 (December 1893) Type The nature or genre of the resource Publication Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1893-12-01-The-Author-4-7 publications The Author https://historysoa.com/files/original/5/458/1894-01-01-The-Author-4-8.pdf ca88dbbd9fa8f5fc910e01d4abc81a3e PDF Text Text ������������������������������������ Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Author Subject The topic of the resource <em>The Author</em> Description An account of the resource A digitised run of the Society of Authors' monthly periodical, <em>The Author</em>, 1890<span>–</span>1914, made available together for the first time.<br /><br />Currently users can browse issues and <a href="https://historysoa.com/items/browse?search=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Index&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;tags=&amp;exhibit=&amp;date_search_term=&amp;submit_search=Search+For+Items&amp;sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CTitle">indices</a> (not available for all volumes). Full text search for all issues, and other additional search functionality, will be added in 2022. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1890–1914 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context The-Author-Issues Publication Date The date of an event (in YYYY, YYYY-MM or YYYY-MM-DD format) 1894-01-01 Volume 4 Issue 8 Pages Page range in volume 281–316 Ngram Date Version of the date in YYYYMMDD format for use by the Ngram plugin 18940101 Ngram Text Version of the text with no HTML formatting for use by the Ngram plugin The Hutbor. (The Organ of the Incorporated Society of Authors. Monthly.) CONDUCTED BY WALTER BESANT. Vou. IV.—No. 8.] JANUARY 1, 1804. [Prick SIXPENCE. CONTENTS. PAGE PAGE Notes, &c. aes eee oe se ae see Se se ... 283 Feuilleton— Li The Editor aie ses bis oe eee oat Ses wesc20D. iterary Property gf 985 Mr. Andrew Lang v. The Society... 3 1—Walter v. Lowe... ce a alee oe = oe On Military Noms de Plume... car oi oe tae : a ee Scan en ne oa ey “ Bue ‘* At the Sign of the Author’sHead” ... oe sae ae e+e 300 3.—Huskin v. Cope Sy ey ee me oS oa ee a Correspondence.—l. The Beginner.—2. Music Publishing.—3. 4.—Harper v. Tillotson on tes ot wee eas +++ 287 ‘Minor Agents.”—4. Charles Lamb on Publishers.—5. The The French Academy and the Letter ‘‘ A.” By H. F. Wood _ ... 288 Small Bookseller.—6. The Penny Novelette.—7. More Con- Book Talk x 290 tradictory Criticisms.—8. A Stamp of Approval.—9. The Ameri x h me P Be ti a plishi 26 ase Sa oa 291 Anonymous Journalism.—10. Two Publics ne eet See 802 See ut Crs One UOUa eee e = From the Papers.—l. The Destruction of Books.—2. Cockney A Ballade of Maistre Francoys Rabelais. By Showell Rogers ... 292 Pronunciations.—3. ‘‘Put your Pride in your Pocket.”—4. Modern Literature in Oxford us os: ang nae ons sega | Artists in Black and White ... ae cs ae eee eer OOe Notes and News. By the Editor... - —- ace cer ... 292 ' New Books and New Editions... tue aS oe ne wee 809 PUBLICATIONS OF THE SOCIETY. 1. The Annual Report. That for January 1893 can be had on application to the Secretary. 9. The Author. A Monthly Journal devoted especially to the protection and maintenance of Literary Property. Issued to all Members. 3. The Grievances of Authors. (The Leadenhall Press.) 1s. The Report of three Meetings on the general subject of Literature and its defence, held at Willis’s Rooms, March, 1887. 4. Literature and the Pension List. By W. Morris Couuus, Barrister-at-Law. (Henry Glaisher, 95, Strand, W.C.) 3s. 5. The History of the Société des Gens de Lettres. By S. Squire Spriacz, late Secretary to the Society. 1s. 6, The Cost of Production. | Tn this work specimens are given of the most important forms of type, size of page, &c., with estimates showing what it costs to produce the more common kinds of books. Henry Glaisher, 95, Strand, W.C. 2s. 6d. 7, The Various Methods of Publication. By S. Squiru Spricex. In this work, compiled from the papers in the Society’s offices, the various forms of agreements proposed by Publishers to Authors are examined, and their meaning carefully explained, with an account of the various kinds of fraud which have been made possible by the different clauses in their agreements. Henry Glaisher, 95, Strand, W.C. 35. 8. Copyright Law Reform. An Exposition of Lord Monkswell’s Copyright Bill now before Parlia- ment. With Extracts from the Report of the Commission of 1878, and an Appendix containing the Berne Convention and the American Copyright Bill. By J. M. Lety. Eyre and Spottiswoode. ts. 6d. : 9, The Society of Authors. A Record of its Action from its Foundation, By Watrrr Brsant (Chaiiman of Committee, 1888—1892). 1s.  282 ADVERTISEMENTS. The Society of Authors (Bucorporafed). PRESIDENT. GEHEORGH MbERHDITE,. COUNCIL. : Sir Epwin ARNOLD, K.C.LE., C.S.1. THE EARL oF DESART. Lewis Morris. ALFRED AUSTIN. Austin Dosson. Pror. Max MULLER. J. M. Barriz. A. Conan Doytz, M.D. J. C. PARKINSON. A. W. A BEcKETT. A. W. Dusoure. Tur Ear. or PEMBROKE AND Mont- RoBERT BATEMAN. J. Enic ERIcusEn, F.R.S. GOMERY. Sir Henry Berene, K.C.M.G. Pror. Micuazrt Foster, F.R.S. Sir Freperick Potuock, Bart., LL.D. WALTER BESANT. Ricut Hon. HERBERT GARDNER, M.P.| Watrer Herrizs PoLock. AUGUSTINE BIRRELL, M.P. RicHaRD GARNETT, LL.D. A. G. Ross. Rev. Pror. Bonney, F-.R.S. EpmMuND GoOssE. GrorGE AUGUSTUS SALA. Rieut Hon. James Bryce, M.P. H. Riper HaGearpD. W. Bapriste ScOONES. Hau CAINE. Tuomas Harpy. G. R. Sms. Egerton Castue, F.S.A. JEROME K. JEROME. S. Squire SPRIGGE. P. W. CLAYDEN. RupYARD KIPLinea. J. J. STEVENSON. EDWARD CLODD. Pror. E. Ray LANKESTER, F.R.S. Jas. SULLY. W. Morris CouuEs. J. M. Lery. Witi1am Moy THomas. Hon. JoHn COLLIER. Rev. W. J. Lorrie, F.S.A. H. D. Traruu, D.C.L. W. Martin Conway. Pror. J. M. D. MEIKLEJOHN. E. M. UnpERpDowy, Q.C. : F. Marion CRAWFORD. HERMAN C. MERIVALE. Baron HENRY DE Worms, M.P.,F.R.S. OswaLD CRAWFURD, C.M.G. Rev. C. H. MrippiEtTon- WAKE. EpMUND YATES. Hon. Cownsel—E. M. UNDERDOWN, Q.C. Solicitors—Messrs. FrELD, Roscoz, and Co., Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Accountants—Messrs. OscaAR BERRY and CaRR, Monument-square, E.C. Secretary—G. Henpert THRine, B.A. OFFICES: 4, Portucan STREET, Lincotn’s Inn Freips, W.C. BOOKS PUBLISHED BY HORACE COX. Cloth lettered, price 5s. | Crown 8vo., bevelled boards, gilt edges, price 5s. Te Fr cae | PRINCIPLES OF CHESS Dr. J. A. GOODCHILD THEORY AND PRACTICE. Cloth lettered, price 5s. TALES IN VERSE. BY BY Dr. J. A. GOODCHILD. JAMES MASOA. CONTENTS. Price One Shilling; by post, 1s. 33d. | 1.—Elements of Chess. | 2.—General Principles. H U E N AL 3.—Combination. a | 4.—Exposition of Master Play Complete. AND LADY'S CALENDAR FOR 1894. Among its Contents will be found Fully Illustrated, in crown 8vo., price 5s. 6d., by post, 5s. 10d. | | A CHROMO-LITHOGRAPH PLATE OF IMITATION LIMOGES | THE FOURTH EDITION OF ENAMEL EN GRISAILLE. 4 SUPPLEMENT OF WINTER COMFORTS IN KNITTING AND | A Sy St hi NM Pocket Size, price 6d.; by post, 63d. | | | THE LAWS OF GOLF, FIGURE SKATING. As Adopted by the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of | Being the Theory and Practice of the Art as Developed in St. Andrews. England, with a Glance at its Origin and History. Special Rules for Medal Play. By T. MAXWELL WITHAM Etiquette of Golf. Winners of the Golfing Championship. (Member of the Skating Club). Winners and Runners-up for the Amateur Championship. WINDSOR HOUSE, BREAM’S BULLDINGS, B.C.  Che Buthor. (The Organ of the Incorporated Society of Authors. Monthly.) CONDUCTED BY WALTER BESANT. Vou. IV.—No. 8.] JANUARY 1, 1894. [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 ewpressing 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 on all subjects connected with literature, but on no other subjects what- ever. Articles which cannot be accepted are returned if stamps for the purpose accompany the MSS. specs 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 :— 1, SER1AL 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 venturein 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. LireraARy AGENtTS.—Be very careful. Yow 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 experienved friends or by this Society. 7. FutrurE Worx.—Never, on any account whatever, bind yourself down for future work to anyone. 8. Rovatty.—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. g. PERSONAL Risk.—Never accept any pecuniary risk or responsibility whatever without advice. 10. Resuct—ED 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 Riguts.—Never sign away American rights. Keep them by special clause. Refuse to sign an) 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 OF CopyRiagHT.—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. z 2  284 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, PorruGan Street, Lincoun’s Inn FIELps. po HOW TO USE THE SOCIETY. rE | ie 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 Awthor notes of everything important to literature that you may hear or meet with. ee THE AUTHORS’ SYNDICATE. EMBERS are informed : q 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 booking 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. : 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 im 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  THE AUTHOR. 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. Ofcourse, 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 eall it. Pes LITERARY PROPERTY. I.—Hiexu Court oF Jusrice.—CHANCERY Division. Friday, Dec. 8. (Before Mr. Justice KEkEewicu.) Watter v. Lowe. HIS was an action by Mr. Walter, on behalf 3 of himself and all others, the proprietors of the Times newspaper, for an injunction to restrain the defendant, Mr. Charles Lowe, a secondhand bookseller in Birmingham, from further issuing or distributing a catalogue recently issued by him, purporting to contain an extract from a leading article in the Times. The leading article in question appeared in the Times of Sept. 26, 1866. It commenced by referring to a correspondence that had then recently been pub- lished in the Times on ‘‘auction knock-outs,” which the article characterised as “one of the most iniquitous abuses ever introduced into a respect- able trade.” Then, after pointing out the advan- tages of an ordinary bond fide sale by auction, the article went on to say, “In reality, under the present system, an auction is the most unfair of all sales, and is the most ruinous method of dis- 285 posing of any sort of goods.” Then the article went on to describe the “ knock-out system,” which is simply a device for excluding competition at auctions and enabling brokers to obtain things at less than their proper value. The article con- cluded as follows: “ As matters are now managed, no one will resort to an auction who can dispose of his goods by any other means.” In book cata- logues issued by the defendant he printed the following notice on the cover: “ Books wanted to purchase—libraries or smaller collections of books bought for cash at the maaimum market value without any deductions or delays. The danger of selling by auction—rather than disposing of libraries to respectable dealers—has been pointed out by a leading article in the Times, from which the following is an extract: ‘An auction is the most unfair of all sales, and is the most ruinous method of disposing of any sort of goods. As matters are now managed, no one will resort to an auction who can dispose of his goods by any other means.’”’ This so-called “extract” was, it will be observed, a combination of the two sen- tences above quoted from the Times leading article, but omitting the words “ In reality, under the present system” from the first sentence. The issue of the defendant’s notice having been com- plained of by various members of the Auctioneers’ Institute of the United Kingdom, and also con- demned at a meeting of the council of the insti- tute, the secretary brought the matter to the notice of the manager of the Times, who, not then being aware of the existence of the article, at once wrote to the defendant requesting to be informed from what number of the Times the quotation was made. The defendant replied that the paragraph was a cutting taken by an assistant, and had appeared without his knowledge; and he expressed his regret that the remarks had appeared. The solicitors to the Times then wrote to the defen- dant, but as they received no reply to their com- munications, the writ in this action was issued, and notice of motion for an interim injunction was served upon the defendant. The motion now came on for hearing, which, by consent, was treated as the trial of the action. It was not until after the writ had been issued and notice of motion served that the manager of the Times for the first time became aware of the existence of the article published in 1866. He thereupon filed an affidavit, exhibiting a copy of the article, and stating that the defendant’s quotation from it was altogether misleading. The defendant filed an affidavit, maintaining that his extract was an accurate quotation from the article, and that he published it entirely bond side, and with no desire to injure the plaintiffs or any auctioneers. He further stated that as soon as his attention  286 had been called to the matter he had agreed not to print any further catalogues containing the extract, and had not done so, though he had dis- tributed the catalogues he had in stock. Mr. Warmington, Q.C., and Mr. MacSwinney for the plaintiffs, contended that the extract, appearing as it did, without any context, gave an entirely erroneous idea of what the article was about. A lie was all the worse that it was half the truth. Mr. Ashton Cross, for the defendant, denied that the extract was unfair. He contended that it was a perfectly accurate summary of the whole article. Mr. Justice Kexewicu.—Mr. Ashton Cross has argued this case for the defendant with the true instinct of an advocate—as if he thoroughly believed in his case. But when he says that this extract is obviously fair, that nothing could be more fair, that it is a perfect summary of the article, and so forth, his advocacy is taking a rhetorical form. It is unnecessary for me to go into the general question how fara leading article in the Zimes, given to the public and circulated, is public property, or how far there is private property remaining in the proprietors of the Times, or in other newspapers. But it is common knowledge that no one is entitled to reproduce the article itself, or any summary of it, or any extractor quotations from it, so as to give an unfair colour to it, to the prejudice of the original publisher. According to this extract, or so-called extract—for it consists of two extracts combined into one—which I have before me, the Times, on some day which has now been ascer- tained, attacked auction sales in the most (I may be allowed to say) improper manner, ran them down asa mode of disposing of property to which no honest man would resort; and, not only that, but warned everybody against ever attending an auction under any circumstances. That was not what the Times had under its con- sideration. That was not what the Zvmes was doing. Acting on behalf of the public, the Tvmes in this article calls attention to a particular class of auctions which are called “ knock-outs;”’ and they seem to have been brought to the attention of the newspaper and the public by a series of letters, many of which are mentioned here, and the evil of the system is pointed out and some remedies are suggested. It the Times had pub- lished anything like this extract, standing alone, they probably would have laid themselves open to very serious blame; and if they had not laid themselves open to legal proceedings, they certainly would have been highly culpable in thus describing a mode of sale which the court frequently resorts to, and very often highly THE AUTHOR. approves of—that is to say, sale by auction. This gentleman, the defendant, has ingeniously taken one sentence from about one-third down the article, tacked it on to the last sentence at the end, and then says that is a fair summary, Tt is rather astonishing, I suppose, for the writer of an article in the Times to be told that his article could be summarised in that way. But this article is not summarised by this extract. The extract does not give the slightest idea of what the article is. It is devoted to all auctions, — instead of to this particular class of auctions, and it trounces them all in this severe language. That is an injury to the Zimes. Mr. Cross dwells on the injury to the auctioneers. Indirectly, no doubt, auctioneers may complain; and if they complain that may affect the Zimes, of which, no doubt, the auctioneers are large customers by way of advertisements. But the Times itself has the right to say, “* You shall not publish our article, either wholly, partially, or by way of summary, or by way of extract, otherwise than fairly. Ifyou depart from that, and, still more, if, departing from the fair summary, you give an entirely different colour to our article, then you are saying that we have said something which we have not, and that you have no right to do.” The injunction must go; and, this being the trial of the action, it will be made perpetual, with costs. Il.—Barzy v. CoLEMAN. The plaintiff, Mr. F. C. Barley, journalist, of 50, Threadneedle-street, sued the defendant, Mr. W. H. Coleman, stock and sharebroker, of St. Martin’s-lane, to recover £3 6s., balance of an account for work done. Plaintiff said he had written certain articles on defendant’s instruc- tions for a newspaper called The City, and defen dant agreed to pay him £2 2s. a week for his services. Cross-examined by Mr. Lovell (defen- dant’s solicitor), he said the remuneration was not dependent upon the amount of scurrilous and libellous matter that he wrote. Mr. Lovell sub- mitted that, as plaintiff had not produced the papers, he had not shown that he had rendered any services, The learned judge found for the plaintiff for the amount claimed.— City Press. It].—Rusxin v. Cope. An account of this action appeared in last month’s Author. We have received a circular signed “ Walter Codd’’ from the offices of Messrs. Mackrell and Ward, 1, Walbrook, City. We extract the following portion of this circular :— From time to time my clients have, since April, 1875, issued in their monthly periodical which they published at that time, various notices of your client’s life, work, and  THE AUTHOR. writings. Such notices were published in the issue of April, 1875, p- 731, on “A Private Periodical; ” in May, 1875, p. 743, on “The Periodical with Latin Name;” in September, 1875, p. 793, on ‘“‘ Gleanings in an Unknown Field; in December, 1875, p. 826, on “ Mr. Ruskin’s Message;” in April, 1876, p. 885, on “Gleanings in the Field of Fors ;” in June, 1876, p. 907, on “ The Hermit of Fors ;” and in September, 1876, p. 944, on “The Wars of Mr. Ruskin.” These were all comments on the “Fors Clavigera,” when in course of publication. In December, 1878, p. 262, and in May, 1879, p. 336, two articles appeared in the same periodical, on “The Bibliography of Ruskin,” which was being published at that time, and additions and corrections were made in such articles with reference to the publication of the Bibliography. It would have been quite easy for my clients, from these articles published in their periodical, to have compiled a booklet which would have contained sufficient for their purpose, and which could have been done at considerably less cost than was incurred in the preparation and publication of the booklet. This will show that for many years the whole of your client’s works have been carefully studied by my clients, and that they did not suddenly pounce upon his work without previous consideration, and attempt to make a profit by the publication of the said booklet. The notice of the Bibliography of Ruskin, published in my clients’ periodical in December, 1878, was a review of two works on the “Bibliography of Ruskin,’ by R. H. Shepherd, who was at that time contributor to my clients’ periodical, “‘ Cope’s Tobacco Plant.” On the hearing of the motion my clients will consent to an injunction restraining them from selling, and offering for sale any books or works of the plaintiff, or infringements of his copyright, and especially ‘‘ Cope’s Smokeroom Booklet, No. 13, John Ruskin,” and also from parting with the possession of any of such books or works, but they reserve to themselves the right to use the cover of such booklet, the frontispiece, the title page, and the introductory notice, together with pages 58 and 59 of the said booklet. With reference to damage, I would beg to point out to you that my clients have made no profit by the issue of the booklet. IV.—Harper v. TILLOTSON. This was an action heard in the Bolton County Court, brought by plaintiff, an author and journalist, against the proprietors of the Wheeler, a cycling journal published in Bolton, to recover the value of certain articles and drawings contributed by him from time to time, and not used by the defendants, who denied their liability. In opening the case, Mr. E. H. Cannot, who appeared for the plaintiff, stated that Mr. Harper was invited by the defendants in March, 1892, to contribute to a new cycling journal which they contemplated establishing. The plaintiff was not, except by repute, previously known to the defendants. It was not contended by the plaintiff that the editor of the Wheeler was bound to accept everything sent, but he urged that the editor was bound to give a reasonably prompt attention and considera- tion to the work submitted by him as an invited contributor. Several of his articles and drawings had been used and paid for, but others had been 287 allowed by the defendants to accumulate and lie unpublished for periods ranging from sixteen months to two months, during which time much of their interest was lost. The plaintiff had written repeatedly for a consideration of these items, but had received no replies respecting them. In course of time he, becoming tired of waiting, wrote to the defendants threatening legal pro- ceedings, when the defendants replied to him stating that the articles in question were not ordered, and could not be used. They offered to return them, but the plaintiff declined to receive any of them. He then brought an action (in August last) in the High Court for £56, the value of these items, and of some others that had been published, but the charges for which the defendants disputed. Application was made in due course under Order XIV. before Master Kaye to sign judgment for the whole amount, and the defendants were ordered to pay £26, partly in satisfaction of the items published, and partly on account of certain electrotypes supplied by the plaintiff with the defendants’ consent. The defendants admitted their orders for these electrotypes, and their lability in respect of them. The action for the £30 balance still in dispute was remitted by Master Kaye to be tried in the Bolton County Court. The defendants did not admit their liability for any of this balance, but it was shown that £20 of it was for the articles to which the electrotypes belonged, and that the admitted liability for these electrotypes necessarily carried liability for the articles, of which they formed an integral part. Therefore there remained only £10 as to which there could possibly be any contention, and as to the contri- butions forming this balance, it was proved that they had been in the defendants’ possession for many months, and that they had not exercised their powers of rejection. The defendants wished now to call witnesses as to the custom of the journalistic profession, but his Honour ruled that as the correspondence produced proved these matters to be of contract and arrangement, evidence as to custom was inadmissible. He held that these contributions were sent at the defendants’ request for their acceptance or rejection, such acceptation or refusal to be decided upon within a reasonable time. Mr. William Brimelow, a partner in the defendant firm, had stated in cross-examination that he considered they had a right to retain con- tributions for an indefinite period (even for years) before they decided what they would do with them, but his Honour scouted this plea as ridi- culous. He should give judgment to the plain- tiff. Costs were allowed to the plaintiff on the higher scale.  288 THE FRENCH ACADEMY AND THE LETTER A. N I RENAN informed his countrymen, some e six years ago, that the Académie Fran- caise would be completing its Dictionary in about twelve hundred years from that time. “The real truth is far more cruel,” commented M. Emile Bergerat thereupon: “M. Renan talks of only twelve centuries as being enough for the purpose, in order to keep up our spirits.” There was a sens tronique rather indignantly charged against the author of the “ Vie de Jésus” at the moment, the irony which hinted that the notion of finality in such a work could not prove other- wise than chimerical, and that after twelve more centuries both France and her language might be dead. But M. Renan himself, “our little Chateaubriand, aua pommes,’ as M. Bergerat styled him facetiously, had participated im a fraction of the labours under the first letter of the alphabet. Himself a member of the Forty, he had spoken as a confident des dieux ; and the Immortals would appear to have shaped a rough estimate of the task yet remaining to them by the proportions of the task already accomplished. The Academy entered upon the first letter of the alphabet little less than half a century ago. They have just disposed of that first letter. At their initial weekly session for the month of October last, they triumphantly wound-up A. This onerous undertaking by the Académie Francaise formed the tardy execution of a project originating with Voltaire. It has not infrequently been confounded with the Dictionary proposed or encouraged by Richelieu, writers of popular pas- quinades having no doubt contributed to the error by their willing pictures of an Academy engaged since 1638 upon a Dictionary which still halts at A. The Richelieu lexicon, however, begun by the “‘ docte assemblée”’ four years after its establish- ment in 1634, and four years prior to the Car- dinal’s decease, was compiled from one end to the other within the same century. Issued again in 1718, 1740, 1762, 1813, and 1835, as the Dictionnaire de ]’Académie, the fabric has under- gone revision and extension without cease. Neologisms have never gained admittance into its pages until—this is perhaps the sole fact widely known in connection with the work—debate has explored all credentials and scruples; but the designation borne by the collective volumes has of late years changed to “ Dictionnaire de l’Usage.” It was of the famous Dictionnaire Historique de la Langue Francaise that M. Renan spoke, when placidly allotting to the cyclopedic toil twelve centuries still to come. More sanguine persons have ventured to reduce that forecast by one- THE AUTHOR. half. They hazard the opinion that, not two, but —with diligence—four letters may be not unsafely reckoned as the rate of continuous progress per future century. The Quarante were eventually persuaded to commit themselves to the Dictionnaire Historique by Charles Nodier, the grammarian. Nodier died in 1844, but he had seized upon the opportunity provided by the publication of the Dictionnaire de lUsage, sixth edition, in 1835, to press forward his favourite scheme with renewed vigour. According to the custom observed at the Academy, at least fifteen or twenty years must elapse before the appearance of a further edition. Nodier’s colleagues consented to forego their usual long respite and repose; and the following expressions, under the signature of Villemain, permanent secretary, accompanied their announce- ment of the erudite design: ‘‘Sans confondre Pusage et l’archaisme, sans prétendre renouveler la langue en la vieillissant, on peut en rechercher Vhistoire dans un travail qui, profitant des notions nouvelles acquises 4 la science étymo- logique, marquerait la filiation graduelle, les transformations de chaque terme, et le suivrait dans toutes les nuances d’acception, en les justi- fiant par des exemples empruntés aux diverses époques et a toutes les autorités du langage littéraire. Le premier essai de quelque partie dun tel recueil pourra seul en montrer tout le piquant interét et l’utile nouveauté.” Voltaire had outlined the Dictionnaire Historique as a thesaurus of “natural and incontestable ety- mology, the various meanings and employments of each word, the strength or weakness of the corresponding word in foreign languages, the applications of the word by the best authors, the relations of each word to prose or poetry.” A main principle of the plan which the colleagues of Charles Nodier adopted and bequeathed to their successors, excludes all terms not con- clusively defined. The Dictionnaire de Usage doubtless furnishes the ‘“ conclusiveness ;” but if so—and it cannot be otherwise, for the only words recognised and acknowledged by the Academy are those which they have voted into their successive editions — the Dictionnaire Historique will give no history of anything either non-classical or non-sanctioned by the philological purist. La Commission du Dictionnaire act as the pioneers for both enterprises. At present, MM. Jules Simon, Alexandre Dumas, Gaston Boisser, Gréard, Francois Coppée, and Camille Doucet, the last named the permanent secretary, are the academicians constituting the committee. They hold their meetings regularly every Thursday, and sit from two o’clock until three, the hour for  THE the session of the full Academy; the material for their scrutiny and deliberations having been prepared for them most carefully in advance by the salaried archivist and his subordinates. It would seem that the younger and more sensa- tional undertaking has usurped an undue share cf time and regard. The seventh and latest issue of the Dictionnaire de l’Usage appeared in 1878, and more than a thousand “novelties” have been allowed to accumulate for academical inquisition—are “applicants at the Palais Mazarin,” to quote a phrase from one of the Forty, “for their letters of naturalisation.” The Academy have now decided that, with the letter A at length out of the way, the Thursday conclaves from two to three shall be devoted to the Dictionnaire de l’ Usage alone, the latter’sre-advent in its eighth edition to take precedence of every- thing. A certain weariness, indeed, had latterly hetrayed itself. The committee were a-weary of the letter A; they may have been a-weary with the weariness of Mariana, but for an opposite reason. It was not that he would not come; he would not go. They approached their fellow academi- cians with an appeal. They besought their colleagues to grant them temporary severance from the Dictionnaire Historique. A glance at the quarto volumes, in the two cases, shows that from “ A, substantive,” to “‘ ac- tuellement,’ the contents of the Dictionnaire Historique extend to 779 pages, as compared with 24 in the Dictionnarie de Usage. The word “ Académie”—which the Duc d’ Audiffret-Pas- quier, a member of the learned corporation, insisted upon writing with two ‘“c’s””—demanding but fifty lines in the Dictionnaire de l’Usage, engrosses half-a-score of the double-column pages in the newer work. Bois-Robert’s oft-cited epigram— Depuis dix ans, dessus 1’F on travaille, Et le destin m’aurait fort obligé Sil m’avait dit: “Tu vivras jusqu’au G’— has evidently acquired a robustness of satirical flavour not anticipated by that favourite of the Cardinal. When the Abbé Bois-Robert and his fellow academicians proclaimed themselves in 1634 “ ouvriers en paroles, travaillant 4 l’exalta- tion de la France,” they added that they meant their dictionary to “ serve as a treasury and store- house of simple terms and accepted phrases.” They cherished the hope of extirpating faults of grammar as well as of banishing “ offences against taste.” Their reformers’ ardour led them unfortunately to the rejection of innu- merable idioms. Although the more useful of the excised “phrases and simple terms”’ held their place in the vernacular, and a fair proportion penetrated VOL. Iv. AUTHOR. 289 gradually into subsequent editions of the Aca- demic standard lexicon, the loss of many is undis- puted. A severe orthodoxy had been set up; fashion and favour were the creatures of the “ énurement ;” long the influence reigned, and patent was its effect. Something from the buried residuum the Décadents of our own day have recovered; and the jeune littérature sym- boliste, astonishing by an array of unfamiliar locutions, astonished divers of its hasty censors still more when it referred them to nooks and crannies in the Dictionnaire de |’Usage itself. Adonc, algide —“ qui fait éprouver des sensations de froid”’—aouté, over-ripe, become examples, under A, of old French thus restored—and restored to the current prose and verse of a school mingling in daily journalism, not merely to literary experiments and imitations such as those of Balzac. Similar instances have been the hiémal and icelui dear to the Décadents. The embarrassments besieging the Academy, however, include the dread subject of phonetic spelling. M. Malvezin, at the head of the Moderates in spelling reform, is said to have recruited even amongst the Forty; whilst M. Clédat, of the Lyons Academy, chose for his inaugural address in 1890, and printed afterwards in the Revue de Siecle, an uncompromising denunciation of the system which, in. the Dictionnaire de lUsage as elsewhere, abolishes the “¢” in scavotr, and the “g” in froigde and roigde, but retains the “ d” in poids, and the “g” in doigt. During the past two or three years the Moderates have gaine | ground considerably in France. They comprise MM. Francisque Sarcey, Auguste Vacquerie, H. de Bornier, Lockroy, Scholl, Michel Bréal, Havet, &c., together with masters of the higher schools, and Government education inspectors. On the other side stands the French Academy, offering what names, clothed with what authority ? Beside the half-dozen already mentioned, here are a few from the heterogeneous Forty :—MM. Ferdinand de Lesseps, Pasteur, Emile Ollivier, Léon Say, de Freycinet, Sardou, Meilhac, Halévy, Claretie, Sully-Prudhomme, Pierre Loti, poli- ticians, engineers, a chemist, a financier, a respec- table poet, two first-rate comic dramatists, a playwright who can always fill theatres, a theatrical manager who has written everything, and a naval officer fond of scenery. The Ma!- vezin campaign has up to the present aimed at little beyond the suppression of double conso- nants, and the substitution of “f” for ‘ph.’ The Moderates will be discontented with the letter A in the Dictionnaire Historique because abbé is not spelt abé, because abattre is not spelt abatre, with abatial, abandoner, &c. The Extremists, headed by MM. Paul Passy and AA  290 Fourts, would turn out the word autre altogether, so far, transferring it from the first to the fifteenth letter of the alphabet, as ofre. Not inaptly has this toil of the Académie Francaise been compared to Penelope’s web. Unsparing critics have derived therefrom an argument for the extinction of the society. Barbey @’Aurévilly, however, one of its bitterest adversaries, penned the reflexion that, “toute en décadence quelle soit, the Academy is an institu- tion against which nothing will prevail, because it clings to the very roots of human vanity.” So far as the limits of the letter A have permitted, the Academy have erected a real “treasury and store-house ” of history, proverb, folk-lore, and analogy, as the outcome of its fifty years’ task ; but, with the eighth edition of the Dictionnaire de Usage monopolising at least the next seven or eight years, we shall have crossed the threshold of the twentieth century before the Dictionnaire Historique can make acquaintance with the letter B. H. F. Woop. Des BOOK TALK. HE true nature of the connection between art and letters seems to be one of the most difficult problems of literature. We are reminded of it by the Hon. Mrs. Tollemache’s translation of some of the artistic criticisms of Diderot. The translator calls her work ‘‘ Diderot’s Thoughts on Art and Style,” and has written a preface which adds greatly to the interest of the work, because she has been able to indicate beforehand the chief reasons which have influenced her in her selections. The question whether the art criticism of the 19th century is in any way superior to that of the 18th, is one which the whole tenor of this work thrusts upon us. Time has changed the foremost critics of the 18th cen- tury almost into old masters, but it is as well to note afresh with what criticism it is that the moderns have to compete. The century which produced Reynolds’ “Discourses,” Hogarth’s “ Analysis of Beauty,” and, above all, the work of Winckelmann, is not likely to be considered in after times as in any degree lower than our own, so far as esthetics are concerned. The translator tries to make out a case for the present day by saying that “the moral standard changes, and gradually rises from generation to generation, so that we stand ona higher moral platform than our ancestors of the 18th century.” This seems to us to beg the whole question of artistic pro- gress, whether in performance or. criticism by com- paring it with morals. In the first place we do THE AUTHOR. not know if the remark is to apply to Europe at large, to modern French art and criticism, or to Great Britain and Ireland; and even if we did know to what country to apply it, what settled judgment can there yet be as to the average morality of the century in which we still live. Further, there is Diderot’s own question, How far has the artist a separate morality of his own? It would seem that most writers—e.g., Mr. Poynter's criticism in his “Lectures on Art” of Mr. Ruskin’s views—are agreed that there is some relation between morality and art, though what that relation is remains to be demonstrated. It is not in the choice of subject, for then we should never have had great artists painting “The Massacre of the Innocents,” nor would Michael Angelo have painted a“ Leda.” Nor is it neces- sarily in the person—painter, poet, critic, whatever he may be—for Diderot’s known want of morality, both in his life and writings, does not appear when he is writing his artistic criticisms. Another inte- resting point in this connection is Mrs. Tolle- mache’s quotation from Ste. Beuve, that Diderot was the first great writer of democratic society, for he protests against luxury. An art-critic to-day protesting against luxury is not to be found—for one who would even think it necessary to justify luxury, there would be nine who would assume it to be perfectly moral, from the point of view of art—whatever that may be. If the reader will put aside the disputed points in the relation between art and letters, he will find much else in this volume which is worth knowing and worth thinking about. As a student of Diderot he naturally turns first to read again, «A Lament for my old dressing-gown ”—the best known of all Diderot’s work, though the letter about “ the Blind for the use of those who cannot see” seems to us to be of almost equal value. If we call to mind what Mr. Collier tells us, in his “Manual of Oil Painting,” that the painter of to-day feels bound to study his art in the same methodical scientific spirit with which the physicist deals with physical science, the art- critic will have to follow suit. It is not merely “This likes me more, and this affects me less,” but why this is so. And here Diderot has laid the foundation-stone. Speculation as to the mental condition of the blind formed a great part of the eighteenth century philosophy. It was stimulated, if not started, by Cheselden’s well- known contribution to the Royal Society, record- ing the case of a boy who was blind from birth, and upon whom, at the age of fourteen, he operated (in 1729) with success. Diderot’s letter is dated 1749, so that it would be hardly possible to believe that he had not heard of Cheselden’s case, which was con-  THE AUTHOR. sidered so important. Commenting on the boy’s . af indifference as to whether he would be operated . on or not, Voltaire wrote: “Il vérifiait par cette 4) indifference qw il est impossible U'étre malheureux 1.4 par la privation des biens dont on na pas @idée : » verité bien importante.” Allied to the paper .» on the blind is one equally suggestive on the | deaf and dumb, in which Diderot shows an interesting experimental method of trying to get at their habits of mind. He says: “I often employed another mode of studying gestures =» and actions when I went to the _ theatre. 7 There were many pieces which I knew by heart, ‘.. and I would climb to the gallery, as far as ; possible from the actors, and as soon as the » curtain drew up I put my fingers in my ears, » much to the astonishment of my neighbours, and * | kept them there as long as the gestures and . actions corresponded with the dialogue which I < remembered. When the gestures puzzled me I il ¢ took my fingers from my ears and listened. How ‘1) >} few actors can stand such a test and how i | humiliated they would be if I were to publish »7 9 wy criticisms.” And, generally speaking, we find Diderot devoting his energies to an attempt to arrive at the origin of the perception of the sie J beautiful in man by trying to demonstrate the 4 probable condition of those deprived of any special sense. The translator has also given a rendering of 2 Sainte Beuve’s essay on Diderot, which, together » with her own preface, and a few scattered notes and quotations, makes this small octavo volume » one of great interest; in fact, Mrs. Tollemache | has done more than make good her claim to have »{ puilt a bridge between the English reader and . the French writer. She has chosen her materials « well.—J. W. S. ry The committee of the Special Pension for the a Benefit of Aged and Infirm Correctors of the Press and their Widows has issued a report and balance-sheet, which shows that in two years the members of the committee were able to raise é £600, which had been vested in the Printers’ I Pension, Almshouses, and Orphan Asylum Cor- | poration. The charity has had the support of f many distinguished names in literature and ‘ i i j f journalism, and its success has tempted the com- mittee to issue an appeal for a second pension in favour of those ineligible for the first. We think the appeal would be better received if the com- mittee would state more clearly how it comes “+ about that widows were not included in the first “{ pension, and on what grounds the thirty years qualification in some cases and twenty years in others was arrived at. With regard to the management of the charity, it appears that Mr. VOL. Iv. 291 Joseph Knight, presiding at a dimner held to in- augurate the first readers’ pension, said: ‘‘ The working expenses absorbed less than 1 per cent. of the subscriptions, and therefore 99 per cent. of the amount subscribed had been vested in the corporation to found the pension. Such economy was unique.’ The hon. treasurer is Mr. J. H. Murray, 14, Marquis-road, Stroud Green, N. oc THE AMERICAN AUTHORS’ PROTECTIVE PUBLISHING COMPANY. President, KarHERINE Hopeess; Secretary, E. M. SovuviE.te. Address, 14, The Potomac, Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Il. (ue following is part of a letter from the President of this new company to the Editor of this paper :— Nov. 14, 1893. The heading of this paper will be indication that no time has been lost, after the close of the Exposition, in reducing to practice the plan mentioned to you of forming an authors’ publishing company. This is now an accomplished fact. The company is regu- larly chartered under the laws of Illinois. It has a full paid up capital stock of 150,000 dollars to begin with; the stock divided into ten dollars per share, held at par without deviation. One object in view is to demonstrate the exact cost of book production, showing clearly by this what may in fairness be the share of the author, after an equitable proportion deducted to cover the cost—all the cost involved in manufacture, &c. Gail Hamilton’s book—that which you saw when you were here-—we shall soon reproduce. This is a campaign document, so to speak; the subject-matter of it a complete record of the treatment of which she was made the victim, together with an account (which would follow) of the excessive charges made by the publisher in issuing that book. This procedure is in consonance with our outlined plan of work, of which you may have remarked the expression in the last paragraph of our circular, distributed in our exhibit place in the Woman's Building at the Fair—a copy of which circular you had at that time. Nearly 200,000 saw our exhibit. Legislators and intelligent men and women from all sections, at home and abroad, were led to examine the statement of Grace Greenwood, giving names, time, and place, together with all the circumstances. These things have had a telling effect, and now the Pro tective Publishing Company must do its work in destroying permanently the system of pillage so long done upon writers in this country. A strong light shed upon any wickedness must of neces- sity aid in the obliteration of such iniquity. Nowhere else than here in Chicago—this centre of the great West—could such a light be so well upheld to do its appointed work in this direction. It is lit, and we engage to keep it trimmed and brightly burning, and to keep you fully informed of progress. Herein I have the honour to enclose you five shares of the capital stock, voted to you at a directors’ meeting recently held under the following resolution. Resolved that: ‘‘ For the valuable consideration of the AA 2  292 aid in the inception of the work which necessarily preceded the formation of this company, that the secretary is hereby ordered to issue five shares of its the estestock to Walter Besant as a slight recognition of capital em in which we hold his valued co-operation. On the issue of a journal, an organ of this society, we shall have great pleasure in offering it in exchange for yours, the better to keep the societies in touch on each side of the water. encouragement and eS BALLADE OF MAISTRE FRANCOYS RABELAIS. “‘ Over a jolly chapter of Rabelais.” R. BRuWNING, ‘‘ Garden Fancies.” Come down, old friend; too long you've lain On yon high shelf. You're dusty ? Phew ! Certes, I hear you answer plain, “A judgment for neglect, pardiew es Ne’er fear, you'll always get your due, Tho’ times go not the easy way, When lusty clerics gave the cue ; Eh? Master Francois Rabelais ? Fair abbey gardens of Touraine Long spoil’d, bloom in your page anew ; Old France unrolls her wide champaign For great Gargantua’s jovial crew, Sly Panurge, Pantagruel too, And proud Thelema’s mad array : Their legend—“ What thou Wilt, that Doe ”— Yours, Master Francois Rabelais. And tho’ you seek your shelf again, Happier with dusty tomes than new, Know this: whate’er new lights may reign, You'll find fit company tho’ few. Tho’ prudes with pain your volumes view, Whate’er folk unco’ guid may say, The world will have its laughter through With Master Francois Rabelais. Envoy Doctor, Franciscan, tho’ tis true Bookmen have all, like dogs, their day ; Long lease of life belongs to you, Good Master Francois Rabelais. SHOWELL ROGERS. eo MODERN LITERATURE IN OXFORD. URING Michaelmas Term, 1893, the following public lectures on modern literature were held at the Taylor Institute, in the University of Oxford: The Professor of Poetry continued lecturing on the minor poets of the Elizabethan age by giving one lecture on the subject; the Reader for Slavonic lectured twice on Russian writers ; Mr. Markheim recited, and commented on, scenes from Molitre ; and Dr, Lentzner delivered two lectures on Scan- dinavian literature, Danish and Norwegian. At °0, High-street, a course of six lectures on Lessing’s “ Nathan ” was delivered in German by Dr. Lentzner. THE AUTHOR. NOTES AND NEWS. HE letter published in another column 'y announcing the foundation of an American Authors’ Publishing Company will be received and its progress will be followed with great interest. It is an outcome first of the Chicago Exhibition and secondly of the Literary Conference. Its foundation must be considered as very largely the work of Mrs. Katherine Hodges, the President. She invented and suc- cessfully carried through, a means of making the subject widely known. It was simple, but it required resolution, patience, and perseverance. She engaged a stall or compartment in the Women’s Building of the Chicago Exhibition. She furnished this as a quiet morning-room, where she sat and entertained all comers with a few selected stories concerning the treatment of authors by their publishers—American authors and American publishers, it must be understood. It was much as if we had taken a similar space and conversed all day out of our book, “ Methods of Publishing.’ She had leaflets printed, which she distributed to everybody who called upon her—nearly 200,000 in all. I had one, but I have unfortunately mislaid it. Further, during the week of the Literary and Librarians’ Conference she engaged a room in the building, and held a conference of her own, which was crowded. The Publishing Company must be regarded, [ think, as an outcome of all this activity. The five shares which their directors have presented to me I transfer to the Society. May they prove profit- able! How would such a company succeed in this country ? First of all, the capital seems needlessly creat. I have often discussed the subject. with those who ought to be able to form and to give an opinion: the result has always been a conclusion that, with careful administration, the sum of £15,000 should be ample, and that there are very few publishing houses in London which were originally started with so large a capital. Let us consider how such a company would work. It would adopt, with this Society, some recognised method of publication as a basis—it might be a method to be subsequently modified in the face of facts, though we believe that at the Society we understand by this time all the facts of the case. It would, of course, concede the three first principles of honesty in publishing, viz., (1) the right of audit; (2) the abolition of secret profits ; and (3) an open division of profits whatever system be adopted. Next, in the case of commission books it would  THE AUTHOR. 293 be as active as in the case of the company’s “own” books. Thirdly, it need not begin business by costly premises and armies of clerks, but it must begin fully equipped from the outset, with travellers and managers of experience. Fourthly, it would begin with getting together, which such a company could easily do, a good list of good books. Fifthly, it should aim from the outset at com- manding the respect and the con, fidence of literary men and women. When writers really under- stand that they are going to be treated with the most complete fairness and with a perfect under- standing of what the publishers propose to make for themselves by his books, there can be very little doubt that they will flock in hundreds to such a company. Who would have anything to do with agreements such as those two published in the last number of the Author, when he could get a simple agreement in half a dozen lines according him certain terms which has been recognised as fair? What would become, then, of the ten per cent. royalty on a six shilling book; of the deferred royalty; and of all the various dodges and tricks which are daily attempted ? Sixthly, such a company must be conducted on strictly business principles. That is to say, the company would not pretend to be the patrons of literature, or to exist only for the purpose of advancing the highest form of literature ; it would publish no rubbish on any terms, but it would not publish “ high class” books on losing terms, and the company would never knowingly incur any serious risk; it would exercise its right of buying copyrights if authors wish to sell them; and it would aim, before anything else, at declaring a dividend. Seventhly, the company must always enforce upon its servants the abandonment of “tricks,” especially the tricks of the counting house, and the tricks of the traveller. To establish and to be always jealous of its good name for strictly honourable and open treatment would be the essential for success. Why, then, has not the Society itself long since started such an enterprise ? For two reasons : @) Because the work of the Society is not to adminis- ter literary property, but to defend it; (2) because the literary world has had to be educated in the facts of its own property, and because we are still educating the world; and (3) because, if literary men undertook such a company, and tried to manage it by themselves for themselves, failure would be certain, because literary men are, beyond any doubt, the least fit for business of any class im the world. © The secretary has shown me a letter from a lady, resigning membership of the Society on two grounds, (1) that the Society was of no use to her, and (2) that her works had not been praised in the Author. On the first point one would reply that it is for the good of other people that suc- cessful authors mostly become members; for that, and for the general support of the objects originally proposed by the Society. As to the second reason, one hardly knows what to say. This journal is not a review ; it does not pretend to underteke critical work at all. Yet, from tbe nature of things, those who write in it sometHnes talk of books and their contents. Now we have nearly 1200 members, all of whom write books, or have written them. Some hundreds have written books this last year. If members would suggest any plan by which these books can all be noticed, I should be very pleased indeed to adopt it if possible. For instance, would members prefer to have a running string of books not reviewed, but briefly described—neither praised nor “ slated,” but described—much as the books are described in Longman’s monthly circular? I have some- times thought that such a list might be more useful than the bare list of publications which we issue every month. And, personally, I should be very grateful if readers and members of the Society would advise me to making the Author more helpful in this, as in every other respect. But if members resign on the groun dof not being praised, we must either dissolve the Society or stop this paper—the latter for choice. Another member writes to say that the Society ig no use to him because it cannot find a pub- lisher willing to produce his work. He states also that he cannot belong to a society which does not carry out what it professes. But he should first find out what the Society professes. For instance, it has never professed to find pub- lishers for its members. It can no more do that than it can find a public to appreciate their work. Tt can, and does, keep authors out of bad hands, and it can keep them from signing unfair agree- ments. It can, and does, spread abroad every kind of information concerning literary property. If this ex-member will look into the papers of the Society he may set himself right about its pro- fessions. It is, however, rather disheartening to think that any one could believe anything so utterly and wildly foolish as that the socie'y should undertake to place MSS.—good or bad— for members. Every year there is a certain percentage of members elected, who, as it afterwards appears, enter in the hope of being helped to publishers  292 THE encouragement and aid in the inception of the work which necessarily preceded the formation of this company, that the secretary is hereby ordered to issue five shares of its the este stock to Walter Besant as a slight recognition of capital em in which we hold his valued co-operation. On the issue of a journal, an organ of this society, we shall have great pleasure in offering it in exchange for yours, the better to keep the societies in touch on each side of the water. =e < BALLADE OF MAISTRE FRANCOYS RABELAIS. —= ‘¢ Over a jolly chapter of Rabelais.” R. BRuWNING, ‘‘ Garden Fancies.” Come down, old friend; too long you've lain On yon high shelf. You're dusty ? Phew ! Certes, I hear you answer plain, “ A judgment for neglect, pardiew !” Ne’er fear, you'll always get your due, Tho’ times go not the easy way, When lusty clerics gave the cue ; Eh ? Master Francois Rabelais ? Fair abbey gardens of Touraine Long spoil’d, bloom in your page anew ; Old France unrolls her wide champaign For great Gargantua’s jovial crew, Sly Panurge, Pantagruel too, And proud Thelema’s mad array : Their legend— What thou Wilt, that Doe” — Yours, Master Francois Rabelais. And tho’ you seek your shelf again, Happier with dusty tomes than new, Know this: whate’er new lights may reign, You'll find fit company tho’ few. Tho’ prudes with pain your volumes view, Whate’er folk unco’ guid may say, The world will have its laughter through With Master Francois Rabelais. Envoy Doctor, Franciscan, tho’ tis true Bookmen have all, like dogs, their day ; Long lease of life belongs to you, Good Master Francois Rabelais. SHOWELL ROGERS. po MODERN LITERATURE IN OXFORD. URING Michaelmas Term, 1893, the following public lectures on modern literature were held at the Taylor Institute, in the University of Oxford: The Professor of Poetry continued lecturing on the minor poets of the Elizabethan age by giving one lecture on the subject; the Reader for Slavonic lectured twice on Russian writers ; Mr. Markheim recited, and commented on, scenes from Molitre ; and Dr. Lentzner delivered two lectures on Scan- dinavian literature, Danish and Norwegian. At °0, High-street, a course of six lectures on Lessing’s “ Nathan ” was delivered in German by Dr. Lentzner. AUTHOR. NOTES AND NEWS. HE letter published in another column TP announcing the foundation of an American Authors’ Publishing Company will he received and its progress will be followed with great interest. It is an outcome first of the Chicago Exhibition and secondly of the Literary Conference. Its foundation must be considered as very largely the work of Mrs. Katherine Hodges, the President. She invented and suc- cessfully carried through, a means of making the subject widely known. It was simple, but it required resolution, patience, and perseverance, She engaged a stall or compartment in the Women’s Building of the Chicago Exhibition. She furnished this as a quiet morning-room, where she sat and entertained all comers with a few selected stories concerning the treatment of authors by their publishers—American authors and American publishers, it must be understood. Tt was much as if we had taken a similar space and conversed all day out of our book, “ Methods of Publishing.” She had leaflets printed, which she distributed to everybody who called upon her—nearly 200,000 in all. I had one, but I have unfortunately mislaid it. Further, during the week of the Literary and Librarians’ Conference she engaged a room in the building, and held a conference of her own, which was crowded. The Publishing Company must be regarded, [ think, as an outcome of all this activity. The five shares which their directors have presented to me I transfer to the Society. May they prove profit- able! How would such a company succeed in this country ? First of all, the capital seems needlessly great. I have often discussed the subject with those who ought to be able to form and to give an opinion: the result has always been a conclusion that, with careful administration, the sum of £15,000 should be ample, and that there are very few publishing houses in London which were originally started with so large a capital. Let us consider how such a company would work. It would adopt, with this Society, some recognised method of publication as a basis—it might be a method to be subsequently modified in the face of facts, though we believe that at the Society we understand by this time all the facts of the case. It would, of course, concede the three first principles of honesty in publishing, viz., (1) the right of audit; (2) the abolition of secret profits ; and (3) an open division of profits whatever system be adopted. Next, in the case of commission books it would  THE AUTHOR. be as active as in the case of the company’s “ own” books. Thirdly, it need not begin business by costly premises and armies of clerks, but it must begin fully equipped from the outset, with travellers and managers of experience. Fourthly, it would begin with get ting together, which such a company could easily do, a good list of good books. Fifthly, it should aim from the outset at com- manding the respect and the con fidence of literary men and women. When writers really under- stand that they are going to be treated with the most complete fairness and with a perfect under- standing of what the publishers propose to make for themselves by his books, there can be very little doubt that they will flock in hundreds to such a company. Who would have anything to do with agreements such as those two published in the last number of the Author, when he could get a simple agreement in half a dozen lines according him certain terms which has been recognised as fair? What would become, then, of the ten per cent. royalty on a six shilling book; of the deferred royalty ; and of all the various dodges and tricks which are daily attempted ? Sixthly, such a company must be conducted on strictly business principles. That is to say, the company would not pretend to be the patrons of literature, or to exist only for the purpose of advancing the highest form of literature; it would publish no rubbish on any terms, but it would not publish “ high class” books on losing terms, and the company would never knowingly incur any serious risk; it would exercise its right of buying copyrights if authors wish to sell them; and it would aim, before anything else, at declaring a dividend. Seventhly, the company must always enforce upon its servants the abandonment of “tricks,” especially the tricks of the counting house, and the tricks of the traveller. To establish and to be always jealous of its good name for strictly honourable and open treatment would be the essential for success. Why, then, has not the Society itself long since started such an enterprise ? For two reasons: (1) Because the work of the Society is not to adminis- ter literary property, but to defend it; (2) because the literary world has had to be educated in the facts of its own property, and because we are still educating the world; and (3) because, if literary men undertook such a company, and tried to manage it by themselves for themselves, failure would he certain, because literary men are, beyond any doubt, the least fit for business of any class in the world. | 293 The secretary has shown me a letter from a lady, resigning membership of the Society on two grounds, (1) that the Society was of no use to her, and (2) that her works had not been praised in the Author. On the first poimt one would reply that it is for the good of other people that suc- cessful authors mostly become members; for that, and for the general support of the objects originally proposed by the Society. As to the second reason, one hardly knows what to say. This journal is not a review ; it does not pretend to undertake critical work at all. Yet, from tbe nature of things, those who write in it sometHnes talk of books and their contents. Now we have nearly 1200 members, all of whom write books, or have written them. Some hundreds have written books this last year. If members would suggest any plan by which these books can all be noticed, I should be very pleased indeed to adopt it if possible. For instance, would members prefer to have a running string of books not reviewed, but briefly described—neither praised nor “ slated,” but described—much as the books are described in Longman’s monthly circular? I have some- times thought that such a list might be more useful than the bare list of publications which we issue every month. And, personally, I should be very grateful if readers and members of the Society would advise me to making the Author more helpful in this, as in every other respect. But if members resign on the ground of not being praised, we must either dissolve the Society or stop this paper—the latter for choice. ee Another member writes to say that the Society ig no use to him because it cannot find a pub- lisher willing to produce his work. He states also that he cannot belong to a society which does not carry out what it professes. But he should first find out what the Society professes. For instance, it has never professed to find pub- lishers for its members. It can no more do that than it can find a public to appreciate their work. Tt can, and does, keep authors out of bad hands, and it can keep them from signing unfair agree- ments. It can, and does, spread abroad every kind of information concerning literary property. Tf this ex-member will look into the papers of the Society he may set himself right about its pro- fessions. It is, however, rather disheartening to think that any one could believe anything so utterly and wildly foolish as that the socie'y should undertake to place MSS. good or bad— for members. Hvery year there is a certain percentage of members elected, who, as it afterwards appears, enter in the hope of being helped to publishers  294 and a public. One would refuse them admission if they would let us know their motives and their hopes at the outset. What can be done for these writers? About forty retire from the Society every year, either by resignation or by ceasing to pay their annual subscription. Most of the forty seem to belong to this mistaken class. Now there is no royal road to literary success. It is an elementary thing to say, but it has to be said over and over again. Neither a society, nor an agent, nor private influence can make a writer popular, or can induce a publisher to produce him unless he thinks he will acquire some kind of popularity and demand. If by chance anyone who is thinking of joining the Society for this reason should read these lines, let him instead call upon the Secretary and talk over the situation with him. It will save him a guinea for certain, and a disappointment in all probability. Ss I would also remind readers, with a view to the new year, that we invite contributions on subjects connected with any of the various branches and aspects of literature, but on no other subject whatever. There is a club of the roughest lads in London — riverside lads— who live, and will always live, by odd jobs; who have nothing but their hands; who have never learned any trade. This club is held in the evening; the lads amuse themselves with boxing gloves, bagatelle boards, and a small library. The club is under the superintendence of a young lady, who visits the place nearly every night. Concerning this club she wrote the other day, “I wish we could get another set of ’s novels. They are worn to rags with constant reading. They are by far the greatest favourites with the boys.” If this were a weekly journal, one might offer a prize for the first person who guessed the name. Here, you see, is the problem. Quite rough lads; who loaf all day long in search of odd jobs by the riverside; who have been caught and brought in here and persuaded to read; at first against their will; lads wholly ignorant of style, of the world, of history, of everything. Given these conditions, find an answer to this question. Among living novelists, who is the most likely to catch their fancy? I cannot offer you a prize for guessing, but I will give the answer. The favourite writer of these lads is Edna Lyall. I remember a certain review of Richard Jefferies, published in a certain leading literary journal, in which the remark was made that before long his name would disap ear and his works would be fr- THE AUTHOR. gotten. ‘There would be no documents,” said — the prophetic reviewer. This was five or six yearsago. It was a most unfortunate prediction. For the work of this author spreads wider every year, and sinks deeper and deeper into the heart of the English speaking race. Of the unbounded admiration for this man, of the absolute respect for his work, which has inspired me from the time when his real work first began, I have never felt ashamed. Nor have I ever felt inclined to lower the note of that admiration, or to soften the deep colours of that respect. Therefore I welcome the new Study of Richard Jefferies, by Mr. H. S. Salt. It is a little book, but full of enthusiasm for the subject, critical rather than biographical, and worthy of the subject. This must be owned by everybody, whether they agree with Mr. Salt’s views or not. The death of Professor Tyndall removes one of the earliest friends of the Society, and one of its staunchest friends. At the outset he accepted the post of Vice-President. It will be remem- bered that we began with a President, Vice- Presidents, Fellows, and Associates. The Vice- Presidents have been dropped, and the Fellows have become Members. Professor Tyndall, how- ever, was one of our Vice-Presidents. And, as the office has never been formally abolished, he remained a Vice-President to the end. One of the last letters—probably the very last letter— that he ever wrote, was written to Mr. Colles, of the Author’s Syndicate. It was dated Dec. 3, 1893, and posted on the same day at Haslemere. The envelope shows the date. But there was some delay with the letter, as the Shotter Mill post mark is dated Dec. 5, and it was not delivered till Dec. 6, two days after the writer’s death. It was in reference to a poet of the humbler kind to whom he was desirous of doing a great kindness. The following is a portion of the letter :-— Dear Mr. Colles,—I have been shamefully entreated— lifted on the wings of hope and then let fall like a simple gravitating mass without a pinion. When I reached England from Switzerland six weeks ago my prospects were fair. Three days after my return they became clouded. I was smitten with an attack in the chest, which drove me to my bed, whence I am hardly yet able to rise. This is why I have not acknowledged your friendly note informing me of the kindness of in undertaking to look over the poems of Will you thank him on my behalf? Yours very faithfully, JoHN TYNDALL. There was a postscript containing another message of kindness and friendship. The society has plenty of enemies—especially of the baser sort. So long as it attracts and preserves the goodwill and friendship and support of such men as Tyndall it will continue to grow in strength.  THE AUTHOR. Another new monthly mazagine. This time from Dublin. It is called The Old Country. It appears to be written by Irishmen and Irish- women, but not only for their own country people. It is a shilling in price, and, among other things, it contains a poem by Professor Dowden, and two hitherto unpublished poems by Byron and Tom Moore. Some time ago I was considering the treatment of authors by the venerable Handmaid of the Church, the §.P.0.K. I mentioned on what was certainly the highest authority possible, the treatment by the Society of that exquisite writer, the author of “ Jackanapes.” I was told, however, that my information was not exact, and therefore I said no more upon the subject. I have now, however, in my hands, placed there by the clergy- man for whom—not to whom—it was written, a l-tter from Mrs. Ewing herself, in which she puts the facts exactly. She says that up to the moment. of writing (May 13,1889) there had been 30,000 copies of “ Jackanapes”’ disposed of. She states also that the Society paid her 5jd.a copy for every edition of 10,000 copies, and 53d. a copy for smaller numbers; out of this the author paid for the production, and the artist’s royalty. It was a shilling book—price 9d. to buyers. This is how, in the hands of the “ Literary Handmaid of the Church,” the publisher is related to the author : this is what the Bench of Bishops who are the vice-presidents of the Society think honourable and religious treatment of an author. Observe that merely mundane and secular pub- lishers have never claimed more than half the profits. Here is the table: Publisher pays author 5}d. receives gd.—profit 32d. Author receives 5$d., pays printer 3d. > artist, 1d. », herself, 13d. The publishers actually took three times the sum received by the author. On 30,000 copies the account would stand thus : x 8, d. Publishers’ profit......... ee 468 15 Oo Author’s is 6 5 Artist’s s s - 125.0. 6 Happy country! Happy Church! Where the purest religion is thus brought into the ordinary details of everyday life! We must prosper—we must—with such a Handmaid to the Church! A correspondent says: “I like the S.P.C.K. I like them to take the money of their publishing business because they devote it to good works.” T hope that we all like good works—though some 295 divines hold them to be as filthy rags. At the same time, there is a just and there is an unjust way. The way which sweats an author is unjust, whether the proceeds of the sweating go to colonial bishops or not. If my correspondent pleases she can give from the just and righteous proceeds of her book (if she can get hold of them) what she pleases to the society. But the society has no right to take from her what they please in order to endow colonial bishoprics. Water Besant. => ec FEUILLETON. Tue Epiror. Beinc CHaprerR XXXV. OF A HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED Work oN NatTuRAL History. \ \ TE now come to deal with the common editor (Editor vulgaris), a creature of the greatest interest to naturalists, and whose characteristics have attracted much atten- tion of late. And at this point I feel that an explanation is due to my readers. The descrip- tions of the habits and natures of those animals which occupied the previous chapters were, in every case, the fruit of my personal observations. But habitual candour impels me to confess that, in spite of many attempts, I have never myself seen an editor, although my efforts to do so have given me an ample acquaintance with his haunts, and some knowledge of his habits. Other natu- ralists, however, have been more fortunate, and many of them, writing under such signatures as “ Rising Novelist,” ‘‘ Young Author,” and the like, have communicated the results of their observations to this and other journals. There is considerable unanimity in their accounts as to the chief points of interest about him, and by comparing the results of their investigations we shall obtain a fairly accurate idea of this creature. The common editor is chiefly remarkable for the mixture of ferocity and cunning which he displays. He lives in a remote cave, or cell, situated in almost inaccessible places, and ex- tremely difficult to find. The approach to his lair is commonly invested with swarms of the Office-Boy Hornet (see Chapter LXIL.), which do all in their power to prevent the intrusion of a stranger. Strychnine, done up in the form cf chocolate drops, is probably the best means of destroying these. But even when they have been overcome, the zoologist is not unlikely to find the lair deserted; for it is a habit of the editor to roam forth in search of food, which he does at frequent intervals. Those scientists who have made a determined effort to capture an  296 editor, declare that they have approached his den at all times, from eleven in the morning to late in the afternoon, and that they have been in- formed on each occasion that their prey has “just stepped out to luncheon,” and is not expected to return for several hours. Another well-marked trait in the creature’s character, and one upon which all writers are agreed, is his passion for unused postage stamps, which he obtains from innocent contributors in enormous quantities. Hence a learned Professor has conjectured that it is the habit of the editor to le concealed in his den until such time as he has accumulated sufficient stamps to secure him a meal, and that he then sallies forth to spend these, after which he again rests in hiding until another supply of stamps has been obtained. When in his den, his favourite employment is tearing up manuscript, with the exception of a few especially worthless articles, which latter he uses for filling his paper. Tt is also a well-known fact that he puts all the poems he receives into a hat, and draws out one or two at random for use from time to time; the rest he destroys. A further point observed by many zoologists is the editor’s fondness for cliques; they do not explain very clearly what these are, or how they are formed, but their existence is denounced by almost every writer on editors. Some facts concerning them will be found in a later chapter. It is sufficient to say here that they are represented as herds of selfish and incompetent monsters, whose only aim is to prevent any recognition being given to true genius. The next point for us to consider is how editors may best be tamed. Many American authorities recommend the pistol or the horsewhip for this purpose, but this system is not commonly em- ployed here. It is far better to use moral suasion. Thus, if you wish to break in the editor of a comic paper, it isa good plan to send him two articles daily for a month, on such subjects as ‘ Speculations on the Relativity of the Absolute.” By the end of the month, you will probably find that his spirit is quite broken, and his docility will be remarkable. Of course, if you wish to subjugate an editor of a serious review, you should administer frequent doses of comic verse. The writing should be as bad as possible, and the effect will be increased by frequent letters inquir- ing why your contribution has not yet appeared. If the editor is young and restive, the first effect of this treatment will be to make him foam at the mouth, but by steadily persisting with it you will soon reduce him to a condition of calm despair, when you will be able to do what you like with him. It is also necessary to overcome the natural timidity and solitary habits of the THE AUTHOR. animal; this is best done by frequent intrusion into his den at the busiest time of the day; you should then talk kindly to him, and insist on explaining for an hour or so the unique merit of your latest article. It is not wholly inexpedient to carry a revolver in your pocket when applying this treatment. But even when the editor has been made docile and tractable by this method, the editor tamer cannot be too careful to watch the creature’s movements, for his temper will always be uncer- tain. Should he show signs of anger, you should offer him a few postage stamps, which will generally restore him to good temper. But editors cannot be recommended as home pets; even when they are apparently tame, and will eat stamps out of your hand, they are just as likely as not to bite you fiercely, and suddenly to refuse to accept your contributions. I have often been asked whether it would not be possible to make a fair income by regularly training and bringing up young editors, and teaching them in their youth to accept whatever you send them. The question is an interesting one, and readers will find an excursus on “Can editors be made profitable?” at the end of this volume. It may be pointed out, in conclusion, that our investigations into the habits of the editor are by no means complete. So little was known of them until a recent date, that a German professor classed them, together with griffins, sea serpents, and Lords of the Admiralty, as entirely mythical creatures. And those philanthropic and intel- ligent persons who are in the habit of sending to the papers their opinions about editors who have rejected their articles, and who in so doing draw for us vivid pictures of the habits of these animals, are undoubtedly adding to the sum of human knowledge, and on that account, if on no other, are deserving of our gratitude. A.C. D. MR. ANDREW LANG ~. THE SOCIETY AND ANOTHER. R. ANDREW LANG devotes half a dozen pages to the attack of the Society or of myself, both together or separately. It is in Longman’s Magazine for December —not the first time that he has used this magazine for the purpose. One laments the curious animosity which he has introduced into the subject—one on which opinions ought surely to be expressed without anger. Without any personal feeling in the matter, however, let me once more state my position. 1. I say that the author is wholly dependent on the publisher. :  a tq 2 ( si 1 THE AUTHOR. Iam quite prepared to take upon myself the burden of proving this proposition—if it wants. proof. I would, however, point out that it is the view taken already by the committee of the Society, if the adoption and publication of a book means anything. In the ‘“ Methods of Publishing,” not written by me, the following is one of the general conclusions arrived at after discussing a great many agreements in the secretary's hands. “Under every method the author is placed in an unfair position—a position where he can be treated with impunity—especially with regard to advertisements, author’s corrections, and sale of remainder stock. In every manner the author is made to feel that his rights of property are theoretical, and that his claim to pecuniary return of his work is a monstrous exaction to be resisted in every direction.” It is difficult to put the helpless position of the author more strongly, espevially when we remember that it is impossible or almost impos- sible to publish without a publisher. Ruskin created a publisher for himself. But there are few Ruskins. However, I will prove by the simplest and most elementary algebra this simple thesis: The author is wholly dependent on the publisher. If x varies as y; and y varies as z; therefore x varies as z. Because 2 varies as y, therefore a = ay; because y varies as z, therefore y = bz, but, since x y ] <2 6 be. Translating into words. The author depends upon the publisher and the publisher depends upon the public. Therefore the author depends upon the public. But if—as has constantly hap- pened—the factor 6 is carefully concealed by y the publisher from a the author, then no equa- tion can be established between author and public, and the author does not depend upon the public. Or if the factor a be itself a variable and un- certain quantity dependent on the caprice, the generosity, the meanness, the temper of the publisher, then no equation can be established between author and publisher, and the former is absolutely at the mercy of the latter, subject to any competition which may mitigate the lot. This statement of the case seems to me elemen- tary initssimplicity. We have done a great deal to ascertain the meaning of the factor 6; we have next to arrive at a satisfactory value for a, When both a and 6b are ascertained and known, then, and not till then, the author will be dependent on the public. For the author to be dependent on the public it is necessary that the former should know exactly VOL. Iv. 297 and wholly the meaning of the relations between the publisher and the public, and be able to make arrangements with the former based upon that knowledge. 2. Mr. Lang is indignant because I say that I am ashamed to hawk my wares. He says he knows many authors who are not ashamed. Well—but still I am ashamed. My agent does my business for me, and so relieves me of the necessity of exposing myself to this pain. Ought I to be ashamed of bemg ashamed ? 3. He next “goes”? for my statement that in signing a royalty agreement authors have hitherto done so “blindly.” Yet he does not deny that it has been in blindness. He then talks down a whole page about the selling of books by authors, as if the min ques- tion, or the question at all, was one of getting more. And he ignores the real truth, that the whole aim of the Society has from the outset been, not to “get more’ for authors— more or less is not the point—but to get for them common justice (which they seldom could get for themselves), common honesty (this covered a very limited area), and independence. We have done a good deal towards extending the area on which honesty could be found. We have gone a good way towards getting some show of justice, and we are still preparing the way, and educating ourselves, to the acquisition of independence. Getting more! To represent the Society as exist- ing for the purpose of enabling authors to get more—that is what we always come to when the Society is attacked, or, for that matter, when I am, What we do want is the independence of litera- ture. To secure that we must obtain the recogni- tion and adoption of certain methods—or one method—of publishing by all persons, z.e., all worthy persons concerned. We must abolish at once and for ever every kind and form of secret profits ; we must have everything open and above board; we must have light turned upon dark places, kept dark designedly. We want to be dependent upon the public alone. In order to achieve this result, we must ascertain exactly what is meant by that factor “db” in the algebraical illustration above. 4. Mr. Lang then quotes the plan which I ventured to advance for consideration and argu- ment. He says he doesn’t understand it. Very well. We can pass on to someone who does. Certainly it is not necessary to argue with anyone who says that he does not understand what is advanced. 5. Mr. Lang, I believe, prophesied that no good would come of the Congress of Chicago. He now refuses to see that any good has come of it. Of BB  298 course. He reminds me of another prophet who prophesied that an earthquake would take place in Egypt at the Transit of Venus. He was so sure of it that he lamented loudly his inability to go to Cairo on purpose to enjoy it on the spot. After the Transit I met him and inquired after the earthquake. “It was felt,” he said; ‘ A friend of mine felt it in bed. The other fellows there, pretended men of science, refused to believe it. But it came—it came—just as I had prophesied it.” But we are talking, very likely, of different things. My idea of success or failure may not be another person’s. The Literary Conference in Chicago resulted in this: Many hundreds—or thousands—of persons had presented to them, for the first time, papers bearing on a great many most im- portant subjects connected with literature. These papers were, to these people, of the greatest educational value. They were written by persons for the most part thoroughly com- petent. The contributions from our own side: our Chairman’s paper on Publishing, Sir Henry Bergne’s on the Berne Conference; Mr. Sprigge’s on Domestic Copyright and Lord Monkswell’s Act; Mr. Traill’s on the Relation of Literature and Journalism; Mr. Henry Arthur Jones’ on the Drama; and, if I may add it, my own paper on the Society of Authors, contained work that commanded a hearing. The papers contributed by the American authors — who were chiefly the representatives of the New York committee—together with certain writers of the west, were upon subjects less legal than our own contributions. The people separated with a clearer understanding of what is true criticism ; of what is meant by literary style and art; and of literary standards. They also sepa- rated with some understanding of literary pro- perty. As an immediate outcome, the literary men of the west have founded an Authors’ Society, and have asked for our papers as a help to themselves. They have also founded, as will be seen in another column, an Authors’ Publish- ing Company with a fully paid-up capital of £30,000. Anyone may call these results a proof of failure. Anyone is at lberty to say so. Let me, however, be allowed the equal liberty of stating, humbly, my opinion that these results mean success. Lastly, Mr. Lang knows nothing about the “bending back.” Very well. To my mind lite- rary history is full of the bending back. I had before me the other day a bundle of letters written by a man of letters of very considerable name early in this century. They were all begging letters—letters written in a spirit’ of THE AUTHOR. abject mendicancy. They were humiliating to the last degree. And there are writers—Heavens ! there are hundreds—at the present day whose necessities constrain them to beg and to borrow. What about those advances that publishers are always making to authors? What about the books paid for before written ? What about work — pledged for years before? Is this the indepen. dence of authors? Can it be a dignified, self- respectful, pleasant thing to have to ask for those advances? Is it an unfair way of describing such requests—the way of the bending back ? In speaking about these subjects I boldly venture to claim a much greater authority than most writers can possibly exercise, because I am using the special and unique experience acquired by five years’ work as chairman of the Society of Authors. During this long period it is not too much to say that I have learned the mode of conducting business pursued by every pub- lishing house in London. Where there are tricks I have learned—well—most of those tricks. T have learned every method of publication, honest or dishonest, fair or tricky, open or crafty. I could name the firms and societies which are sweaters; I know the houses which practise the secret profit dodge; I know in many cases —and a very curious thing it is to know— the habitual tyranny of the man with the bag, and the forced acquiescence of the man without a bag. Ihave learned, in fact, a thousand things connected with the craft of literature which no one, except the secretary of oursociety and myself, could also learn. They are things secret and confiden- tial. But the general deductions to be made from them are not secret, and anything that I have written out of my most exceptional experience is literally and exactly true, e.g., that the author is absolutely dependent on the publisher ; that too often he has to assume an attitude of submission and pretended respect; that the constant fight we have to maintain is not to get more—more—more —but to get an approximation to what in any other kind of work would be called just and fair, and this fight is irritating and even degrading. I say that these things are literally and exactly true—and I repeat it after such an experience of what I am talking about as only three other men in the whole world can ever have obtained—lI refer to the secretaries of the Society past and present. I. think this is about all that need be said, though of course we can repeat, month by month, if necessary. If anyone likes to gibe at endeavours made by men, at least disinterested, — to raise the profession or calling of literature into independence, he has, I suppose, a perfect right to do so. We may be very sorry that he  THE AUTHOR. does so, and very much disappointed at losing one who should be our advocate. However, it is very certain that in dog so he may rest assured of a welcome in a good many maga- zines, One had, at the very outset, to reckon upon attack and misrepresentation of all kinds and from all quarters. Independence cannot be conquered in a day, and the baser sort were not going to give up their secret profits without a struggle. Let us remember that on our side stand Scott, Dickens, Thackeray, George Eliot, Tennyson, Wilkie Collins, Charles Reade—every single man and woman who can be said to have created literary property—these are with us. On the other who are there? I can see in the mist and fog of that side certain faces for the most part masqued. One need not ask their motives ; and I see behind these again, clear and distinct, figures of those who go about patting them on the back, encouraging, whispering “Go on! Go on! Keep it up about ‘filthy lucre!’ Rub it in about getting more! Don’t ever leave off saying ‘Sordid! Base! Mean! Ignoble!’” The latter are the disinterested spirits who want the old conditions preserved for their own profit. W. Bz nS MILITARY “NOMS DE PLUME.” S an article writer on technical and other subjects, I venture to address the readers of this paper on the above subject. Presumably then, all writers who are employed on work of which they are not ashamed would prefer to see their names in print. We who, however, are serving in the Army and Navy, and who, in the interests of our profession, contribute to military journalism (which by the way is by no means a lucrative employment by reason pro- bably of the small circulation of “ service ” magazines or journals), have frequently to suffer by implication for writing of the “faith that is in us.” Par exemple, the writer contributed (by request) an account to a “biggish” paper of certain manceuvres of volunteers at which, in a military capacity, he was present, and, though having no connection of any sort with the corre- spondent of the “ leading journal,” and not even cognisant of his identity, your present correspon- dent’s account tallied very exactly from a general point of view with that of the greater critic. Now, as no names were mentioned in the writer’s true and accurate account of what he saw and condemned, and as no personal abuse was indulged in, but the faults merely of a system and of the mass of volunteers condemned in 299 moderate terms, it seems a gross stretch of autho- rity for a member of the Government to describe publicly in generic terms our reports as those of irresponsible critics. The officer who writes under a nom de plume on such occasions does so because it is highly inconvenient to be continually confronted by members of his own brigade or battalion with questions on his reasons for this or that description of what occurred at a time when an important body of men was put on its trial, and when the trained eye sees what is invisible to the amateur—or at least unappre- ciated. In the case of the writer, to have published his name would have been to practically sit in judg- ment on officers of superior rank, who, whether volunteers or regulars, did not know their work, as such publicity must at once fix the personality of those who erred, an ungracious and displeasing task, whereas to describe in detail in unsigned articles the daily course of events without attach- ing names of people or titles of brigades is to teach the desired lesson without ruffling the feathers of any one particular person. I may add that the editor who employed me to write in my leisure hours the account in question had a considerable knowledge and experience of my capacity or incapacity for the task. The only thanks I and others received, however, was to be described by the Comwmander-in-Chief as “ cap- tious critics’? because we spoke the truth, and by the Secretary of State for War as “ irresponsible critics.’ Unquestionably, then, had our names transpired, we might bid adieu to all hopes of further professional advancement. I may add that, after publication, IT sent my articles privately to certain officers of the force attacked (?) for perusal, who indorsed every word. of the said contribution. Again, one volunteer officer, who can sign his name to almost anything he likes and fear no pecuniary or other damage, taunts the mili- tary critics on these occasions with their anony- mity. Reverting to legitimate criticism, so hardly and unfairly dealt with by the ‘ powers that be,” what is the opinion of your readers as to the fate awaiting the officer who shall dare to put in print a signed article at all critical of the force of volunteers, which for the moment it is the fashion to applaud, though we do not deny that terms of severe criticism do not apply to any but that refuse which corrupts a wholesome movement ? Tt cannot be denied that there are many sub- jects on which it is inadvisable for officers on full pay to write, and others which under the Official Secrets Act are penally proscribed. This, how- ever, has and can have nothing to do with fair and  300 candid criticism of what passed under the very eyes of, an officer supposed in virtue of his appointment to be a competent person to describe such events as “ Volunteer Manceuvres.” So much do honest critics take such strictures to heart as dealt out by the great personages above-mentioned, that it would be well if some assurance could be given that our course of action is or is not reprehensible. “Ts thy servant a liar” that he cannot report faithfully those simple but ul-performed evolu- tions, which on certain days he saw in proprid persona ? Or is it that some objective unseen by us induces the highest authorities to play the game of brag with regard to that incohesive and untrained force, which with the slightest possible smattering of military lore affects to hold its own inthe practice of what may be called (in the sense of the numbers engaged) “ grand tactics”? Prac- tically, the Commander-in-Chief lays it down that volunteers are beyond criticism, and, further, that officers of the army are not to comment on them—one is apt to say then, cuz bono the volun- teers P Is it likely that a big paper, or for the matter of that, any reputable journal, will ask for any but expert opinion on matters military, and if some three or more papers of repute tally in the general features of their separate accounts, is it possible to justify the action of those who, shutting their eyes to the hard fact, uphold the pleasant fiction by a sweeping condemnation of certain honest men who tried to “see straight” and to speak the truth As a military journalist, the writer awaits some more definite instructions in the shape of Queen’s Regulations on the sub- ject, and remains until further notice under the disguise of a Nom DE PLUME. ee ee “AT THE SIGN OF THE AUTHOR'S HEAD.” N a publisher’s list of new books is found the following note : ‘The publisher can arrange for purchasers to see these works at the nearest bookseller’s on receipt of address.” This is, we venture to think, a new departure, which, if adopted by every publisher, would certainly benefit the bookseller, add something to the convenience of the purchaser, and in the long run would not injure the_publisher. Mr. Marcus Rickards, the author of ‘ Creation’s Hope,” and “Songs of Universal Life,” has written a new volume of poems, called “ Lyrics and Elegiacs.” Of the sixty-three poems con- tained in this book we should especially pick out for praise, one “ On a Packet of Old Letters,” and THE AUTHOR. another ‘“‘ The Somnambulist,” but both are too long for quotation. There is, however, one short lyric which is fairly typical of Mr. Rickards’ work, which we give: Sou, BrEAurTy. Grace Incarnate, Glory’s Heir, Born of one divinely fair, Cradled mid the gloom and strife Of this dark tumultuous life. Waxing while all else is waning, Militant till brightly reigning. Glow of mind and flame of Heart, Splendour to the face impart ; Mocking light and shadows play Of the evening stars pure ray. Bid it flash in lightning glances, Quiver as a sunbeam dances. Form will vanish, colour fade, Time and grief mar youth and maid. Fairer gleams the beauteous soul, As she nears life’s dusky goal. Thro’ earth’s tale and nature’s story, Ripened for supernal glory. The Christmas uumber of the Briar Rose, edited by Miss M. A. Woods, has appeared. As the organ of the Rose Club, a literary society for women, it is pleasing to note the high standard which the editor demands from the con- tributors. The chief papers are one on “ Beauty,” and one on the symbolism of the “ Divina Commedia,” together with a true story and other matters. Southward Ho!—a Sussex monthly of fact, fiction, and verse, contains this month the beginning of a story by Mr. Stanley Little. There is a short but very interesting contribu- tion on the ‘‘ Vocabulary of Hodge,” with a list of words, and other papers mostly suited to the Christmas season. Mr. Mackenzie Bell has brought out a small volume of verse, entitled “ Spring’s Immortality, and other Poems,” consisting of reprints and additions (Ward, Lock, and Bowden). The following stanzas from a lyric, entitled “In Elf- ington Copse,” show that Mr. Bellis in good company in his attitude toward Nature; it reminds us of Wordsworth’s “ Lines written to Harly Spring,” and “The Tables Turned.” This evening every wild flower here More deeply stirs my heart Than alien flowers or prodigies Of man’s botanic art. This sweetbriar bough, that meekly pours Its perfume on the air, I would not give for any flower The gardener deems most fair. I leave the rich their bowers of art, Wreathed with the rarest flowers; Enough for me these woodland ways In Summer’s twilight hours.  THE AUTHOR. Mr. Grant Allen has written a story for the “Breezy Library,” called ‘An Army Doctor's Romance.” It is very slight, and very much “ yp-to-date,” the army doctor being engaged in the bush with Lobengula. The “ Breezy Library”’ prides itself on being a series of “ shilling soothers,’ the object being to dissociate the shilling from the “shocker,” The story, as would be expected from Mr. Grant Allen, is interesting, but we fail to see that it is in any sense soothing, especially as Mr. Grant Allen writes of the Matabele thus :—“It is not often that the Matabele in particular take any man prisoner; the playful habit of those warlike savages is rather to spear the wounded on the battlefield with their deadly stabbing assegais, and to massacre whomsoever they capture in cold lood at the end of an engagement.” Mr. Henry Baildon, in a prefatory note to his new book, “The Rescue, and other Poems” (T. Fisher Unwin), tells us that in former days he composed rival verse rendermgs of Ovid with Mr. R. L. Stevenson, which gives an additional interest to his poem, “The Gods of Old’’—of which we give a few verses—for Mr. Baildon is still faith- ful to the classic deities. They are not dead, those gods of old; They still uptower with mien sublime, In calm majestically cold, Above the tossing waves of Time. And still the Lordly Spirit brings Meet off’rings to imperial Jove— The king of gods, and god of kings— As erst in old Dodonian Grove. Still queenly Juno holds supreme The homage of the matron race, And scorns from out her stately dream The virgin saints that seek her place. Still free of heart and fleet of limb, The maid her vows to Dian keeps ; Her soul hath visions brightly dim As mist that in the moonlight sleeps. Still Venus wears her ancient smile, As young as Morn, as old as Eve, Who did the olden gods beguile, Doth still the modern man deceive. . Miss J. Heale has written a novel called ‘Markham Howard” (T. Fisher Unwin). As this is the author’s first attempt in fiction, it is pleasant to be able to congratulate her on a work which has originality in its plot and at least one original character—that of a lazy, disreputable German, who, having married an Englishwoman, endeavours to live on her property, and does not succeed. The author seems to have a good deal of knowledge of the musical profession, in which the hero makes his fame asa composer. Another time we hope the author will (for the sake of her readers) make the girls in her story talk a 301 little more, otherwise we have to take their characters so much on trust. It is a pity this work should have been printed on paper of an unpleasant yellowish colour. A new novel by Miss Peard, called ‘‘ An Inter- loper,” will form one of the serials in Temple Bar for 1894. Miss Peard has recently published ‘‘ The Swing of the Pendulum.” 2 vols. Bentley and Sons. “A Fair Claimant,” by Frances Armstrong, has recently been published by Messrs. Blackie ; and ‘Old Caleb’s Will,’ a temperance story, issued by Messrs. Jarrold, is by the same author. Messrs. Chatto and Windus have purchased all book rights of Headon Hill’s ‘Clues from the Note-book of Zjambra the Detective,’ which recently appeared as a serial in the Million. A serial story of Indian life by the same author, entitled ‘‘'The Rajah’s Second Wife,” commences in the British Weekly with the new year. Mr. Stanley Weyman is the author of the leading serial for the Monthly Packet during 1894. The title is “My Lady Rotha,” and the story deals with the period of the Thirty Years’ War. Thisis Mr. Weyman’s principal work for the year, though minor contributions from his pen will appear elsewhere. The Rev. J. Hamlyn Hill’s translation of “Tatian’s Diatessaron” has now been published by Messrs. T. and T. Clark, of Edinburgh. Price 10s. 6d. The following is a copy of the upper part of the title-page: The Earliest Life of Christ ever compiled from the Four Gospels, being The Diatessaron of Tatian (cire. A.D. 160), Literally translated from the Arabic Version, and containing the Four Gospels woven into one Story. With an Historical and Critical Introduction by the Rev. J. Hamlyn Hill, B.D. (formerly Senior Scholar of St. Catherine’s College, Cambridge. Author of an English version of ‘“ Marcion’s Gospel”). A meeting of leading European journalists was held last week at Antwerp, at which a committee was appointed to carry out the proposed Inter- national Conference to be held in that city in the summer of next year. The British Press was represented by three London journalists, and five Englishmen were elected members of the com- mittee—namely, Mr. P. W. Clayden, editor of the Daily News, president of the Institute of Journalists; Sir Hugh Gilzean Reid, F.J.1., of the North-Eastern Daily Gazette; and Mr. H. 8. Cornish, secretary of the Institute of Journalists ;  304 would go tothem! The reasons why a writer who has made some name should employ an agent, were set forth in the last number of the Author. —Ep. | —— TV.—Cuaries Lams on PUBLISHERS. Those who are not familiar with his corre- spondence may be interested to learn that even the “ gentle Elia” gave no quarter to the natural enemies of authors. This is how he writes of them to his friend Barton :— “Those fellows hate us. The reason I take to be, that, contrary to other trades in which the master gets all the credit—a jeweller or silver- smith, for instance—and the journeyman, who really does the fine work, is in the background, in our work the world gives all the credit to us, whom they consider as their journeymen, and there- fore do they hate us and cheat us, and oppress us, and would wring the blood of us out to put another sixpence in their mechanic pouches! I contend that a bookseller has a relative honesty towards authors, not like his honesty to the rest of the world. Baldwin, who first engaged me as ‘ Elia,’ has not paid me up yet—nor any of us without repeated mortifying appeals—yet has the knave fawned when I was of service to him! YetI daresay the fellow is punctual in settling his milk score, &¢.” Your obedient servant, TEMPLAR. V.— <A Prea ror THE SMALL BooKsELLER.” Mr. Cresswell remarks, ‘‘ Half a century since the country bookseller did a quiet, profitable trade.” Very likely, but have we been stand- ing still since then? Was there a circulating library to be found in pretty nearly every small country shop as there is now? Were there the same facilities by railway and post for exchanging the volumes? The ordinary middle-class house- holder is not going to buy his novels if he can hire them. Possibly, after he has read them, and they have pleased his fancy, and not shocked his taste, he will purchase them at some shop or store where he can obtain the 3d. discount we all seek so eagerly. Thus, by slow, very slow, degrees he will build up a small and select library of fiction. Now, the country bookseller could not live out of this kind of business. But being anxious to please everyone, he keeps his circu- lating library. It may consist of but fifty volumes, but he takes as much pains with his list of new books, and the booking of his customers’ fancies, as the ‘“haberdasher” to whom Mr. Cresswell alludes. In saying the country bookseller could, if he would, persuade the people of England to be THE AUTHOR. book buyers : the land that highest of all educations obtained by reading, surely Mr. Cresswell is beside the mark. Even if the small bookseller wished to ‘stock,’ where is the capital to come from? It is no use to do things by halves, anda large sum would be required to buy evea a quarter of the new books of to-day. A stock of standard works of fiction and poetry, with a few religious works thrown im, are gener- ally to be found on the small bookseller’s counter, At Christmas time he makes a special effort, and exhibits a few new books in the shape of bound magazines, children’s books, and Christmas annuals. Why should the poor man do more? Surely there is enough being done to advance learning throughout the land, without the small bookseller purchasing a stock of books for which, in the country town, there is no sale, com- paratively speaking. Every town has its circulating library, and every railway station in the town has its book- stall; every parish has its reading-room, every cottage has its “ weekly.” The majority buy the bulk of their literature before travelling, and W.H. Smith is always at hand to gratify every taste, with his pile of dailies, weeklies, maga- zines, and shilling shockers. The country book- seller cannot compete with him. W. A. Vi.—Tue Penny Nove erte. Mrs. Spender in the December number of the Author, seems to be agitating herself unneces- sarily on behalf of “The Hungry Fox.” The large class of readers to whom she alludes, as coming up from the board schools, have their caterers, very able ones in their way, whose name also is legion. That any author should deliberately set him- self to “write down” toa class, is surely not to be thought of. Furthermore it is, if not impossible, extremely difficult to do so. Is it not just as hard fora thoughtful, cultured person to write a doll story of puppets in action, full of incident and strategy, but minus characterisation, as it is for a Penny Novelette writer to turn outa novel of “subtle allusions” and of analytical power; or for an engineer to manufacture a good pair of bootst Bach to his own craft. There is room for all. I believe it a mistake to assume that we can write exactly as we please. Most writers will, I fancy, agree with me in thinking that is put a fond delusion. One may start a book with every intention: of making it a simple story of un- involved emotions, optimistic generalisations, and idealistic flights, only to find. as one passes the and advance throughout |  THE +; milestones, each character has taken a turn of its - own in some opposite direction. Likely as not one discovers, at the end, that the work has turned out a subtle study of pessimistic realism, evolved by a collection of complicated characters beyond 4) the author’s control! Tt takes a very strong-minded writer to manage and marshal thoroughly his own ideas and creations in any case. How much more so if he puts himself under a conscientious resolve to bring them down to a dead level of mediocrity, where thought is treason, originality a crime, and dainty diction “the sin of effort!” M. I. PENDERED. VII.— Reviews AnD REVIEWERS. Te On page 243 of the Author of Dec. 1, you have a paragraph on the manifold and wondrous reviews of a book by “Ingenue.” I conclude that those quoted all come from different papers, but what is to be thought of the following: In 1884 I wrote a book, and in one of the newspapers of the day (Nov. 25, 1884) a review of it appeared, which was by no means favour- able, in fact, some twenty-four lines of print were dedicated to showing how faulty it was. You can imagine my surprise, therefore, when I saw in the very same paper, on May 26 following, a still longer review, of which every line sang the praises of my production. Which was the public to consider true? Dee. 8. IsKENDER. II. The following are some extracts from the reviews of a recent work. “ Ingenue’s”’ experi- ence is not without a parallel. “This story is exceedingly clever and very readable.” “ Unwholesome without being clever. “This clever but disagreeable book.” “When there is so much to be grateful for, to quarrel over such a trifle as a subetitle is per- haps rather hypercritical.” “The heroine is maddeningly imbecile.” “The heroine is aclever and accomplished woman . a charming and impulsive woman, whose heart is stronger than her head.” «The heroine is a harsh creation.” ‘A creature of passions and emotions, lacking ballast, and yet strangely attractive, with her versatile mind and many gifts.” “ An eminently unsatisfactory person.” Surely there ought to be some canons of criti- cism. Professor R. G. Moulton’s work on the science of criticism deals with the subject well. M. P. AUTHOR. 395 11k And here is yet another collection of various opinions, good and bad, and wholly irreconcile- able. 1. “Mr. D.’s story, which is not without its good points, labours under the primary defect of an almost total absence of adequate motive.” 2. ; on the contrary would be the better for having less purpose.” 1. “But when a writer adopts the dubious exped'ent of labelling his characters at the out- set = 2. “The characters are not mere bundles of opinions neatly labelled.” 1. “This is a most powerful and dramatic novel. The characters are well drawn, and some are quite fascinating in their strength and indivi- duality.” 2. “ We may add that it is dreary reading.” 1. “The plot, which is well thought out, and largely consistent, simply teems with incidents and side lights.” 2. “The plot is crowded with too many incon- a « gruous elements . . . to makea good novel.” Se might at least have been made more amusing.” To grotesque and coarsely sensa- tional.” 2 intensely true and pathetic; it is full of sympathy and insight: every line of it tells.” .“ . . , the tone and intention of the story are worthy of all respect.” D. D. VIII.—A Stamp or APppRovAL. May I put forward a suggestion by which the Authors’ Society could render an invaluable service to those young authors who may be led to use the kind offer of help in reviewing and criticism of MSS. by the Society’s readers ? Beyond the practice of treating the MS. when received as an essay for revision and correction where necessary, would it not be possible for the Society, upon the favourable criticism and report of the reader, to mark those MSS. considered worthy of publication with the official stamp of the Authors’ Society, thus showing that the MS. has certain merits, besides having been carefully reviewed by an expert in the person of the Society’s reader ? Such a plan, while it would in no way involve any responsibility on the part of the executive of the Authors’ Society, would undoubtedly prove to be of real service to many young writers who too often are unjustly discouraged by the refusal of publishers to consider their MSS. while still unknown in the literary world. 306 THE I would gladly help forward such a scheme if you should consider it practicable and falling within the scope of the work of the Incorporated Society of Authors. THEODORE JOHNSON. TX.—Anonymous JOURNALISM. I have been very much interested in M. Zola’s remarks on anonymity in journalism, because the question is one upon which I have always held very decided opinions, for which I have frequently done battle. M. Zola did not touch upon scientific journalism, but, unfortunately, the common practice of concealing one’s identity, that rules with papers devoted to news and politics, has extended to those papers whose office it is, or should be, to disseminate as widely as possible the latest discoveries of science, and to show up the latest discoveries of error. As the editor has very truly remarked, in speaking of anonymous reviews, concealment of the name of the writer too often leads to flippancy and to personality, which only tend to obscure the question at issue. When a writer conceives that his or her identity will not be discovered, he or she, more particularly she, will be far more ready to indulge in the feminine pastime of giving the adversary one, than if the name of the writer was appended to the writing. It will be obvious that there will be many cases where a writer would like to say something very bitter, very cutting, that will add nothing to the knowledge of the question possessed by those written for, who would not write the bitter cutting things over a signature. It has always appeared to me that where reasons exist. for not writing, if the article or letter must be signed, those reasons should be sufficient for not writing at all. It has appeared to me also, that every writer should take full responsibility for what he writes, and with it any rewards that may follow. If a writer has ability it should be known, not as the ability of the paper he writes for, but of himself or herself. And I think that what is true of scientific journalism is true of a great many other branches. Certainly it is true of reviewing. When a paper professes to judge for the public of the value of a recently-issued book, no matter on what subject the book may be written, should it not provide a competent judge, and should its proprietors be ashamed to publish the name of their judge? Is it not a fraud on the public if a book is turned over to some youngster to review, with instructions to copy out a portion of the preface AUTHOR. and add a few remarks of his own, just to fill up his allotted space ? And with regard to any newspaper you please, if its reviews gained nothing, they would certainly lose nothing by being signed. Let one for a moment consider that he is perhaps about to take up the study of a certain subject, or, if it be preferred, that he wants a book to take him quite out of his everyday work. In one paper he sees a certain book, such as he thinks would suit him, reviewed by a man eminent in that branch of work, and reviewed impartially, but favourably. In another paper, an anonymous reviewer goes for the writer in the time-honoured style. In which review would he have most confidence, and to which paper would he turn on another occasion. Certain papers, of course, command respect from the fact that they are known to keep a staft of very high-class reviewers. But even with them, would not their best work be done over their own names? How tempting to slate for a slip in grammar, when no one will know who is the slater, and so spoil the whole effect of the review. But I contend also, and very seriously, that even political articles should be signed. I do not suggest that the reporter who makes a column out of a fire, and has it cut down to a quarter, should sign his quarter. But articles that are intended to lead or to instruct should be signed by the would be leaders and instructors. Is it right that newspapers should have the power they now possess? Is it not part of the education of the masses that is now going on, that everyone should think for himself? Is it not right also that the older men, those who have had experience of the ways of the world, should guide the world? Yet when we read anonymous articles, how do we know who has written them? Take the case of an important crisis, where a certain course means fighting in some form or other, another course means no fighting. If the leader in one newspaper recom- mends fighting, ought we not to be able to know what experience the writer has had, so that we may judge what value to put upon the advice? The advice of an old man to fight is a very diffe- rent matter from that of a young one. Suppose, for instance, we were residents in Rio de Janeiro at the present time, should we not like to know whether the advice in one paper, to support the Government, or to join with the rebels, came from a man of years,a man who merely wanted to make things “hum,” or a man who was inte- rested in a new revolution ? TI venture to think and to hope that anonymity in journalism will gradually die out, and I  THE venture to hold that literary men can only gain from its extinction. Sypney F. WALKER. Cardiff. X.—Two Pusuics. Mr. Spender has touched on a difficulty felt, I am sure, by many writers. It is increased by the fact that a reputation for pleasing the larger public often stamps a writer either as “ goody” or “ sensational,’ and so prejudices against him the critics of the smaller one. Some appeal always and entirely to one kind of reader. For them the case is simple. Others, trying alter- nately for both, and having aspirations on diffe- rent levels, often fall between two stools. But apart from such obvious indications as the original destination of the MS. does not each conception make its own style, find its own level? The characters are simple or complex, the lesson obvious or the reverse. The work of art brings its own atmosphere with it, and a writer knows beforehand to what kind of readers it can be made to appeal. Each public brings, too, its own success, its own reward. The praise of fastidious critics is sweet to the author’s ear, the love of indiscrimi- nating admirers is warm to the heart, at least of those who, with Lucas Malet, “ inherit the desire to preach.” Most of us have to choose, or let fate choose for us, either each time or once for all. The greatest and the simplest ones can speak to all. CHRISTABEL R. COLERIDGE. —* = FROM THE PAPERS. I.—Tuer Destruction or Books. DELISLE, the principal librarian at the i Bibliotheque Nationale, in Paris, warns us that our modern literature is destined to perish. Of the twothousand and odd volumes published annually in France, not one, he thinks, will remain after a certain time. Cheap paper is a splendid thing in its way, but this is the price we must pay for it. Old-fashioned paper made from rags has stood the test of hundreds of years, as the many fine specimens of fifteenth-century printing show, to say nothing of still earlier books in manuscript. Nowadays, however, paper is made of all sorts of material of a more or less perishable character. In particular, as M. Delisle points out, books printed on paper made from wood pulp soon begin to rot away. At first the pages are covered by yellow spots, and these are replaced in course of time by holes. Even so- called hand-made papers are often no more durable, being treated with chemicals that slowly destroy them.—Daily News. AUTHOR. 3°97 II.—Cocknry PRONUNCIATION. By ANDREW W. TUER, F.S.A. (Concluded. ) EXAMPLES. “ Ow kin yer sy sow?” ‘“Lahs tahm I seed yer.” * Wot chur, mite?” | « Putch tongue out.” “The Jook looks pawley ter- | ‘‘ Wown’t choo sid day-own?”’ dy? “ Are yer a-kummin’?” “JT tike nuthink elsh yer|‘‘ Must choo gow?” now.” “Did joo ivver ! “°Ow fur is it? ” ‘**Oo are you a-pushin’ ov ?” “ Gotch tickit ?”’ “Tm a-gowin abroad, jer “ Owzh yaw mother ? ” | 3 now.” To be born a child of the greatest city on earth is surely no small honour? It is certainly nothing to scoff at. With most people, a Cockney and a Londoner do not mean quite the same thing. No one would dream, for instance, of calling Her Majesty the Queen a Cockney. “Cockney” is generally applied to an ’Arry or an ’Arriet dragged up in London, who by associa- tions and surroundings has imbibed certain tricks of tongue. Some of these tricks of tongue are to be found elsewhere, in high places and in low. From John o’ Groat’s to Land’s End every man thinks that his English is the best. He is quite sure that the other man’s isn’t. Itis with the lapses of the other man—the Cockney—that we are going to refresh ourselves. Once upon a time I tried very hard indeed, but quite unsuccessfully, to get at the origin of the word Cockney. Efforts of dictionary-makers, including the uncomplimentary coguin, are mere hazards. Dust-delvers of the order philological (I dearly love a good scratch myself, and there must be others whom a rooster exploring an ash- hill moves to admiration and envy) say that Cockney pronunciation is the outcome of a more or less constant intermixture of provincial blood drawn from here, there, and everywhere. Cockney spoken on the north side of London is not quite the same as heard on the south side; and the Cockney of the east differs from the Cockney of the west. Even in the same parish the word “time,” say, may be “toime” or ‘ tahm ”— “tahm” being the more common; and ‘ game” may be “ goime,”’ but is oftener ‘‘gime.” These differences exist, but here may be passed by. The rendering of such words as glass and salt, which the Cockney broadens into “ glahss”’ and “sawlt’? as against the Northman’s short and crisp “ glas”’ and “‘solt,”’ has often been noticed as typical of tongue, but it is also typical of the softer pronunciation of the south. ‘The Cockney, however, dwells longer than his neighbour on the middle of the word, on ‘‘ah”’ and on “ aw.” Tt is a canon of belief with many persons that the Cockney leaves out the letter 4 where you and I put it in, and that he puts it in where we 308 THE leave it out. Itis true that now and again the aspirate is scattered indiscriminately and bewil- deringly, but as a rule it is lazily ignored. The Cockney invariably drops the final g, and he is given to run one word into another; wherein he all unknowingly apes the example of his betters, the example of the heedless “smart,” who in lazy slip-shod English could barely afford to give him points. Note how perilously close are the renderings of ‘Did you have much fun?” Smart: ‘D'joo av muchefun?”’ Cockney: “ Jev much fun?” Adverbs he persists in turning into adjectives: “Did you have the face-ache badly?” he will render, “Jev the jaw-rike bed?” Under other citcumstances he will turn “face” into “head.” ‘TI towld ’im sow to ’is ’ed.” A collection of such perversions might prove entertaining. With the Cockneyest of Cockneys such a word as “much” becomes ‘‘ metch”—‘’Ow metch is it?” Here is a sentence noted at the time in a crush of people coming away from a show where the sports had been signalled by gun-firing. Mother: ‘‘ Wozh yer frahtened wen ’e fahd the gen?’’ Child: “ Now, ah lahked it.” To hear Cockney we must go to the streets or mix with the careless pleasure-bent masses on a bank holiday. And we must listen heedfully, for peculiarities in people with whom one is more or less constantly in contact are apt to remain un- noticed. When “’Erry Jowns” talks of his unmarried sister as Jemima Wren, one may be torgiven if it dawn but slowly that the lady’s name is Jemima Jones and that Wren stands for Ann. A country cousin will return from a ramble in London streets full of astonishment and bubbling over with choice specimens of Cockney vernacular, wherefrom he derivesinnocent and lasting amusement. Show an average Cockney some phonetically rendered Cockneyisms on paper, and he will tell you that no one speaks like that, but the exact form of disclaimer will probably be, ‘“‘ Nowbody down’t speak lahk thet.” —St. James’s Gazette. TII.—‘ Pur your Pripz In your Pocket.” “But, tell me,’ said Don Quixote to the Author, “are you printing this book at your own risk, or have you sold the copyright to some bookseller ?” “T print at my own risk,” said the Author, “and 1 expect to make 1000 ducats at least by this first edition, which is to be of 2000 copies, that will go off in a twinkling at six reals aplece.”’ “A fine calculation you are making!” said AUTHOR. Don Quixote; “it is plain you dont know the ins and outs of the printers, and how they play into one another’s hands. I promise you when you find yourself saddled with 2000 copies you will feel sv sore that it will astonish you, parti- cularly if the book is a little out of the common, and not in any way highly spiced.” “What!” said the author, “would your worship, then, have me give it to a bookseller who will give three maravedis for the copyright, and think he is doing me a favour in giving me that? Ido not print my books to win fame in the world, for I am known in it already by my works; I want to make money, without which reputation is not worth a rap.” “God send your worship good luck,” said Don Quixote. [Mr. John Ormsby’s translation, iv., 261]. J. 8. IV.—Artists In Buack anp WHITE. On Thursday evening, Dec. 21, a meeting of artists in black and white was held in Barnard’s Inn Hall, Holborn—Mr. Harry Furniss presiding —to form a society for the advancement and encouragement of that branch of art. On the motion of Mr. Bernard Partridge, seconded by Mr. Joseph Pennell, it was unanimously decided to form the society; and it was suggested that its basis should be somewhat similar to that of the Society of Authors or the Institute of Journalists. The following subjects were set down for discussion in the notice calling the meeting :—(1) The protection of the interests, artistic and personal, of all illustrators ; (2) the best means of assuring to them an adequate return for their artistic labours; (3) the improve- ment of the terms under which those labours are undertaken ; (4) the making as advantageous a use as possible, for the general good of the society, of the productions of its members, notably in the matter of certain rights of repro- duction over their work; and (5) the holding of exhibitions for the encouragement and develop- ment of all methods of illustration and repro- duction. A committee was appointed to arrange details. Ietters acquiescing in the aims of the society were read from a number of distinguished artists, and the entire proceedings were most enthusiastic.—Pall Mall Gazette.  : * | s . aoetepemmecne Se THE NEW BOOKS AND NEW EDITIONS. Theology. BagsHAWE, JOHN B. Skeleton Sermons for the Sundays and holidays in the year. Kegan Paul. 3s. 6d. Barnes, Rev. T. H. Lessons on the Catechism. C.E.S.S.I. Is. 6d. CARPENTER, RigHT REv. W. B. The Son of Man among the Sons of Men. Isbister. 5... CONCORDANCE TO THE SEPTUAGINT and the other Greek versions of the Old Testament (including the Apocryphal Books). By the late Edwin Hatch, M.A., D.D., and Henry A. Redpath, M.A., assisted by other scholars. Part III. “Eraipesxx—'Iwphd. Oxford: at the Clarendon Press. London: Henry Frowde. 21s. CoRNEFORD, Rev. James. The Book of Common Prayer, from the original manuscript, with three appendices. Eyre and Spottiswoode. Heapiey, H. R. The Gospel of St. Mark. Edited by. Rivington and Co. 2s. : Lessons ON BIBLE AND PRAYER Book TEACHING. C.E.S.S.1. 2s. LirrLte, Canon Kwox. Sacerdotalism, if rightly under- stood, the teaching of the Church of England. Answer to Archdeacon Farrar. Part IV. The Apostolic Ministry. Longmans. Paper covers. Is. Moore, Rey. A. L. God is Love, and other Sermons. Nisbet, Berners-street. 6s. RELIGION AND MopERN THOUGHT and other essays. Philip Green, Essex-street, W.C. 2s. 6d. Sanpay, Rev. W. Inspiration: the Bampton Lectures for 1893 on the early history and origin of the doctrine of Biblicalinspiration. Longmans. 16s. SHaw, Rev. F. The Book of Revelation. A course of Sermons. Cambridge, Macmillan and Bowes. STREANE, Rev. A. W. Jesus Christ in the Talmud, Mid- rash, Zohar, and the Liturgy of the Synagogue. Texts and Translations by the Rey. Dr. Gustaf Dalman, together with an Introductory Essay by Heinrich Laible. Deighton Bell. OUTER AND THE INNER WORLD, THE, and other sermons, being the Essex Hall Pulpit for 1893. Philip Green. Is. 6d. Punrir CoMMENTARY, THE. Edited by the Very Rev. H. D. M. Spence, D.D., and by the Rev. Joseph S. Exell, M.A., with introduction by Archdeacon Farrar, D.D., the Right Rev. H. Cotterell, D.D., Principal Tulloch, D.D., Canon G. Rawlinson, M.A., and the Rev. A. Plummer, D.D. 15s. 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Translated from the German by A. K. Miller and E. A. Lennholm, and revised by the author. With illustrations. F. W. Lyon, Eastcheap-buildings, E.C. Krew, Henry Wauuis. The Dispersal of Shells. An inquiry into the means of dispersal possessed by fresh- water and land mollusca. With a preface by Alfred Russel Wallace, F.R.S. Kegan Paul. 53s. Mrvart, St. GeoreE. An Introduction to the Elements of Science. Osgood, M‘Ilvaine. 6s. PaTERSON, JAMES. Nithsdale; A series of reproductions in photogravure from water-colour drawings. With accompanying letterpress. Glasgow: James Maclehose and Sons. PInKERTON, R. H. Hydrostatics and Pneumatics. Blackie and Sons. 4s. 6d. Squire, J. E. The Hygienic Prevention of Consumption. Charles Griffin and Co. TurRNER, J. H.T. The Principles of Waterworks Engineer- ing. E. and F. N. Spon, Strand. VINCENT, R. Harry. The Elements of Hypnotism; The induction of hypnosis, its phenomena, its dangers and value. With illustrations, showing experiments. Kegan Paul. 5s. Wess, Rev. T. W. Celestial Objects for Common Tele- scopes. Fifth edition. Revised and greatly enlarged By Rev. T. E. Espin, F.R.A.S.. In 2 vols. Vol. I. Longmans. 6s. Witson, A. Marcus. Myxcedema, and the effects of climate on the disease. The Scientific Press, Strand. Travels and Adventures, Brent, J. THEoporE. Early Voyages and Travels in the Levant. I. The Diary of Master Thomas Dallam, 1599-1600. II. Extracts from the Diaries of Dr. John Covel, 1670-1679, with some account of the Levant Company of Turkey merchants. Edited, with an introduction and notes. Printed for the Hakluyt Society. Brnt, J. THeoporE. The Sacred City of the Ethiopians, being a record of travel and research in Abyssinia in 1893. Longmans. 18s. CowPrseR, H.S. Through Turkish Arabia: A Journey from the Mediterranean to Bombay by the Euphrates and Tigris Valleys and the Persian Gulf. W. H. Allen. 18s. D’ORLEANS, Prince H. Around Tonkin and Siam. Trans- lated by C. B. Pitman. Chapman and Hall. 14s. DUNMORE, Ear or. The Pamirs, being a narrative of a year’s expedition on horseback and on foot through Kashmir, Western Tibet, Chinese Tartary, and Russian Central Asia. With maps and illustrations. 2 vols. John Murray. 24s. Lana, ANDREW. Prince Ricardo of Pantouflia, being the adventures of Prince Prigio’s son. Illustrated by Gordon Browne. Arrowsmith. LansDELL, HENRY. Chinese Central Asia; a ride to Little Tibet. With maps and illustrations. 2 vols. Sampson Low. Lever, W. H. Following the Flag; Jottings of a Jaunt Round the World. Simpkin Marshall. THE AUTHOR. Wawn, W.T. The South Sea Islanders and the Queens- land Labour Trade, a record of voyages and experi- ences in the Western Pacific from 1875 to 1891. Swan Sonnenschein. Wuyrmrrr, Epwarp. Scrambles amongst the Alps in the Years 1860-69. With maps and illustrations. Fourth edition. John Murray. Law, Brest, W. M. The Principles of the Law of Evidence- With a collection of Leading Propositions by J. M. Lely, and Notes to American and Canadian cases by C. F. Chamberlayne. Sweet and Maxwell. Brycr, JAmMrs. Legal Studies in the University of Oxford, a valedictory lecture delivered before the University, June 10, 1893. Paper covers, Is. net. DasEnT, J.R. Acts of the Privy Council of England. New series. Vol. VII., a.p. 1558-1570. Hyre and Spottis- woode. Goopknow, Frank. Comparative Administrative Law, an analysis of the administrative systems, national and local, of the United States, England, France, and Ger- many. Vol.I., Organisation; Vol. II., Legal Relations. Putnam’s Sons. 25s. Scrutton, T. E. The Contract of Affreightment as Expressed in Charter-parties and Bills of Lading. Third edition. William Clowes and Sons. 18s. TREATISE ON THE Law, PRIVILEGES, PROCEEDINGS, AND Usacr oF Paruiament. By Sir T. Erskine May. Tenth edition. Books I. and II., edited by Sir R. F. D. Palgrave; Book III., by A. Bonham-Carter, of the Inner Temple. Clowes and Sons. West, B. B. Wills and How Not to Make them ; with a selection of leading cases. Longmans. 2s. 6d. Wiuiams, Sir R. V. A Treatise on the Law of Executors and Administrators. By the late Sir E. Vaughan Williams. Ninth Edition. 2-vols. Stevens and Sons. £3 16s. Educational. Bauuy, 8. E. A Manual of French Commercial Correspon- dence. Methuen. 2s. BrvuzEMAKER, J.J. A Modern French Reader. and Sons. Is. Citizen, THE: His Lire anp Dutizs. Teaching notes by Marshall Jackman (Evening Class Continuation Code, 1893). The Educational Newspaper Company, Red Lion-court, Fleet-street. Is. Lypr, LionzL W. Commercial Geography of the British Empire. Methuen. 2s. Gouin, Francois. A First Lesson in French. Translated from the French by Howard Swan and Victor Bétis. G. Philip. 2s. 6d. net. REGAN, CHARLES. Egyptian Art: an elementary handbook for the use of students. Illustrated. Chapman and Hall. 2s. 6d. RicHarpson, M. J. Elements of Music, Harmony, and Musical Form. With an introduction by Geor; Riseley. Rivington and Co. 5s. i West, ALFRED S. The Elements of English Grammar. Cambridge University Press. 2s. 6d. Werury, E. R. A New Manual of Geography. Rivington and Co. ts. 6d. Weruery, E.R. School Headings in Geography, for Junior Forms. Vol. I. Rivington and Co. Is. Blackie Vol. I.  ADVERTISEMENTS. 315 Mr Horace Cox’s New Novels. re NOW READY, AT ALL LIBRARIES. In Two Vols., crown 8vo., price 21s. Mma CENELURY’S EBB. By CYPRIAN COPE. “Tf * At Century’s Ebb’ is Cyprian Cope’s first venture into the field of authorship, she—for the evidence gained from the style is allin favour of a feminine source of origin—may fairly be congratulated on having written a novel containing a good deal of strong incident, much variety of character, and a love interest of an unforced and natural kind. Much praise is due in spite of some immaturity of style.”—Daily Telegraph, Dec. 15. eS In Three Vols., crown Svo., price 31s. 6d. Mm offer ASIDE. By GWENDOLEN DOUGLAS GALTON (MRS. TRENCH GASCOIGNE). ‘** A Step Aside’ is a stirring story, in which deep tragedy alternates with light comedy and tender pathos with sparkling humour. . . . In‘A Step Aside’ there is not a single dull or redundant page. . . In a word, the book is worthy of unqualified praise.”—Daily Telegraph, Oct. 20. ‘*A most interesting novel, in which the humour, pathos, and vivacity of the numerous characters are happily blended with some capital descriptive writing of Italian scenery.”—Zssex Times, Oct. 20. me Crown 8vo., with Illustrations, price 3s. 6d., Cheap Edition of A STUMBLE ON THE THRESHOLD. By JAMES PAYN. ‘Mr. James Payn’s pleasant story contains a startling novelty. . . . The leading actors are a group of undergraduates of Cambridge University. Mr. Payn’s picture of University society is frankly exceptional. Exceptional, if not unique, is the ‘ nice little college’ of St Neot’s. Cambridge men will have little difficulty in recognising this snug refuge of the ‘ ploughed.’ . . . An ingenious plot, clever characters, and, above all, a plentiful seasoning of genial wit. . . . The uxorious master of St. Neot’s is charmingly conceived. If only for his reminiscences of his deceased wives, ‘ A Stumble on the Threshold ’ deserves to be treasured. . . . We turn over Mr. Payn’s delightful pages, so full of surprises and whimsical dialogue. . . .”—The Times. ‘« A very interesting story, and one that excels in clever contrast of character and close study of individualism. . . . The characters make the impression of reality on the reader. . . . Extremely pleasant are the sketches of University life.”—Saturday Review. ‘¢ Mr. James Payn is here quite at his usual level all through, and that level is quite high enough to please most people. . . . The character drawing is good. The story of the master sounds strangely like truth. . . book to read distinctly.” —Daily Chronicle. “. . . The dramatic unity of time, place, and circumstance has never had a more novel setting. . . .”— Daily Graphic. ‘¢The most sensational story which the author has written since his capital novel, ‘By Proxy.’ . . . Never flags for a moment.”—The World. oe Ingenious and original. Mr. Payn knows how to invent and lead up to a mystery.”—Black and White. ros Crown 8vo., with Illustrations, price 3s. 6d. THE MARTYRDOM OF SOCIETY. By QUILLIM RITTER “For his satirical arrows he has chosen promising game — the heiress who would reclaim the Hast-end and all humanity; the working man M.P., who thinks to run the nation as easily as a Hyde Park demonstra- tion; the man about town who, to be in the swim, forswears drink to talk about the inequality of social punishment and the mystery of human misery; the irrepressible busybody, who starts societies for the suppression of vice in high life; all familiar types in an age of sentiment and fads and Mrs. Besants. The most successful passage is that recording the final catastrophe, when the benevolence of the West leads, not to the building of palaces of delight, but to its own destruction by an East-end weary of being patronised; and there is a laugh in the fate of heiress and working man left to punt in peace on a placid river.”"—Pall Mall Gazette. ‘« This is a powerful one-volume story.”—Publishers’ Circular. “Tt is an odd world that Henry Jacobson sways. . . . Mr. Quillim Ritter has put it all very cleverly, and added some neat epigrams of his own.”—Biack and White. WINDSOR HOUSE, BREAM’S BUILDINGS, EC. ADVERTISEMENTS. MESDAMES BRETT & BOWSER, TYPISTS, SELBORNE CHAMBERS, BELL YARD, TEMPLE BAR, Authors’ MSS. carefully and expeditiously copied, from Is. per 1000 words. Extra carbon copies half price. Refer- ences kindly permitted to Augustine Birrell, Esq., M.P. THE AUTHOR’S HAIRLESS PAPER-PAD. (Tue Leapennatt Press Lrp., H.C.) or Contains hairless paper, over which the pen slips with perfect freedom. Sixpence each: 58. per dozen, ruled or plain. TYPEWRITING. SCIENTIFIC, LITERARY, AND MEDICAL MSS. CAREFULLY AND PROMPTLY COPIED BY RAYNE & CO., 40, NORFOLK STREET, STRAND, W.C. HicHEST REFERENCES. PRIvATE Room FOR DICTATION. TRANSLATIONS. SEARCHES MADE. MISS E. ALLEN & CO., TYPE AND SHORTHAND WRITERS, Scientific Work and Translations a Special Feature. 39, LOMBARD eT, BC. References to Authors. Office No. 59 (close to Lift). SHORTHAND WRITER, TY PIistT, ESIRES SECRETARIAL WORK. Own (Remington, Yost). TRANSLATOR FRENCH, GERMAN. “T..,”? 23, Canterbury-terrace, Maida Vale, W. LD ABC HORN-BOOKS WANTED to PURCHASE (the alphabet, &c., printed on a small sheet of paper mounted on a handled wooden slab and covered with a thin sheet of translucent horn, from which children used to learn the A B C). The advertiser, who is engaged on a work on the horn-book, would also be grateful for refer- ences to examples in museums and private hands.—Address AnpREW W. TurER, The Leadenhall Press Limited, 50, Leadenhall-street, London, E.C. A few BANK OF ENGLAND NOTES cut in £1000 two and rejoined with STICK- PHAST PASTE will support a big and heavy man for the remainder of his natural life. machines A. JOHNSON, TYPIST, 1, Melrose Terrace, West Kensington Park, W. AUTHORS’ MSS. COPIED, 6d. per quarto of 500 to 520 words. PLAYS, 3d. per page. FULL PARTICULARS ON APPLICATION. MRS. GILL, TYPE-WRITING OFFICE, 35, LUDGATE HILL, E.C. (ESTABLISHED 1883.) qr _—_ Authors’ MSS. carefully copied from 1s. per 1000 words. Plays, &c., 1s. 8d. per 1000 words. Extra copies (carbon) supplied at the rate of 4d. and 3d. per 1000 words. Type-writing from dictation 2s. 6d. per hour. Reference kindly permitted to Walter Besant, Esq.; also to Messrs. A. P. Watt and Son, Literary Agents, 2, Paternoster. square, E.C. Miss PATTEAN, NPIS 7. 44, Oakley Street Flats, Chelsea, S.W. Authors’ MSS. carefully transcribed. References kindly permitted to George Augustus Sala, Esq., Justin Huntly McCarthy, Esq., and many other well-known Authors. Hire - Proof Safe for MSS. Particulars on Application. LITERARY PRODUCTIONS OF EVERY DESCRIPTION AREFULLY REVISED, CORRECTED, or RE. WRITTEN by the Author of “The Queen’s English up to Date.” Facilities for publication. Typewriting 1s. per 1000 words. Address SecRETARY, Literary Office, 342, Strand, W.C. Xe LADY, with the power of CONSTRUCTING PLOTS for NOVELS, and of Collecting and Investigating Materials for Journalistic and Literary Work, will be GLAD to ASSIST AUTHORS. She has special facilities for interviewing and for supply- ing descriptive matter, and will be glad of any work of this nature. Address, the Editor of THe AvutTHoR, 4, Portugal- street, W.C. PRINTING ANO PUBLISHING. TO AUTHORS. Special attention given to the above. Terms moderate. Estimates free. ACCOUNTS VERIFIED BY CHARTERED ACCOUNTANT. Address Manacer, Roxburghe Press, 3, Victoria-street, Westminster. In cloth lettered, gilt edges, price 5s. SONGS GRAVE AND GAY. By F. B. DOVETON, Author of ‘‘Snatches of Song,” ‘‘ Sketches in Prose and Verse,” ‘s Maggie in Mythica,” &c. London: Horace Cox, Windsor House, Bream’s-buildings, E.C. Printed and Published by Horace Cox, Windsor House, Bream’s-buildings, London, E.C. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Author, Vol. 04 Issue 08 (January 1894) Subject The topic of the resource <em>The Author</em>, Vol. 04 Issue 08 (January 1894) Type The nature or genre of the resource Publication Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1894-01-01-The-Author-4-8 publications The Author https://historysoa.com/files/original/5/459/1894-02-01-The-Author-4-9.pdf c93f724aa4c1aee3dc250766d7ad518a PDF Text Text ������������������������������������ Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Author Subject The topic of the resource <em>The Author</em> Description An account of the resource A digitised run of the Society of Authors' monthly periodical, <em>The Author</em>, 1890<span>–</span>1914, made available together for the first time.<br /><br />Currently users can browse issues and <a href="https://historysoa.com/items/browse?search=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Index&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;tags=&amp;exhibit=&amp;date_search_term=&amp;submit_search=Search+For+Items&amp;sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CTitle">indices</a> (not available for all volumes). Full text search for all issues, and other additional search functionality, will be added in 2022. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1890–1914 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context The-Author-Issues Publication Date The date of an event (in YYYY, YYYY-MM or YYYY-MM-DD format) 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. With appendix con- taining an address by Mr. Fox in 1842, an original poem by Mrs. Adams, 1836, and a discourse by Mr. Conway, 1893. Williams and Norgate. 5s. Epers, GEorG. The Story of My Life from Childhood to Manhood. ‘Translated by Mary J. Safford. With portraits. Hirchfeld. Furnt, Ropert. History of the Philosophy of History. Historical Philosophy in France and French-Belgium and Switzerland. Blackwood. GarNieR, RusseLt M. History of the English Landed Interest : its Customs, Laws, and Agriculture (Modern Period). 10s. 6d. Gasquet, F. Arpan. Henry VIII. and the English Monas- teries. An attempt to illustrate the History of their suppression. Fifth edition, with thirty-three illustra- tions and five maps. 2 vols. John Hodges. 30s. net. Gasquet, F. ArpAn. The Great Pestilence (a.p. 1348-9), now commonly known as the Black Death. Simpkin, Marshall. 7s. 6d. net. Gray, Joun M. 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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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) 1894-03-01 Volume 4 Issue 10 Pages Page range in volume 357–390 Ngram Date Version of the date in YYYYMMDD format for use by the Ngram plugin 18940301 Ngram Text Version of the text with no HTML formatting for use by the Ngram plugin 1 Che Autbor. (The Organ of the Incorporated Society of Authors. Monthly.) CONDUCTED BY WALTER BESANT. Vou. IV.—No. 10.] MARCH 1, 1804. [Prick SIXPENCE. CONTENTS. PAGE PAGE Notices and Warnings : nee a ae oes Se wee 359 Russian Newspapers. By Arthur A. Sykes ... Sic os uv 873 From the Committee. By the Secretary wee ese es, Ss wes OGL | ‘The Literary Optimist. By Grace Gilchrist ... ... .. +. 874 Literary Property— Equipment. By S. G. 1.—Hanfstaengl vy. The Empire Palace... oe co --- 861 Correspondence.—l. Methods of Publishing. By ‘‘Clerk.”— 2.—The Law of Libel 363 is 3. The Lit Ae e ray Fen eat ge a ere 368 2. Editors. By Vlaamsch.—3. Greek Novels. By E. Mayhew es ee are oe Books ee Bs ae ae Edmonds.—4. Cataloguing. By Cwmrag Jones.—5. Literary Wanted, a Writer's Handbook. ByIsmay Thorn .. ... «+, 360 eee WS a ste A the Sign of the Sunor's Head tenet ae 879 Notes and News. Bythe Editor... .. .. os + «867 | What the Papers say.—l. R. M. Ballantyne.—2. Constance meen dlictens Fenimore Woolson.—3. Dr. Johnson’s Haunts.—4. Censor- 1.—Another View ay aes ae a on aes Scere ship and Jewish Literature ... aS tis a ape .-. 380 2.—Fable—The Poet and the Tripe Dresser 372 New Books and New Editions .., wee tee see es see 383 PUBLICATIONS OF THE SOCIETY. 1. The Annual Report. That for January 1893 can be had on application to the Secretary. “9. The Author, A Monthly Journal devoted especially to the protection and maintenance of Literary Property. Issued to all Members. Back numbers are offered at the following prices: Vol. I., ros. 6d. (Bound) ; Vols. II. and III., 8s. 6d. each (Bound). 3. The Grievances of Authors. (The Leadenhall Press.) 1s. The Report of three Meetings on the general subject of Literature and its defence, held at Willis’s Rooms, March, 1887. 4, Literature and the Pension List. By W. Morris Couuszs, Barrister-at-Law. (Henry Glaisher, 95, Strand, W.C.) 3s. 5. The History of the Société des Gens de Lettres. By S. Squire Spricerx, late Secretary to the Society. Is. 6. The Cost of Production, In this work specimens are given of the most important forms of type, size of page, &c., with estimates showing what it costs to produce the more common kinds of books. Henry Glaisher, 95, Strand, W.C. 2s. 6d. 7. The Various Methods of Publication. By S. Squire Spriaer. In this work, compiled from the papers in the Society’s offices, the various forms of agreements proposed by Publishers to Authors are examined, and their meaning carefully explained, with an account of the various kinds of fraud which have been made possible by the different clauses in their agreements. Henry Glaisher, 95, Strand, W.C. 3s. 8. Copyright Law Reform. An Exposition of Lord Monkswell’s Copyright Bill now before Parlia- ment. With Extracts from the Report of the Commission of 1878, and an Appendix containing the Berne Convention and the American Copyright Bill. By J. M. Leny. Hyre and Spottiswoode. 1s. 6d. 9. The Society of Authors. A Record of its Action from its Foundation. By Watrser Besant (Chairman of Committee, 1888—1892). 15. — 358 ADVERTISEMENTS. The Sociefy of Nufhors (Bncorporated). PRESIDENT. GHORGEH MBEREDITE,. Str Epwin ARNOLD, K.C.LE., C.8.1. ALFRED AUSTIN. J. M. BARRIE. A. W. A BECKETT. Rospert BATEMAN. Sir Henry Berene, K.C.M.G. WALTER BESANT. AUGUSTINE BIRRELL, M.P. Rev. Pror. Bonney, F.R.S. Rieut Hon. James Bryce, M.P. Hatt Carne. Ea@EertTon CAstTue, F.S.A. P. W. CLAYDEN. EDWARD CLODD. W. Morris Couzzs. Hon. JoHn CoLuiER. W. Martin Conway. F. Marion CRAWFORD. OswaLD CRAWFURD, C.M.G. Hon. COUNCIL. THE Ear or DEsart. Austin Dosson. A. Conan Dortz, M.D. A. W. Dusoure. J. Eric Enicusen, F.R.S. Pror. MicHart Foster, F.R.S. Ricut Hon. HERBERT GARDNER, M.P. RicHaRD Garnett, LL.D. Epmunpd Gossk. H. Riper Haaa@arp. Tuomas Harpy. JEROME K. JEROME. RupyarpD KIpPiine. Pror. E. Ray LANKESTER, F.R.S. J. M. Lery. Rev. W. J. Lorris, F.S.A. Pror. Max-MUuuer. Pror. J. M. D. MEIKLEJOHN. HERMAN C. MERIVALE. Counsel — E. M. UNDERDOWN, Rev. C. H. MippLETON-WAKE. Lewis Morris. J. C. PARKINSON. THE Eart or PEMBROKE AND Mont- GOMERY. Sir FrepeErick Pouuock, Bart., LL.D. WaLter HeRRIES PoLLOcK. A. G. Ross. Groree AuaustTus SALA. W. BapristE Scoongs. G. R. Srms. S. Squire Sprica@s. J. J. STEVENSON. Jas. SULLY. Witiiam Moy THomas. H. D. Trait, D.C.L. E. M. UNDERDOWN, Q.C. Baron Henry DEWorMs, M.P.,F.R.S. Epmunp YATES. Q.C. COMMITTEE OF MANAGEMENT. Chairman—S1rz FREDERICK PoLiock, Bart, LL.D. A. W.A Becxert. WALTER BESANT. EGERTON CASTLE. W. Morris CoLyzs. OFFICES : Hon. JoHN COLLIER. W. Martin Conway. EpMUND GossE. H. River Haagaarp. Solicitors—Messrs. Fizup, Roscoz, and Co., Lincoln’s Inn Fields. J. M. Lery. A. G. Ross. S. Squire Sprices. Secretary—G. Herprert Turina, B.A. 4, Portuaau Strext, Lincoun’s Inn Freips, W.C. Windsor House PRINTING WORKS] BREAM’S BUILDINGS, E.C. OFFICES OF “THE FIELD,’’ “THE QUEEN,” “THE LAW TIMES,’’ &C. Mr. HORACE COX, Printer to the Authors’ Society, takes the opportunity of informing Authors that, having a very large office, and an extensive plant of type of every description, he is in a position to EXECUTE any PRINTING they may entrust to his care. ESTIMATES FORWARDED, AND REASONABLE CHARGES WILL BE FOUND. a a  a ef aa i 4] The Huthor. (The Organ of the Incorporated Society of Authors. Monthly.) CONDUCTED BY WALTER BESANT. Vou. IV.—No. 1o.] MARCH I, 1894. [Prick 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. ees 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 :— 1. Sperrat Rieuts.—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 yourR 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 to a 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. LirERARY 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 Worxk.—Never, on any account whatever, bind yourself down for future work to anyone. 8. Royatry.—Never accept any proposal of royalty until you have ascertained what the agreement, worked out on poth a small and a large sale, will give to the author and what to the publisher. g. Persona Risk.—Never accept any pecuniary risk or responsibility whatever without advice. 10. ResyecTED 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 OF 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. FF2 360 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, PortuGAtL StrEeEt, Lincoun’s Inn Fiexps. pe HOW TO USE THE SOCIETY. 1. 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. ec 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 vooking 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 alk 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. Spec 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 P Communications for the Author should reach the Editor not later than the 21st of each month. All persons engaged in literary work of any kind, whether members of the Society or not, are invited to communicate to the Editor any points connected with their work which it would be advisable in the general interest to publish. Members and others who wish their, MSS. read are requested not to send them to the Office without previously communicating with the Secretary. The utmost practicable despatch is aimed at, and MSS. are read in the order in which they are received. It must also be distinctly under- stood that the Society does not, under any circumstances, undertake the publication of MSS. The Authors’ Club is now open in its new premises, at 3, Whitehall-court, Charing Cross. Address the Secretary for information, rules of admission, &c. Will members take the trouble to ascertain whether they have paid their subscriptions for the year? If they will do  THE AUTHOR. 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. Docs FROM THE COMMITTEE. N a few days the Annual Report of the Com- mittee for the year 1893 will be in the hands of members. A few notes on the proceed- ings of the committee for the last six months may be considered as supplementary to the report. At many meetings the proceedings of the com- mittee are quite formal. The election of members and associates is the first work before them at every meeting. Of the numerous cases taken up by the secretary, very few are brought before the notice of the committee at all, unless for special reasons. Hvery case is considered as confidential between the chairman and secretary on the one hand, and the author concerned on the other. But the secretary is not empowered to undertake legal action, which would involve expenditure, without the authority of the committee, or, if the case presses, that of the chairman. The committee have placed themselves in friendly communication with the newly-founded Society of Authors of Chicago. They have sent the American society all their papers. In accordance with the new articles of associa- tion the election of chairman is now annual. Sir Frederick Pollock, having signified his consent to act for another year, was re-elected. A vote of 361 thanks was passed for his services during the past year, and the committee expressed their gratification at being able to re-elect him. In accordance with the articles of association the following three members of committee retired in order of seniority : Mr. Walter Besant, Mr. J. M. Lely, Mr. Edmund Gosse. The first two were re-elected. Mr. Edmund Gosse did not accept re-election, but remains on the Council. The question of publishing the names of the members of the Society has been before the Committee, and it was resolved that, the Society holding to its members a position somewhat analogous to that of a solicitor to his clients, it would not be desirable to publish the list. A case has been drawn up, and questions rising out of the case, on the subject of secret profits. This case, with its questions, has been submitted to counsel for an opinion. The opinion will be published in the Annual Report. Members are earnestly invited to give it their most serious attention. It has been resolved to compile as exhaustive a list as possible of the writers of 1893. Between Jan. 1 and Feb. 17, forty-two new members and associates have been elected into the Society. G. HerBert THRING. pes LITERARY PROPERTY. I.— Hanrstarnct v. THe Empire PAace LIMITED AND OTHERS. (Before Lorps Justices Linpury, Kay, and A. L. Smrrs.) HIS was an appeal from a decison of Mr. Justice Stirling (reported in our impression of the 17th inst.) It may be remembered that his Lordship refused to grant an interim injunction to restrain the defendant company from exhibiting tableaua vivants, or “living pictures,” at the Empire Palace of Varieties so as to infringe the plaintiff's copyright in five pictures painted by foreign artists. It was now stated that some other pictures, in which the plaintiff had the copyright, were represented at the Empire Palace of Varieties, though they were not within the claim. The titles of the pictures were “ The Three Graces,” ‘‘ First Love,” “Yes or No,” “Charity,” and “Naughty Song.” In some cases the title of the tableaux vivants was varied. The action was founded on the copyright conferred 362 by the Copyright in Fine Arts Act of 1862. The preamble of the Act recited that the authors of paintings, drawings, and photographs had no copyright, and that it was expedient that the law in that respect should be amended. The first part of sect. 1 provide : “The author, being a British subject or resi- dent within the dominions of the Crown, of every original painting, drawing, and photograph which shall be or shall have been made either in the British dominions or elsewhere, and which shall not have been sold or disposed of before the com- mencement of this Act, and his assigns, shall have the sole and exclusive right of copying, engraving, reproducing, and multiplying such painting or drawing, and the design thereof, or such photograph, and the negative thereof, by apy means and of any size, for the term of the natural life of such author, and seven years after his death.” The plaintiff was the owner of the copyright in the five pictures in question, which were all painted by foreign artists. The defen- dants, the Empire Palace Limited, had recently commenced to exhibit in their music-hall a series of tableaua vivants,in which they represented, by means of groups of living persons, various paintings, amongst them being the five pic- tures. The plaintiff, in an affidavit filed by him, said that he was a fine-art publisher carrying on business at Munich, and having business houses in London and New York, and agencies in Paris and Berlin. All the pictures in question were first published in Munich, and were entitled to copyright in Germany, and, by virtue of the International Copyright Act, in the United Kingdom also. The unauthorised reproduction of the said pictures as part of a music-hall variety entertainment would considerably lessen the value of the copyright therein, the tendency of such representations, preceded and followed as they were by performances of the usual music-hall type, being to vulgarise the subjects and make them less valuable as works of art. He further said that he had witnessed the representations at the defendants’ music-hall, and observed that the details of his pictures were “ reproduced exactly, and the illusion was so perfect that a complete copy of the said pictures with the background was produced as in a stereoscope, so that a living canvas was, asit were, presented to the audience.” The defendants denied that they were exhibiting as part of their Living Pictures exact copies or imitations of the plaintiff’s pictures, or that living persons were posed, made up, and attired so as to represent as nearly as possible the figures in the pictures, in their original attitudes and draperies. They said that the arrangements made for their scenic representations consisted of THE AUTHOR. a separate and distinct proscenium erected upon the stage of the theatre, with painted canvas backgrounds, wings, and curtains, and various properties, such as flowerstands. They further said that there were many differences between the stage pictures and the photographs of the plain- tiff’s pictures from which they admitted they had taken the idea of their representations. The plaintiff also claimed an injunction against the proprietors of the Daily Graphic newspaper, who appeared to have published in their paper wood- cuts of some of the Living Pictures as seen at the Empire, but the case against them was, on the application of their counsel, adjourned. At the hearing of the motion before Mr. Justice Stirling the application stood over so far as it related to the Daily Graphic newspaper. The case also stood over as regards the background, on an undertaking by the defendant company to take photographs and keep an account. His Lordship refused an injunction as to the living figures. The plaintiffs appealed. Mr. Graham Hastings, Q.C., Sir Richard Webster, Q.C., Mr. T. E. Scrutton, and Mr. A. H. Jessel appeared in support of the appeal; Mr. Buckley, Q.C., and Mr. Roger Wallace, for the defendant company were not called upon; Mr. H. A. Forman watched the appeal for the Dazly Graphic. Lord Justice LinpiEy said this was a very important question and a new one. They were asked to put a construction on the Act never contemplated when it was passed, and which it did not bear. The plaintiff based his case on the Actof 1862. That Act was one of the Copyright Acts, which were grouped into series; there was one series relating to engravings, another to pictures and works of art, another to dra- matic authorship, and he thought there was a separate legislation as to sculpture. When the Act was passed engravings were protected, but pictures were not. The object of the Act was to put painters more or less in the position en- gravers were in with respect to the work of which they were the authors, or tu give artists a com- mercial property ; the object was to protect them from piracy by copying or engraving or photo- graphing, or any new way that might be found of multiplying or reproducing by making some- thing of the same class. But the object was not to restrain the producing a totally different class of thing; it was not intended to put a limit on the scope of a sculptor’s business or of the busi- ness of dramatic performance ; but the Act was aimed at reproductions by any means similar to the thing originally produced. His Lordship examined the language of sect. 1 of the Act, pointing out that the words used were different  THE AUTHOR. from those used in enactments dramatic authorship. The language, he said, seemed to him incapable fairly of being strained to include such a representation as was complained of. Light was thrown on the con- struction of sect. 1 when the subsequent sections were looked at, for they provided remedies in- capable of being applied in a case of represen- tation of a picture by human beings. He did not rely so much on those sections relating to the remedies as on the object of the Act and the words of the first section. If he went outside the Act, he thought light was thrown upon it by the case of Dicks v. Brooks (15 Ch. Diy. 22), where the Court of Appeal held that a pattern for worsted work was not an infringement of the copyright in an engraving. In his Lord- ship’s opinion the appeal must be dismissed with costs. Lord Justice Kay was entirely of the same opinion. The plaintiff, by virtue of the Inter- national Copyright Act and an order made under that Act, was in the position of a British artist as to his rights to protection against infringe- ment. His Lordship stated the facts, and said the question was whether that kind of thing, putting the background out of the question, was within the meaning of the Act; if it was, of course the right to an injunction was clear. The case was rather put upon the word “reproduc- tion’”’—that was, producing again. It seemed to him that the reproduction must be something which could properly be described as a picture. He should have to come to the conclusion that this dramatic representation, or so-called picture, part of which consisted of human figures dressed, as he presumed, exactly like the figures in the plaintift’s pictures, was not within the words giving the author a sole right of copying and re- producing his pictures. This construction he thought confirmed by looking at the subsequent parts of the Act, which provided remedies inapplicable to representation such as was com- plained of. It came to this, he said—that if the plaintiffs construction was right, a man could be prevented from having in his own private draw- ing-room a tableau vivant representing a picture, for nothing was said as to reproduction for profit. Putting the case of the background out of the question, he came to the conclusion that the case was not within the Act, and the appeal failed. Lord Justice A. L. Smrrx. concurred. The Act, he said, must be construed as a whole. He referred to the preamble to show the nature of the imitation against which an author of paint- ings, drawings, and photographs was intended to be protected. His Lordship discussed the provisions of section 6, which enables the author referring to 363 or his assign to sue for damages, and section 11, which provides for penalties, in both of which sections are enactments for the forfeiture or delivery up of infringing articles, provisions not applicable to human beings. Taking these things into consideration, on the construction of section (1) he was of opinion that the thing offending against the statute must be something in the nature and character of a picture, which a tableau vivant was not. He concurred in dis- missing the appeal with costs —TZ%smes, Feb. 22. Il.—Tue Law or Lise. The following case is put by one of the literary craft :—‘‘ I conduct ‘ Answers to Correspondents ’ for a certain weekly magazine. Among the questions put are often those to which a direct answer would be libellous; for instance, if the person who trades under the style of Fur and Mendax is honest and trustworthy ; whether an author should send them a MS. I know certain damning facts about them. What am I to do?” The writer must remember that an action for libel may be brought against the editor, the pro- prietor, or the contributor. He must, therefore, word his answer so that no action should be possible. For instance, in such a case would it not be possible for the answer to warn the questioner in general terms never to send MSS. to any publisher of whom he cannot get trust- worthy information? That is a good, safe rule, and, in these days of universal writing, a rule which can always be acted upon, for everybody knows some one who writes. Ii..—Tue Lirerary AGENT. The following appeared in the Athenxum of Feb. 24 :— New York, Jan. 30, 1894. There are one or two points in connection with the lite- rary agent, or middleman between author and publisher, which I think have been missed by your previous corre- spondents, possibly because they are more particularly applicable to the American than to the English publishing business. The most important point, as far as the author is con- cerned, is that the employment of a literary agent is likely to lead to the distribution of his books among a number of publishers. Now in this country the influence of adver- tising on the sale of books is chiefly a cumulative one, and a publisher spends his money not so much in advertising a particular book as in keeping the name of an author by -vhom he is employed constantly before the public. He will naturally do this more vigorously for an author all of whose books he controls than for a writer in the sale of whose works he is only partially interested; and an author who has employed two or three different publishers may be annoyed, but must not be surprised, if he finds that his books do not figure conspicuously in the advertising lists of any one of them. 364 T could give you examples from my own experience of the disadvantage of this distribution of interests. A recent case is that of a writer whose books, saleable as they are, command in advance payments on royalties about one-third less to-day than they did three years ago, when they were all in one publisher’s hands, although, of course, on the first book, which was not brought out by his original publisher, the author received a larger sum than he had hitherto done. Another serious evil is the temptation which the literary agent has to accept on behalf of the author an offer for publication from a firm of small financial responsibility, so that, while the first payment on account of his book may be met, the author may find as the second or third year of pub- lication comes round that the firm in question has made an assignment, and that his book has passed into the hands of the receiver of the failed company. I was lately offered a book by a rising English author, whose books have had a fair sale hitherto, but the terms asked (and evidently suggested) by the literary agent were such as afforded no chance of profit to the publisher. The book was declined, and was finally issued by a firm of pub- lishers who have already failed once, and who, if current report is to be believed, are likely to go through the same experience again at no distant date. It is, perhaps, more important for an author here to make himself acquainted with the ability and responsibility of his publisher than it is in London. There are on this side of the water a number of publishing houses, both of English antecedents and of native origin, whose honour and financial responsibility have never been questioned, and it is, there- fore, both surprising and irritating to find so many English authors of note falling (no doubt with the aid of the middle- man) into the hands of firms such as those that have recently helped to swell the list of failures at ‘“‘ Bradstreet’s.” ; An AMERICAN PUBLISHER. It is well that everything said for or against the literary agent should be printed, or reprinted, in the Author, whose readers are very deeply interested in the subject. It would be well, in fact, if we could obtain a body of opinions as to the place and importance of the literary agent from our readers alone. The American publisher talks sense; he means business, and he does not try to hide his meaning with a thin pretence about friendship. An author to him means profit or loss. It is a great thing to recognise this elementary truth at the outset. His three points are (1.) That an author would do well to keep his books in the hands of one firm. Very true. But why does he not? Is it the fault of the agent? Did he, before agents were created, keep his books in one firm? He did not —and why not? The question must be answered without reference to the agent at all. My own experience is that the agent does not, if he can avoid it, scatter an author’s work. (2.) A firm of small financial responsibility is apt to make a large bid for a book; but, after a year or so, he may fail, the book passing into the hands of receivers. An author, ignorant of business, may very well fall into that trap. Many authors did so two or THE AUTHOR. three years ago. An agent should, of course, do his best to find out the financial standing of a firm with which he deals. (3.) A royalty is sometimes asked which would leave no profit to the publisher. The reply to this is, that when American authors succeed in finding out the ‘‘Cost of Production,’ and publishing it, such a demand could not be made. So long as American pub- lishers continue to talk in vague terms about the enormous expenses of travellers, printing, &c., in the States, so long will English authors and English agents continue to discuss the adminis- tration of their property in darkness. Eprtor. IV.—Tue American Tarirr on Books. The Dial of Chicago has made an attempt to “enlist the friends of culture, irrespective of party, in an effort to secure the removal” from the United States tariff law of the duty on books in the English language. The editor sent round in various directions a large number of blank petitions, which were filled with signatures and presented to the House of Representatives. It must be remembered that this kind of work is far more arduous than it would be in this country on account of the great distances, and the differ- ence in the average of culture in the several States. For instance, not to be invidious, no one would expect in Texas the same intellectual stan- dards as in Massachusetts. The result of the petitions is not yet apparent; probably, they were only expected to clear the way for another and a bolder attack. It is, however, remark- able—though not astonishing—that this move- ment should originate in Chicago. We may look—I firmly believe — to the west, of which Chicago is the natural centre, for many great things in literature and in art. The youth and vigour of the place; the success of the place; the resolve of the young men and maidens to achieve what can be achieved by study and effort ; the wealth of the place, which secures all that can be obtained in learning and teaching ; even the separation of the place from the old continuity of English literature; the things that have already come from the place—all lead me to look on Chicago as a centre of literature and art in the immediate future. This is what the Dial says about the tax: It would be difficult to devise a more stupid duty than this tax of 25 per cent. upon the implements indispensable to the profession of the intellectual worker. As a means of producing revenue its results are insignificant. And a very little examination will serve to show that it does not, thatit cannot, operate as a protective measure. The man who wants a pocket-knife, or a watch, or a suit of clothes, will take the article of American manufacture if a protective  f ¢ = THE AUTHOR. 365 tax makes the corresponding articles of foreign manu- facture too costly for his means. But the man who wants the poems of Tennyson, or the essays of Matthew Arnold, or the political writings of Professor Bryce, finds no corre- sponding American books that will do about as well. His purpose will not be suited by the poems of Longfellow, or the essays of Emerson, or the political writings of Professor Fiske. The suggestion that, as a good American, he ought to be contented with the latter works is too puerile to be taken seriously. A man wants a book for some specific purpose, and no other book will do. If he eannot afford to purchase it, he must go without. And his disgust with the law that wantonly places the book beyond his reach will not help to make him a better American. It must be added, lest some of our readers should have for- gotten the fact, that the case of English books copyrighted in this country is covered by the Copyright Law itself, which requires their manufacture here, and does not merely tax, but prohibits, the importation of the English edition. WANTED, A WRITER'S HANDBOOK. HERE have been many literary guide books offered to the public for the assistance of beginners in the art of authorship, but we think the really practical guide has yet to be written. What young authors chiefly want to learn from their elders is, not what they should read or write, or how they should write it, what models of style they should copy, and what perils are to be avoided. The chances are that the youth in search of a publisher has already written what he, or she, considers a great work, and to be told how to write that which is already written, borders on the insultmg. But when the manuscript is written, the real difficulties of the young author begin. He is sure to have friends, friends that reassure him and friends that throw cold water. Itis always easy to throw cold water, because then the responsibility of what follows does not rest on our shoulders, and one can say, ‘‘ I told youso,” to the failure which is likely to follow a first attempt. The friends give the young author much advice, good, indifferent. and bad—often very bad. He is bewildered by the very contradictory opinions he hears ; he feels he must decide for himself, and he does so. But how? It requires a knowledge which even men who have worked at literature all their lives do not always possess, namely, which of all the firms of publishers is the most likely to read, consider, and accept the manuscript in question. Or, say the story is a short one, and many suc- cessful writers advise the ambitious novelist to begin with short magazine stories as a prelimi- nary, like “feeling his feet” before beginning to walk alone; to which of the hundred and one magazines, weekly and monthly, that are spread out on the bookstalls before the dazzled eyes of VOL. Iv. the novice who yearns to see himself in print, is he to confide that precious firstling, the idol of his heart and brain. There are few sensations more sickening than the disappointment of an author who, having cast himself into the eddy, finds that he is merely flung back on to the bank, instead of being carried down with the stream. And Lorelei herself has enticed fewer victims to their destruction than has the great and fascinating Mississippi of literature. To lessen some of the disappointment and mis- adventures that fall to the lot of most young authors, to prevent good work from going astray until the worker is all but in despair, would be— not to flood the market with what is not wanted, or to set all boys and girls scribbling—but to give those who have something worth saying and can say it, a chance of being heard. At present, for all that is written and said on the subject of editors being on the look out for fresh talent, it is all but impossible for a young writer to get a hearing. Moreover the would-be author is pro- bably a poor man, he must nevertheless spend much in stamps, and on consulting the best literary papers for the names and addresses of the firms he fancies may take his manuscript. From these he will learn a little, but not what he most requires to know. Even the Society of Authors cannot help him to a publisher, though it can help him when he has found one. What he wants is a writers’ handbook, a literary Murray or Baedeker ; in fact, such a guide as does not at present exist. The handbook should contain a list of publishers, magazines, and newspapers, with their respective addresses. Each publisher should state the kind of work their firm requires, the number of volumes preferred, or the length in words. Any series open to good writers might be mentioned, those to which only special authors are invited to contribute might be marked as closed. It might also be mentioned what firms will allow an examination of their accounts, and what firms do not. With regard to magazines and papers, those that have notices to contributors should have them reproduced. Here, also, the best length for a story or article could be given by the editors, and where there is a fixed scale of payment, the usual remuneration might be quoted, so as to prevent misapprehension. Such a guide, could it be written, would be of use to all writers, not only to the tyro who needs a helping hand; it would be of service to the editor, who might cease to receive endless manu- scripts totally unsuited to his requirements, and it would become a book of reference for all interested or connected in any way with the great Republic of Letters. The want of a handbook of this description aa 366 - THE AUTHOR. being admitted, the next question is, who will undertake to compile such a work ? Ismay THORN. Secs BOOK TALK. HE well-deserved success of Mr. Stanley Weyman’s work “A Gentleman of France,” will probably lead many of its admirers to ask once again how it comes about that good historical romance has always a charm both for the youngest and the most experienced reader. Tt is in the nature of man’s intellectual perfor- mances to move from unity to variety. In the history of inventions an improvement on a previous patent means a distinct advance, and the creation of a fresh piece of property. So, too, in the invention of history —a new way to tell old deeds is a great find, and ought to be a very valuable educational agent. When considered with respect to literary form, the genesis of history seems to be in this wise: The metrical method broke down when for reciting from memory was substituted the practice of writing. So the epic became the chronicle. Immediately we miss the human voice, an omission which led the poet to combine the two, the epic and the chronicle, and to create the historical drama. There is a sense in which Shakespeare is our greatest historian, because the necessities of the drama compelled him to make a choice of incident. But this necessity in its turn begets dissatisfaction—curiosity as to what is not told us, and criticism of the sequence of events. The fresh writer sees the difficulty, and grapples with it by giving us the narrative ; he places a date on each page, and with a passion for filling up spare time and bare places he becomes diffuse, and the method loses its hold upon the reader by its over attention to detail—in a word, its pedantry. The return to a wish for men and women who, whether under real names or not, shall at least speak as men and women might have spoken, is a rebound back to the drama, with one’s faculties for enjoy- ing the drama dulled by the narrative. It is true that it is of the narrative we speak when we use the word “history” without qualification. We may be uncertain what ‘‘ history’ implies. Wath some it is “teaching by examples,’ with others it is ‘‘ descriptive sociology,” and according to a man’s mental bias so he will find his definition to suit himself, unless he is fortunate enough not to want one. But there can be no doutt in any- one’s mind, no difference in our opinion that in England, history must denote the works of Clarendon and Gibbon, around whom we may group, according to our taste, other names held to be nearly as great, from Bolingbroke to Carlyle. Of these great authors it is style which dis- tingvishes them from others. They write as though they took pride in feeling that their manner of writing was worthy of their respective subjects. When these two forms of historical literature, the drama and the narrative, have been perfected, the historical novel or romance becomes possible. It is the next demand. It is the next necessary advance in the progress of literature in order of time, though, of course, order of merit is another affair altogether. Taking the necessity of a narrative from the narrative historian, and of persons speaking for themselves from the drama, these elements of the historical novel only wait then to be combined. How is it that the combination is brought about with poor results in some cases, and in others with such brilliant success ? Let us put aside the question for a moment, and, assuming that Scott and Dumas have written perfect historical romances, we will note what types of novel have since been in vogue. There is the novel of con- temporary history, or political novel, in which the events described have taken place in the author’s own time and in which the characters can be recognised as known public men, and are intended to be so recognised. Here, as before, in Dumas and Scott, we have fictitious characters, the authors’ invention, brought into relation with real characters, but with this dis- tinction, that the latter are now bound to bear disguised names. The most typical stories of this kind are Lothair and Endymion. We donot see how it will be possible to refuse the epithet historical to these novels when the events described have passed out of the memory of living men. We may note in passing that Disraeli took even his fictitious names from historic personages—“ Endymion” from Endy- mion Porter, the page to Prince Charles—and perhaps “Ferrars” from the Ferrars of Little Gidding fame. Since “Endymion” a new type of political novel has appeared. It is called the human document. We are to observe that, as before, courtesy demands that the names shall be dis- guised, but the peculiarity which marks it asa fresh species is that there are no fictitious characters—at least, none of any moment. If anyone should think that in this last species the author’s task must be an easy one, there is Mr. Meredith’s “Tragic Comedians, a study in a well-known story,’ to convince him of his error—-and, we hope, delight him as the fairest variety of its species. The next step must be some development of the method of the “ Tragic Comedians,” and it oe Se & eS  = ' Z ay, THE AUTHOR. 367 is clear that any author reverting to a previous type must of necessity challenge comparison. Thus, in “A Gentleman of France,” it is Mr. Stanley Weyman’s good fortune that one thinks of Dumas, and that, in spite of such a com- parison, the Sieur de Marsac has a status all his own. We can well believe that this work may be to younger readers what ‘“ The Three Musketeers ” and “Twenty Years After” have been to others, perhaps to Mr. Weyman himself. Yet there is one thing that we miss, there is no touch of humour in the whole book — although the frontispiece is called “The Sport of Fools.” We do not say that Mr. Weyman could not make us laugh if he chose, and it may be that his choice of subject does not lend itself to humour easily. Certainly the cruelties of Catholics to the Huguenots are not matter of sport; but, on the other hand, in matters of the deepest religious import, whether for defence or reproval, the judicious use of raillery has the highest sanction. One would think that a writer of historical romance might do worse than make the “Eleventh of the Provincial Letters”? a happy guide on this point, which is essential to give the highest merit to any work of literary art. If such be the history of the historical novel, it is obvious that it has a certain position in relation to civilisation. Some writers hold that it is savage man who creates institutions, and institutions which, in their turn, create civilised man. If from literature we can in any sense read off the degree of a nation’s progress, then it must be owned that the stories produced just after the fall of Napoleon — Waverley and Waterloo are of the same year — were very healthy. War itself deserves no place in literature. On the other hand, diplomacy, the love of stratagem and intrigue, the statesman’s passion when a mistake might embroil nations, make better romances than, not perhaps the normal passion of peace, but certainly better than when the ethics of the indecent are for- gotten. The examination of particular historical novels requires not only knowledge of the period described, but also of the prevailing political and social views at the time they were written. Take for instance the reign of Charles II. Dr. Newman somewhere contrasts ‘‘Peveril of the Peak” with “ Brambletye House” as instances, the latter of bald description and the former of artistic description, or words to that effect. We have also another widely read story, “ Old Saint Paul’s,” in which Ainsworth deals with the same period. The reason for the respective novelists’ choice of this reign is no doubt that it is possible to get such information so as to describe the degree of luxury in social life with an accuracy VOL. Iv. sufficient to compel the reader to accept the illusion. No doubt, if the novelist wrote up his details with Mr. Thorold Rogers’ researches into the history of prices in his hands, he would be able to introduce every luxury of food and clothing as novelties at their proper period. We may doubt if in Brambletye House, when the hero is intro- duced to Lord Rochester, whether his Lordship would have been drinking tea. Again, on explaining to the youth how to get on at Court, he asks him, “Can you sing a naughty song like my Lord Arlington, or a blasphemous one like your humble servant, have you a pretty sister, or a pretty cousin, or even a little terrier dog with bells.” We may hesitate whether the author—Horace Smith—did not mean a spaniel. Here is the critic’s opportunity to expound the lore of tea and terriers and show there is no anachronism. The same remarks might be made of each of these three works, that in each the local colour may be exact to a fault, but that the view of the Restoration period is drawn from the bias of the author’s politics, as to the proper view to take of that period, which bias was, as we know, a wish to exculpate the Stuarts at the expense of the Puritans. It implied that the lies of one sovereign and the heartless- ness of another should be all hidden away under gaiety and good humour, the pigments out of which the glowing colours of romance are com- pounded, If a writer were to lay the scene of his novel at the same time nowadays—he would have to go to the same sources for his details of social life; but how would it be possible for him not to draw on the histories of Dr. Stoughton for a truer picture of the Puritans, to whom, when all is said and done, England owed so much, and who were neither so inartistic or such enemies to innocent pleasure as those who hold a brief for the Stuart dynasty consider it their duty to make out. J. W.S. NOTES AND NEWS. ONCERNING the interview trouble. An editor writes to a man who is an expert, a recognised authority, on a certain subject ; he asks this man, probably a very busy man, to give his representative an interview. The expert accedes good naturedly—if he is a young expert he is flattered perhaps; if he desires to be more widely acknowledged as an expert he is pleased. The interviewer calls. He stays two hours asking questions; he generally shows by his questions that he knows nothing whatever of the subject ; he makes notes ; he goesaway. The man aa2 368 interviewed has therefore lost two hours of valuable time ; probably an whole morning has been broken up; if the man is young at the work he leaves the interviewer to do his worst. In course of time his opinions appear—a feeble, flabby, half true, wholly inadequate expression of what he really said and really thinks. If the man interviewed is not young, he stipulates for a proof. This he receives, and he then sits down to read and correct. He has to rewrite every single sentence; it costs him about three hours of work, He has thus been mulcted of five hours’ work. The editor of the paper, on the other hand, has received a paper on this man’s opinion, which any magazine would have been delighted to publish on the usual terms—or on special terms. It is very nice, indeed for that editor; but what is it for that expert? As for myself, my latest experience is that after a distinct pledge was given by the reporter that nothing should be printed that was not passed by myself, he kept his promise so far as to send the proofs, and then the paper did not wait for the revise, but published the hugger mugger mess that the interviewer had put forward as my opinion. The moral of this is, that people who are interviewed must obtain from the editor himself a letter to promise that the proofs should be revised. One would not pretend to argue after lawyers, but one may ask a question. What possible injury can be done to a picture by a tableau vivant copying it—group—setting—everything ? A picture is either the property of the painter, or of some private person, or of a picture dealer, or of a public gallery. In the first place, a tableau vivant makes the picture known; in the second place it may add value to a picture; in the third place it calls attention to a picture, and may make it more desirable; and, in the last case, since the picture cannot be bought, it may make people go to the gallery in order to see it. If the subject is good, but the picture bad, a tableau vivant may call attention to bad drawing, bad light, bad colouring. If the picture is good, as well as the subject, the tableau vivant must contribute to the painter’s reputation. From every point of view it seems to an outsider that an artist, or the owner of a picture, should be pleased with a tableau vivant—if it is a good and faithful repro- duction—which places his picture on the stage for all the world to see. A second letter, signed “ Clerk,” on publishing generally, appears elsewhere, with a few words of comment. Deep rooted are the traditions of the trade, Secrecy as to the cost of production, the THE AUTHOR. retail price—everything—has been hitherto the rule. So we have done our best to admit light into all the details of the business. But when we ask the simple—the elementary—question, What does the publisher do for a book outside the work covered by what is called the “ establish- ment?” we are met with the remark that the question is “amazing.” No doubt ; it is amazing, Yet it must be put; and if any understanding is to be arrived at, it must be answered. Under- stand that there is no intention to assert, as “Clerk” says we assert, that the publisher does nothing outside his “ establishment” services—not at all—but one only asks what it is that he does. The printing, binding, advertising, subscribing, placing in the market, all is plain routine work with the majority of books. Here and _ there, to be sure, there must be troublesome books—those with dainty illustrations, beautiful binding, edi- tions de luxe. But for the majority of books it is certainly plain routine. You think this is mere outside assertion ? Then I offer you my experience, which has led_me to understand and to discover this fact. First of all, as the secretary and hon. secretary of two societies, both of which have published many books, I have myself put through the press and done the exact work which to “Clerk ’’ means so much anxiety. Now, I will tell you what for most books this anxiety means. I have edited, written, or translated: I have caused to be illustrated: I have annotated: I have put through the press, generally, about fifty works for these societies. The volumes are as handsome, as well produced, as those of any firm in the country. The awful anxiety and careful thought required for the work necessitated a half hour’s talk with the printer, who brought specimens of type and form of page; an hour’s talk with the binder, who produced designs; — and some trouble with the illustrations. One work, a great work, in eight volumes royal octavo, with thousands of illustrations, gave me a great deal of trouble, because I had, as general editor, to annotate it and to look after the illustrations. I confess that the work was very laborious, but not on account of the printing. Then, as regards — novels, the first three or four novels published under the joint names of Mr. James Rice and myself were printed by ourselves. We did not, you see, pay for production, as is meant when one speaks of paying for production; we gave the book printed and bound to the publisher, who — issued it on commission. The wear and tear of — thought required for the production of these — books amounted to a quarter of an hour with ~ the printer and about five minutes with the binder. _  THE AUTHOR. These details are given to show that I know what I am talking about when I say, that for nine- tenths of the books produced there is no trouble at all in the production. It is routine work. Understand, again, that there is no desire to depreciate the part taken by the publisher outside the “establishment”? work. One only wants to know what that is. A member sends a letter on the subject of the injury inflicted on women journalists by women who are not professionals, who take work for nothing, or for next to nothing, and who are not earning their livelihood by their work. Many of them, the writer complains, are ladies in good position and wealthy; titled ladies—but then titles are not always accompanied by wealth. The letter belongs to the Instztute of Journalists, rather than to ourselves; but literature and journalism overlap, and it is hard to say where one ends and the other begins. Certainly the essays and leading articles in our best papers are literature; and certainly the paragraph and the report are not literature. The point raised is more difficult than it seems. Our correspon- dent excludes those women who think they have a thing to say—a message to deliver. She does not, and cannot, include such writers in her denunciations. The lowering of scale pay is certainly a crying evil. In this, as im every other department of women’s work, the lowering of pay is a recognised curse. But who is to decide when a woman is entitled to become a journalist ? To write descriptive articles, critical articles, lead- ing articles, is to many women, as to many men, the most delightful work possible, without the least consideration of pay. Then, again, the question of means and income is not so simple; for where a hundred a year is poverty to one woman, it is wealth to another. Can we not, in such a matter as this, try to awaken public opinion ? Can we not teach all writers that they must not take low and miserable pay, because this means, in the inferior papers and journals, lowering the whole standard? If ladies of wealth and position write at all, let them, at least, insist upon payment on the same scale as those who write for bread have and must have. Not to do so may inflict the most grievous hardship on their poorer sisters. But I very much doubt whether any repre- sentations at all will induce ladies to give up the pleasure—and the power—of writing for the papers. Some time ago I found that a lady of wealth was in the habit of giving her papers to a certain organ, which was thus induced to try if it could not get all its work done for nothing. I pointed out the mischief done in this way, and the 369 lady at once perceived her mistake, and either ceased to write, or, if she continued to write, began to insist on proper payment. The Westminster Gazette calls attention to the loose way in which an edition is numbered: How many copies constitute an edition P Most publishers would probably say of a three-volume novel 250 copies, of a 6s. novel 1000, and of a 1s. novel 5000. ‘The public generally believe that a new edition means some alteration in the text, and it does so often, but not always. In connection with this question of editions, a curious incident occurred the other day. A prominent firm of London publishers had a proposal from an author, who has already written several books which have not been a success, to produce another. The author asked for an estimate for a thousand copies, each hundred to be printed with a fresh title page, and to bear that it was a new edition. That is to say, if 900 copies were sold, the book would then be in its tenth edition. It is needless to say that the author’s pro- posal was not entertained. I would cap this story about the author with another. It happened some years ago. The public were startled by an advertisement of a very well-known firm indeed, to the effect that Mr. ’s novel, in three volumes, was in its twelfth — fourteenth —anything you please— edition. It was amazing, because such leaps and bounds were unknown to other publishers. One publisher, however, he who told me the story, discovered that each edition consisted of a hun- dred copies only. He pointed out to the offenders that if this trick was continued everybody would have to follow suit, and no more confidence could be placed in the number of editions. It was, I believe, discontinued, and it remains a trick and not a custom. Therefore, I think we may still believe in the popularity of a book in its tenth edition. If the editor of the Westminster Gazette should wish to receive, privately, the name of the firm in question I can supply it. There is a very good essay on Literary Popu- larity, by Mr. Edgar Faweett, in Lippincott’s Magazine. He begins with the proposition that “where an author declares himself glad that he is unpopular, it may nearly always be taken for granted that he regrets his unpopu- larity very much indeed.” The writer goes on to contend that every writer must desire popu- larity, but that he desires the popularity of a circle selected by himself. Is that quite the way to put the case? I think not. Every writer, it seems to me, must desire as wide a public as there are readers. From pole to pole he would like his name to resound, from every people, and in every tongue. If he is a preacher with a message to deliver, he must, he cannot choose but wish his message to be heard everywhere ; if he  3/1? is a poet, who respects himself after the manner of all poets, the universal nature of his audience is a gauge of the advance of human understanding ; if he is a novelist who pourtrays human nature and character, he must ardently desire that all mankind should read him. It is true that pro- found consolation is daily administered to them- selves by many from the reflection that the multi- tude often sets up a false god, and worships an image of clay. But look again after ten years. Where is their image of clay? Itis gone. And where are the unsuccessful men of that time? They are gone, too. The lmited immortality which is obtained by a few writers is granted to none but the best; and it is quite certain that. the best writers in every age are recognised even in their own generation. Ask any librarian who are the real favourites of the people. He will tell you that in the long run, and after many years, they are the best writers of the world. This means that though immediate popularity may not always fall to the lot of the best work, yet that the best work does always get recognition; that a man does well to desire recognition, and that of the widest kind. “ Are we,” asks the man who writes for his little circle, and affects scorn of popularity, “to seek the popularity of Stallabras, who writes for the telegraph boys and the dressmakers?” This definition of Stallabras is not uncommon, but it is unjust. Stallabras writes with dramatic force, and considerable insight into human nature, for all the world to read him if they please. But you say he is vulgar. Perhaps. The world, how- ever, does not read him because he is vulgar, but because he is truthful and dramatic. For which reason let us all desire the recognition of the world rather than that of a circle. T have been allowed to read, in proof, an essay which is now in everybody’s hands. It is the article on Tennyson in the March number of the New Review by the late Mr. Francis Adams— probably the last paper that we shall have from his hand. It is an attempt to speak of Tennyson’s work coldly and critically. This is, for the present, impossible, for the reason, as the writer himself acknowledges, that Tennyson still domi- nates both the older and the younger men. The effort to get outside that domination results in a certain harshness of judgment, which is not good criticism. It may be true, as Mr. Adams says, that there is a great deal of destructible stuff in Tennyson—there is a great deal of destructible stuff in Wordsworth; and in Browning; it is one characteristic of genius to be irregular; but I do not think that the time has come to separate THE AUTHOR. the work of Tennyson that will live from the work that will perish. Every man’s most lasting ideals are those which come to him im the vigour of his age—say, the years from thirty to forty. The time has not yet come for those who belong to ’94 to condemn and depreciate those who belonged to ’44. Once, however, outside Tennyson’s doctrinal “ teachings,” Mr. Adams is able to do full justice to the poet. An interview sometimes has its brighter side. I think that everyone must have been pleased to read the “chat” with Mr. F. W. Robinson in the Westminster Gazette the other day. Mr. Robinson is a popular novelist, whom the critics somehow agree to leave in undisturbed possession of his popularity. Others, more un- fortunate, get “slatings ” and plainness of speech. Nobody grudges Mr. Rubinson this success which he deserves. He has written about fifty novels, mostly in three volumes. He was also for ten years—the whole period of its existence—editor of the magazine called Home Chimes, which did so much during its life to introduce new and un- known writers to the public. Among these were Mr. Barrie, Mr. Jerome, Mr. Coulson Kernahan, Mr. Eden Philpotts, Mr. Burgin, and Mr. Hugh Coleman Davidson. Among the “ already known” men and women who contributed to the magazine were Swinburne, Mrs. Lovett Cameron, Mabel Collins, Philip Marston, Emma Marshall, Grace Stebbing, Theodore Watts, May Thomas, Savile Clark. It may be safely announced, at any time, without fear of contradiction or trouble of mquiry, that Mr. F. W. Robinson is ‘ engaged upon a new novel.” May the fifty of the future be successful rivals to the fifty of the past ! I owe an apology to “John Bickerdyke” for my remarks upon his communication in last Author. He did not mean that a contract con- cerning a book was simply a matter of buying and selling. He used the word “price” .in its wider signification, meaning that whatever system of publishing was adopted, the publisher would get as much as he could out of it. Very true. In all kinds of business and in all con- tracts both sides study their own interests first. An important aim and object of the Society is— first, to make every literary man or woman under- stand quite clearly that the publisher with whom negotiations are going on is trying to get as much as he possibly can for himself by the bargain ; and secondly, to enable the author to meet him as one business man meets another. In order to assist the man of our side, we have provided him with a most valuable mass of information, armed with  THE which he should be prepared to meet the man of the other side. If he does not feel equal to the contest, he must get the assistance of those who do. That, also, we have provided for him. Too often he feels quite equal to the contest, and goes forth smiling, to return plucked and shorn to the skin. Water Besant. > FEUILLETON. I.—ANoTHER VIEW. < HE great mistake that some of you fellows make,” said the Man of the World, “is that you get angry about these simple—natural—things, and call names.” “Simple? Natural? Not get angry?” “Sit down—take a cigar or something—and listen to me. I will show you that most of the things in this book ”—he held in his hand a copy of a book called “ Methods of Publishing ””—“ are just exactly what should be expected. Don’t interrupt me. Don’t say anything until I have finished.” « Very well, then, go on.” “All kinds of business,’ the Man of the World took a wooden armchair, which gave him a little advantage over the other man, who lay back in a low easy chair. “All kinds of business, I say, are conducted on one or two common and recognised principles. First. There is no friend- ship in business. That is a maxim accepted by every one. Second. And it is lawful, laudable, and not dishonourable in business to use private information, special knowledge, and_ superior knowledge in every transaction. Apply this to publishing. You will admit that it is one form of trade, I suppose. You will admit that, like all forms of trade, it is carried on with the hope and intention of making profit by it. Very well, then. Why should the publisher, alone among men in business, be refused the right of using his superior knowledge—his special knowledge—to his own advantage? Don’t interrupt; I will illustrate my meaning. “ You have a book which you desire to publish for your own double advantage— your reputation and your income—perhaps for a third reason also—the desire to spread some doctrines, dis- coveries, or facts which you think will be generally useful. With this book in your hand you are one party to the transaction, the publisher is the other party. “Now, compare the two parties. On the one side —his side—stands a man who knows all about the trade in books. He can tell you, after a few minutes’ examination of the book, what it will AUTHOR. Bi} cost to print, bind, advertise, and produce; he can tell you at what price he will put it in the market; he can tell you very nearly how many copies he can get subscribed at the outset ; he can tell you, in many cases, what the maximum as well as the minimum demand will be. He can tell you beforehand what the profit, ve, the excess of returns over expenditure, will prove for any given number of copies sold ; he knows what he means to spend in advertising it. Unless there is a tolerably certain excess of returns over expen- diture he is not likely to undertake the expense. “Very well. That is what he knows. What does he tell you—the other party ? Nothing at all. What do youknow? Nothing atall. Absolutely nothing, unless you have been intelligently study- ing the figures given by the Society of Authors. You are somewhat in the position of a savage who brings a gold nugget to a traveller, and is ready to exchange it for a string of beads. Not quite, however, because you know that your stuff may be a big gold nugget. This makes you suspicious and uneasy. And you have heard how other people, with similar stuff to negotiate, have been persuaded to part with their property for a song. But you are helpless. Why? Because you are trading on wholly unequal terms; because you are in the hands of a man who possesses superior knowledge—an intimate knowledge, that is, of the very business in which, in complete ignorance, you are venturing to compete with him.” “But we don’t—we place ourselves in his hands. And he cheats us.” “ Softly, softly. You place yourself in his hands — blindly. You certainly do. That is because of your ignorance. That is because of your folly. That he should persuade you to do so is part of his superior knowledge. He knows that you are ignorant; he knows that you are most anxious to have your book published ; he is plausible ; he is friendly ; he is expansive; he is sympathetic. Why, man, these are the most valuable qualities to a man in any kind of business, even business between those of equal knowleige. In this case they are part of the superior knowledge, because he knows that by the exhibition of these arts he can lead you on into adopting any proposal that he may like to make. Later on, you may repent, and swear. But, my dear fellow, swear at your- self—not at this sharp man of business.” «But he persuades us to trust him to our own ruin.” “You trust him. You sign an agreement which you do not understand, but he does. You think it means one thing; he knows it means another.” “Tsn’t that fraud ?” “Not at all. He doesn’t tell you what it 372 means. You can find out for yourself. There is the agreement. Examine it. If you sign it you can have no right to grumble, except at your own folly.” “What are we to do then?” “Don’t sign the agreement, Have it examined before you sign it. Ascertain what it means for a large circulation of your stuff—which is always possible but generally improbable —and for a small circulation. Understand it before you sign it, Consider a little. Would you sella house and lands to the first stranger who makes an offer? Certainly not. You would put the thing into the hands of a solicitor for pro- tection. Yet you go toa stranger with a MS. worth perhaps many houses, and you are such a blank drivelling idiot as to imagine that the stranger is going to act in your interest instead of his own, and is going to forego, in your interest —yours! a complete stranger to him!—all the advantage of his superior knowledge. Man alive! The whole credulity which the sporting papers condense into the name and personality of Juggins is suspicion and jealousy and wakefulness com- pared with your blind confidence. And yet you dare to call the man who gets the better of you a cheat—a rogue-- and anything else you please!” The other man sat in silence. This view was new to him. “ Are we,” he said at last, ‘‘ never to find a publisher who will not—will not—” “Will not take advantage of his superior knowledge? Never! Don’t expect it. Learn the facts ; they are not difficult; your Society has put them all within everybody’s reach. Then go to your publisher armed with this knowledge, and you will havea little intellectual duello which will really be most enjoyable to you. I will give you an instance. I brought out a book some time ago. I took the precaution, before taking it to a publisher, to master all the facts that I could get at—not all that exist; but all that the Society has published. I then invited my man to lunch. I offered him champagne. It is a common trick in every kind of business to offer drink, and to keep sober while the other man gets slightly elevated. It failed with me, because it was an old and familiar dodge well known to my friend, and often practised. He touched the glass with his lips, and looked across the table expecting me to finish the bottle. That failed with him, because, you see, I knew the trick too. ‘So, this little fencing over, we got to: busi- ness. And very soon we were at close quarters. I had all my facts written down, ready. Of course he disputed them all; but had to give in. Finally, only one point remained. On this he would not give in. So I drew up THE AUTHOR. a little table showing the figures exactly. It would have done you good —it did me good —to see his face expand into a stage smile —an affected laugh—of surprise when he could no longer dispute the thing. “Can it be pos- sible,” he asked, looking at the figures as if they were a puzzle. “Is it possible that I was mis- taken? Yes—I fear—I very much fear—that I have been wrong.” He was wrong, and he was extremely surprised that I had found him out. So I won the day. That is, I won all I fought for. Do you suppose, however, that there was no superior knowledge behind? Do you suppose that the Society fellows have found out every- thing? Do you suppose that he did not best me on some point—somehow? Of course he did. When the fight was finished, and not before, he tackled the champagne with zeal. He is fond of champagne—and he went home in a four-wheeled cab.” ““Yes—yes,” the other man ventured timidly. “ But how about the falsification of accounts ? ”’ “Ah! There we touch the Common Rogue.” “ And how about the Religious Societies, which buy of some poor lady for thirty pounds a book of which they are going to make hundreds ?” “There we touch the Common Sweater. But as to the rest, my friend, in every case of a one- sided agreement, curse yourself and your own folly. Don’t curse the other trader, who has only done what is practised in every form of trade —used for his own profit his own superior know- ledge.” II.— Fastze.—Tue Porr anp THE TrIPE- DRESSER. A Poet and a Tripe-Dresser were bragging about the usefulness of their wares. “You both provide luxuries,’ observed the Publican who owned the premises, and was acting as umpire to the dispute. “Yes, but,” said the Tripe- Dresser, “‘ sometimes luxuries become necessities. If there were a war, tripe would run to a premium, and would be apportioned out by Government as a part of the daily ration. Now, as poetry does not fill readers’ stomachs, I guess you producers would starve.” “ By no means,” said the Poet. “I have a private income, or how could I be a Poet?” “ The moral of this,” said the Publican, “ seems to be that literary gents should take all they can get, and not talk nonsense about getting what they can. Two gins—fourpence, please.” C. J. C. H.  3 Fata Se D pee oT er PA THE AUTHOR. RUSSIAN NEWSPAPERS. IRST and foremost among Russian journals i comes the Moskévskiya Vyédomosti, or Moscow News, a paper of respectable antiquity. It is now in its hundred and thirty- fourth year. Under the editorship of the well- known Katkéff, who died in 1887, and with such contributors as Vishnegradski and Pobiedonos- tseff, it enjoyed very considerable influence in directing Russian policy. The Moscow News contains eight pages, of six columns each, rather less in size than those of our Standard. A liberal discount of four pages must be deducted, that proportion being usually allotted to advertise- ments. The latter differ decidedly in substance and composition from the notices to which we in England are accustomed. Our familiar Matches and Despatches column is replaced by gigantic announcements, 6in wide, and heavily “ruled” with funereal block lines, to the effect than Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov has departed this life, be- mourned by all his relations (their various degrees are enumerated in full), and that the panikhidi, or masses for the dead, will take place at such and such an hour, &c. It is an easy way of filing up space. Another device of a similar kind is to insert full page notices of lottery draw- ings, or balance-sheets of railway companies. Amongst the personal advertisements one remarks at once that a considerable number of angli- chankas, or English nursery governesses, and of English tutors, are on the look-out for engage- ments. The Vyédomosti is very well printed, though the paper is rather thin in texture. In one part it affects the use of the old-fashioned eighteenth century brevier type, which shows a slight difference in the formation of certain letters, the #’s for instance. The price at the publishing office is 10 kop¢éks, or about 23d., though, as in the case with all Russian papers, the newsvendors ask for more, and one has to haggle for it in the streets. M. Petrovski, the present editor, conforms to the Slavophile policy of Aksakov (the late editor of Rus), embodied in the famous phrase pord domot, 7.e., “it is time to return home,” and shake off western influence and modes of thought. The remaining Moscow dailies are the Mos- hovski Listék (Moscow Leaflet), Névosti Dnyd (News of the Day), Russki Listéh, and Moshévskiya Gazéta, with one or two others. All founded within the last ten years, they have a strong resemblance to each other. Their price is from 3 to 5 kopéks, which is quite enough to pay for their very scanty four-paged editions. The last-named certainly publishes an_ illustrated weekly issue. 31S In St. Petersburg the leading position is held by the semi-official Névoye Vremya (New Times). This is a comparatively youthful journal, being only eighteen years of age. It has, so far, weathered the storms in which its ablest rival the Golos (Voice), and other liberal minded organs have foundered. The Novoye Vremya is one of the few Russian papers which publish more than one edition a day. Its nominal price is five kopéks (1}d.), for which one usually gets six eight-column pages of Daily Chronicle size. These columns are filled with fairly varied and readable matter, enough of which is daily forth- coming to enable the editor, M. Fyédorov, to dispense with the customary feudlleton. A feature of interest to English subscribers is the weekly letter of M. de Wesselitsky-Bojidarovitch, the London correspondent of the Novoye Vremya. His articles are signed ‘““A—s,”’ an abbreviation for * Arous,” his nom de guerre when correspondent at Vienna. The New Times is largely used as a medium for advertisers, and is only one of the many publications which issue from Suvdrin’s office on the Nevski Prospect. Second in importance comes Prince Mest- cherski’s organ, the Grazhdanin (Citizen), a paper which enjoys the patronage of the Tsar. The price (6 kopéks) is higher than that of the Novoye Vremya, but the contents are less. Only four seven-column pages are provided, with a serial story thrown in. Other papers, similar in size, are the Sin Otéchestva (Son of the Father- land), an old-established print, dating from the year 1812; the Peterburgshi Listék (Leaflet), the Svyét (World), and the Névosti, which makes a specialty of Bourse intelligence. Besides these, there are the official Russki Invalid (the War Office organ), the Journal de St. Pétersbourg, and the Ze¢tung, the last two published in French and German respectively. The Russian provincial dailies are neither numerous nor influential. Certainly, a cosmo- politan centre, like Odessa, maintains a variety in different languages. Warsaw has its Polish, Russian, German, and Yiddish prints. In Helsingfors the chief organs are conducted in Swedish. In the other “governments,” such as Riga, Revel, Vilna, Tiflis, &c., one or two papers suffice to satisfy the scanty demand for news. The Kharkov Vuzhni Krdi (Southern Land) has a fairly large circulation, and the Telégraph of Novorossisk, a town on the shores of the Black Sea, is now notorious for its Anti-German and Judophobe policy. If we turn to the weeklies, we find a tolerably comprehensive selection of illustrated, comic, and purely literary journals. Russia can boast of a picture paper, which is even older than our 374 Illustrated London News—the Zhivopisnoye Obozrénie, or “ Pictorial Review,” now fifty-seven years old. It corresponds, on the whole, to the defunct “ Pictorial News” of London, and, with 16 pp., is a fair three-penny worth. As is the case, however, with most of the illustrated Russian papers, too large a proportion of the drawings are executed with “autographic chalk” on grained paper, and reproduced by cheap processes. The Vsemirnaya Illustritsiya (Universal Tlus- tration) is a larger, and at the same time more expensive production. _ The price is 35 kopéks, or nearly ninepence. For that sum, however, we get a periodical which reaches the average English or French standard in point of letter- press and general get-up, though the engravings are of very unequal merit. Perhaps the best thing about it isthe pale yellow or mauve cover, with the very decorative antique Slavonic lettering of the title-page. A cheaper and less ambitious paper of the kind is the Peterbirgskiya Zhish, or ‘ St. Peters- burg Life.” Rough sketches, caricatures, and reproductions of French illustrations form the chief items provided in its programme. Of the smaller journals, Syéver (The North) is one of the best, and almost comes under the heading of an illustrated magazine. One peculiarity about it that the columns are numbered instead of the pages. Every page is headed with two consecu- tive numbers, one at eacb top corner. Like its congeners, the Syéver endeavours to attract sub- scribers by the occasional issue of special supple- ments, editions of Russian classics, &c. The Niva (Field) does not in any way corre- spond to our journal of that name. It contains twenty-four pages, of the size of Punch, and its illustration department is very well managed. Three papers, which serve more for household reading, are the Semydé (Family), Vékrug Svyetd (Round the World), and Zvezdd (Star). The last-named bids for the support of lady readers by issuing coloured needlework designs. Some of the prints of this class have an undesirable habit of breaking off their contents in the middle of a sentence, or even of a word, in order appa- rently to obtain continuous subscriptions. Among the serious and non-illustrated weeklies comes the well-known and influential Nedyélya (Week). This may be compared in size and aims to the Spectator. The “comics”? are rather of a heavy order, but contain the work of a few clever artists. About the best is Strekozé (the Dragonfly), with black and white illustrations. Its eight pages, though they are large, are scarcely worth 20 kopéks. Bauerlander, and Labutch, the very able draughtsman who uses the nom de crayon of THE AUTHOR. “Ovod” or “Gadfly,” contribute typical and original designs to the Strekozd. More may be learnt from a glance at their caricatures than from a whole library of Russian pessimistic novels. The hand of the censor, though, is heavy, and political skis, which form the life of English papers, will be sought for in vain. Three other so-called humorous papers, of the same size and price as the last are Oskolki (Chips), Budilnik (the Watchman), and Shit (the Jester). They are all very similar, being coloured after the style of the French journauxr pour rire. Their jokes are also sometimes ve French. Leikin’s, Porphyriev’s, and Lilin’s sketches are forcible and characteristic. There are, of course, other less refined periodicals, such as Razvlechénie (Recreation), which one would not always care to leave about in a drawing-room. It comes as an occasional surprise to see sketches from Pick-me-up, Fliegende Blitter, and other Continental comic papers reproduced in the Muscovite priuts above mentioned. As to the monthlies and annuals, they are of a severely technical and solid character. The zhurndl, as a magazine is called, in distinction from a gazéta or newspaper, appeals more to the professor than to the man in the street. A great many organs of the various Imperial Academies are published, but it is scarcely worth while troubling the reader with their names. During part of last year and the year before a four-paged journal printed in Russian maintained a precarious existence in Paris. Its name was the Russki Parizhdnin, or ‘ Russo-Parisian.” A few copies strayed over to London week by week. It has now, however, died a natural death, not even the recent Muscovite “boom” at Toulon and Paris producing a quantum of subscribers. A similar fate, it is to be feared, would await the enterprising editor of an Anglo-Russian news- paper, though a flourishing society of that name already exists at the Imperial Institute. Artuur A. SYKES. pecs THE LITERARY OPTIMIST. MONG the many correspondents to the Author who dwell upon the discouraging aspects of the literary calling, few have chosen to dwell-on its sunnier side. Now, I feel tempted to turn optimist, and linger lovingly on the charms of the literary vocation. Yet, like others, have I oft been constrained ‘ to trouble heaven (and the still deafer ear of the editor) with my bootless cries ”—for acceptance. Foremost among those literary optimists who  THE AUTHOR. 375 have cheered me most by the con amore pursuit of their craft, is Leigh Hunt, born just a hundred and ten yearsago. With what thorns was the path of the author beset then! Writers of the present day have but the wiles of the publisher to guard against; but the wielder of the pen in the latter end of the eighteenth century, and the beginning of the nineteenth, were destined to fight for the right of free speech—religious and political—and for the liberty of the Press. In 1810 Leigh Hunt was prosecuted by the Attorney-General for some articles written in the Examiner, of which he, Leigh Hunt, was the editor. This was the seemingly mild and inoffen- sive paragraph for which the Attorney-General thought fit to prosecute the author :—‘‘ What a crowd of blessings rush upon one’s mind, that might be bestowed upon the country in_ the event of such achange. Of all monarchs, indeed, since the Revolution, the successor of George ITI. will have the finest opvortunity of becoming nobly popular.” This was written of the proposed Regency. In 1811 a second prosecution was instituted against Leigh Hunt for some alleged expressions, he made use of against the practice of flogging in the army. Fortunately the jury had the justice to acquit him of this absurd charge. Finally, both the brothers Hunt, again made their appearance in the law courts on a more preposterous charge still, and had to share the responsibility of an article in which Leigh Hunt had described the Prince Regent as an “ Adonis of fifty!” Each was fined £500, or to suffer two years imprisonment ; this they suffered, rather than give any promise which might limit the free expression of opinion in future editions of the Examiner. Then, taking into account the social and _poli- tical condition of the life of the litterateur in the early period of the present century, it was one much oftener menaced not only by privation and danger, but by malice and petry insults, than is the author's life of the present day. I bave cited Leigh Hunt as the type of literary optimist, because I imagine his work to have been so unsparing of toil and so ill-paid. To him, more than almost any other denizen of the vast king- dom of literature—literature, for its own “sweet sake,” was an abiding source of joy, and that to him the pleasures of the literary imagination were very vivid. I do not know if his poetry and the essays, “Men, Women, and Books,” are much read; or whether he lingers merely in the minds of so many, as a literary tradition, because of his association with the Carlyles, Charles Dickens, and Wilkie Collins, and so many names more illustrious than his own. I have cherished, with great affection from my childhood, a treasured copy of “A Jar of Honey from Mount Hybla,” illustrated by Richard Doyle, with the symbolic blue jar of Sicilian honey upon its dainty cover. Leigh Hunt was an airy, optimistic interpreter of men and books ; his pages radiate the sunshine of the Italian pastorals he loved to dream of; and this sunny temperament withstood the some- what unkindly influences of a personal lot rendered hard by debts, privation, and domestic SOITOWS. I think it is with some books, as with the early remembered associations of scenery and pictures, one has a certain visionary delight in a book, often quite irrespective of its intrinsic merit, just as one’s happiest dreams elude transcription. As angels in some brighter dreams Call to the soul when man doth sleep, So some strange thoughts transcend our mortal themes, And into glory peep. GRAcE GILCHRIST. — EQUIPMENT. NE or two recent successes have shown pretty conclusively that the British reading public cares very little about the “equipment ” of its authors, so far at least as their power of writing grammar is concerned. And as editors cater for the public they, too, are not, as a rule, over fastidious in this respect. Bad grammar and a bad style are nota help; the writer who has a story to tell, and the knack of telling it, will succeed in spite of them. The best writer, from a grammatical point of view, is he who makes fewest mistakes. Not many perhaps can expect to escape them alto- gether, especially in these days of hurry. But the work is not spoilt for the British public by being written in decent English, and it is im- proved to the taste of the few who have preju- dices in favour of grammar, and often suffer from having their teeth set on edge. The public itself might learn to prefer good English in time, if nothing else were set before it. Why then should not the members of the Society of Authors combine to eschew at least the barbarisms enumerated below? They will have the satisfaction of doing their part towards keeping the “ well of English undefiled.” 1. Misuse of relative pronouns, when followed by a parenthesis. “These are the two men whom, P. asserts, cried ‘ Retire.’ ”’ “Dr. A. whom, she thought, was a specialist.”  376 2. Verbs governing the dative of the person used in the passive voice, the dative being turned into the nominative. “The pig was given a feed.” Why should not the feed be given to the pig, who no doubt wanted it. «“ Awarded the highest honours.” Did the coffee or mustard make the award, or receive it ? “The demonstrators are conceded to have the most praiseworthy object.” “He was offered to have his secretaryship continued ” (Blackwood). «They were voted a reward.” “The defeat . . . is given denial.” 3. Ambiguous use of the present participle. “Tt is hoped with much confidence that a fortnight’s sojourn at A , breathing its bracing air, may, &c.” “However, after perusing them, they were duly returned.” Here is a particularly choice example :— “Following this road, it was found to open into a wide valley, with fields, &. Pausing to gaze, there appeared, gliding quickly through the air, a small boat, propelled, &c.; and, still tollow- ing the road, a large building was presently seen, fronted by huge columns, and from it there came a being, &c. Following this form as it re-entered the building, there was seen a figure in a simpler form!” Now, the person who actually “followed” and “paused,” and ‘still followed,” and “followed ”’ again, was the narrator, but, grammatically, it was “it,” the “small boat,” ‘a large building,” and a “figure.” “Sweeping down the great avenue, the grass and the great trees, and the bit of water crossed by the bridge, all look soft, charming, &c.”’ Here it is, of course, the grass, the trees, and the water which “sweep,” for they are the only nominatives in the sentence. 4. Using verbal substantives as if they were adjectives, which surely is very ugly as well as ungrammatical, though it is very common. “Pardon me asking,’ is not precisely equiva- lent to “ pardon my asking.” “There is, I think, no fear of you making such an exhibition of yourself.” “Tnstead of René deriving.” “There cannot be a doubt as to the king believing.” ' “It was only the prelude to them being laid are.” Surely each of the underlined words ought to be in the genitive case. Sometimes, indeed, it an official may be as well to suppress this “for the sake of To say, euphony,” but for no other reason. THE AUTHOR. “there is no hope of the General recovering his health,” means, strictly speaking, the General, who zs recovering his health, though ‘there is no hope” of him for some other reason. If “recovering”? is a substantive, used in place of “recovery,” then “where two substantives come together.” 5. “And which,” “and whose,” ‘ but whom,” “and where,’ when there is nothing, properly speaking, for the conjunction to connect. *‘ These were how grown men, but” still young for their years, or something of that sort, is what we expect; what we get is: “but whom we had parted from,” ‘‘The careful sportsman may light on a little bit of old French binding, and”—what else? Nothing! “and which a little repairmg will put in good condition,” that is all. 6. One is naturally keenly alive to the faults of critics. Here is a choice sentence: ‘“ Books such as these are not ones to be rushed through in a hasty loan from some circulating library.” 7. “TIT should have been glad to have gone. Why two “haves?” ‘I should be glad to have gone,’ or “I should have been glad to go,” is surly enough. Almost more provoking than the ungram- matical writer, is he who writes in constant fear of the shade of Lindley Murray, and falls into error from sheer anxiety to avoid it. So impressed is it upon his mind that verbs are qualified by adverbs, that he dares not to say. “ He looked fierce,’ or “she looked sweet,” though he would be right if he did, but is always careful to write “fiercely” and “sweetly.” A curious example of over-carefulness came in our way a few days ago. The writer was describing a fancy ball: “ Who am I? a lady asked me in,’ was it French or German? No! “in questionable grammar.” Now, where does the “questionable grammar” come in? “In questionable grammar” is itself peculiar, but ought the lady to have said “ what,” or ‘‘ whom,” or ‘ which?” 8. What has the verb “to dare” done that it should be treated as invariable? I dare (past), he dare (present and past), we dare (past). Why not “he dares, dared,” &c. S. G. De CORRESPONDENCE. I.—* Tue Mezruops or PuBLIsHING.” N the notes on my letter in your last issue you suggest that I wish to balance “ secret losses” against ‘secret profits,” and you go on to say that you do not understand what “secret losses” are. I did not mean to  THE AUTHOR. 37] justify so dishonest a proceeding as falsifica- tion of accounts, and though opinions may differ as to what are or are not secret profits, there can be no doubt as to the dishonesty of misrepresenting the true state of affairs to an author. By secret losses I mean the innumerable items of expenditure incurred by the publisher in connection with any book— from the bad debt of £500 to the request for a “few odd volumes” to be given as prizes at a local bazaar, levied as blackmail by the teacher who has “used your spelling book for fifteen years ”—unavoidable charges on a publisher of which you as an outsider have happily no know- ledge or conception. I may point out, too, that most of the disputes between author and pub- lisher arise from the inability of an author to erasp technical details. And this is the reason why a publisher does not always care to allow an author to examine his ledgers—because the most business-like of authors does not understand the meaning of the accounts, and will carry away false impressions which cannot afterwards be eradicated. You have a perfect right to ask how the charge of 10 per cent. for ‘‘ business expenses” is arrived at. The process is simple. Take a publisher’s total proceeds by sales for a year, and his total establishment expenses, and the latter are found to be almost exactly 10 per cent. of the former. But this percentage does not include any remuneration for the publisher himself. It merely pays for his clerks and his office. In your notes on page 334, you say that the S.P.C.K. tried to represent as “ profits” “what was left after all the servants and all the directors had drawn their wages, and their salaries, and their shares.”” But the charge of 10 per cent. does not allow anything for the directors, and in a private firm the question is how much the pub- lisher is entitled to for himself. Youask, *‘ Why is a publisher entitled to anything after his expenses are paid?’ The answer to this amazing uestion is obvious. If an author thinks he can sell his book as well without a publisher’s help, he is at liberty to do so. If he thinks that the publisher’s name and power of pushing a book are necessary for its success, this advantage must of course be paid for. It is the same in any other business or profession. Why should a lawyer be paid beyond his expenses for making a will? Or what right has a railway company to charge anything beyond the working expenses? The principle is the same. And it may be re- marked, that a lawyer charges for every visit, and for all correspondence, whereas a publisher may be bothered by continual unnecessary interviews with an author, and may have to spend hours in correspondence, for which he makes no charge. In a case where, as is most usual, the publisher provides the capital for the publication of a book, it is of course only just that he should have some reward. As to the question of the amount of work (other than routine work) entailed in pub- lishing a book, I must ask to be allowed to retain my own opinion. CLERK. A few notes elsewhere are made on this letter. Here one would only put the following ques- tions :— 1. From what researches has the writer dis- covered that a publisher’s establishment expenses are ‘almost exactly 10 per cent. on his sales ? One does not dispute the point, but one asks in wonder how the writer arrives at this law. Are all publishers alike in this respect? Has the writer had an opportunity of examining the books of—say—the twenty leading houses? Has he examined the books of any house? Has he accepted loose and conventional talk? This is, perhaps, what he must have done. Or, perhaps, be has seen the books of one firm for one year. What right has he to conclude that these correspond with the books of other firms ? Let us see what the statement means. It means this. A firm whose sales amount to £30,0c0 a year would spend £3000 a year in rent, clerks, accountants, travellers, servants, advertising, and all the little things of which our correspondent speaks with so much feeling. The same firm finds, next year, an increase to double that amount—sales to the amount of £60,000. It would therefore spend double its former sum on the estabiishment. If the returns amounted to £90,000, the firm would have to spend £9000 a year on the house. Now, let anyone ask whether this is credible on the face of it. Understand that we do not deny that in a certain house ina certain year the expenses did amount to 10 per cent. We only ask on what grounds that sum is set down as representing the expenses every year for every publisher’s house in London. 2. As to “secret profits’? there can be no difference of opinion at all about what they mean. They are profits gotten behind the agree- ment, unknown to the author, and concealed. For the most part they are gotten by falsifying the accounts. 3. The writer then says, “ You ask ‘ Why is a publisher entitled to anything after his expenses are paid?’ ”’ We asked nothing of the kind. If our corre- spondent will turn to the Author, vol. 4, p. 349 (February issue), he will find these words, which are quoted exactly, not garbled : “When people talk about publisher’s profit 378 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?” This question is the elementary, necessary, question which underlies all attempts to arrive at a modus vivendi—a system of publishing which shall be recognised by all honourable men. What does the publisher do for a book—outside his services ? These services include the use of his establishment and his staff, and his machinery and his name, Of course the question does not apply in cases where the publisher offers a man a sum of money for writing a book. He then engages an author. There is, then, no question of service ; the author, in fact, becomes the publisher’s servant, It is instructive to find an attempt made to put aside this question as “amazing ”—1.e., extremely inconvenient. First, the author must not dare to inquire into the cost of production; next, the figures produced by the Society were all wrong; thirdly, the agreements paraded and exposed by us were invented by ourselves; then, the tricks exposed were only the work of wretched out- siders. And now, when one puts the real question, on the answer to which everything depends, we are met by the assurance that it is “amazing,” What next? W. Bz Il.—Epirors. As a new reader of the Author, may I volun- teer aremark on “ Lunette’s” bitter tirade against editors? It seems to me that literary aspirants do not prepare, as they should, to secure a chance of success. A musician practises six or seven hours daily, repeating continually the same scales, the same everlasting fugues and sonata, for years before he invites the public to purchase his compositions, or to listen to his playing. A painter covers many square yards (miles?) of canvas, going from Galleries to Dame Nature for models and lessons, before he ventures to place his work before the public. And here are we, literary aspirants and beginners, rushing head- long from the school desk into the arena of lite- rature, and shaking our fist (figuratively, of course!) at the editors who grimly bar the entrance with their eternal ‘“ declined with thanks.” Since we won’t practise and follow the wise rules so clearly laid down by the veteran writers, but eagerly look out for delightful cheques in return for our crude first efforts, editors act as wise brakesmen in forcing us to go slowly over the beaten track. VILAAMSCH. ———— THE AUTHOR. IlI.—Grerx Novets. Notwithstanding the apparent lament of Mr. Bayford Harrison, in this month’s issue of the Author, upon the paucity of authors in the city of Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes, [ presume to state my well-grounded conviction that the literary profession is as much over- stocked in Athens as in London. But there are no novels, or “almost none,’ Mr. Harrison says. M. Gennadios, the ex-minister at St. James’s, in his introduction to the novel “ Lonki’s Laras ”’ of Dr. Bikelas, which has been translated into almost every European language, pertinently remarks that, “novel writing is the luxuriant and superabundant efflorescence of letters which presupposes a large and wealthy class of readers.” The outpour of Greek novelists will certainly follow upon the other literary activities, and Greece can well afford to wait for them; but surely those already existing from the pens of Rhangabe, Palsologos, Ramphos, Ambellas, Xenos, Roidis, Bikelas, Drosines, Xenopoulos, Kourtides, Palamas, &c., might well serve to fill the gap which Mr. Harrison seems to experience in the “City of Aristophanes.” The names of the novels themselves would take up too much space. They are good, true, and living pictures of the times they portray, and are well worth a perusal. Meanwhile, let no Englishman, how- ever well he thinks he could write in modern Greek, follow Mr. Harrison’s suggestion, unless he is willing to pay all the costs Most assuredly, no Athenian publisher will make him any offer. Translations find favour — why? Translators are not paid as a rule for their wares. Ex1z. MayHEw-EpMmonps. IV.—Catatoeuine, &e. Some years ago I published several books on half share terms with a fairly well known firm. These books have been successful, and I still receive my cheque every half year, but on com- paring the charges of production with those in “The Cost of Production,” and some made by another firm, I find them very excessive ; of this, however, I have now nothing to say, as I have paid for my experience. What [ wish to draw your attention to is, that, in addition to charging me 15 per cent. commission for publishing, they charge me one guinea each book every half year for cataloguing. This I consider an unfair charge, as most tradesmen must publish a list of their wares before they can sell, and what is my 15 per cent. paid for? Nothing was said in the original agreement about cataloguing, although the general  i wey oe THE AUTHOR. advertising was left in the hands of the pub- lisher. The question is, Can such a charge be legally maintained ? CwmraG JONES. V.— Literary Criticism. The Queen, in reviewing my “Songs Grave and Gay,’ said the grave poems evinced con- siderable poetic power, but that the would-be humorous ones were simply saddening in their effects. The P. M. G., on the contrary, tells me I have a pretty knack of parody enough, that I can imitate Hood to good purpose, and that some of my gay ditties are to be commended as clever, but that my love story in verse (Dorothy) is “impossibly idiotic,’ and would have been the death of poor “C. 8S. C.” had he seen it! Here are two typical papers pulling in divers directions. Which is right ? F. B. Doverton. > exe “AT THE SIGN OF THE AUTHOR'S HEAD.” ESSRS. LONGMAN, GREEN, and CO. i will shortly issue the fifth edition of Mr. Powis Bale’s ‘‘ Handbook for Steam Users. Mrs. Alfred Baldwin, author of “ The Story of a Marriage”’ and “Where Town and Country Meet,” has another novel in the press : “ Richard Dare.” Two vols. It will shortly be published by Messrs. Smith, Elder. Under the title of “Rambles "I['ween Dusty Leaves: Desultory Notes of a Bookworm,” Mr. George Morley, author of ‘“ Rambles in Shake- speare’s Land,” is preparing for publication the series of articles on Books and Bookmakers con- tributed by him some years ago to the now defunct Magazine and Book Review. The same writer has recently completed a collection of rural and urban papers, to which he has given the name of “Sketches of Leafy Warwickshire.” Mr. Morley, who is becoming especially known as a writer of sketches and scenes descriptive of life in rural Warwickshire, has also written a rural story, ‘‘ The Scarlet Wing,” for the Queen, and a sketch entitled ‘Rural Merrymakings,” for Mr. Meldrum, editor of Rod and Gun. A new novel, by Mr. W. H. Wilkins (W. H. De Winton) and Mr. Herbert Vivian, some time editor of the defunct Whirlwind, will be pub- lished by Mr. Hutchinson early in February. It is called ‘“‘ The Green Bay Tree,” and claims to be a “ daring departure ”’ in fiction. Miss Rose De Crespigny has lately written a “Dulce Domum,” as a breaking-up song for a9 girls’ schools. It appears in Part V. of “ Part Songs for High Schools,” published by Novello. The music is by M. A. Sidebottom. “A Superfluous Woman” is the title of a novel which, if we judge from the reviews, is likely to enjoy a wide reputation; one critic, indeed, suggests that the title isa misnomer. We can only suppose it was suggested from a happy agreement with the apostolic injunction “to lay apart all superfluity of naughtiness.” Here are some American bits. They are taken from the New York Critic and from Current Literature. No fewer than eighteen uew books on Japan and the Japanese are in the American press. What is the book most in demand by the Boston people of all classes, ¢.e., the people who use the public libraries? It is “The Count of Monte Cristo. There is to be a new magazine called the Lake- side on the same lines as the Century. It will be published by the Chicago University, under the editorship of Mr. 8. A. Harris. Oliver Wendell Holmes is at work every day upon his memoirs, which will not be published until after his death. Long may the day of their publication be deferred ! The “Adventures of Verdant Green’’ has actually been revived and republished by Little, Brown, and Co., with new illustrations. It must be forty years since first that great work appeared. After this there is hope for the survival of any- thing. Mr. W. D. Howells has written a story dealing with the difficulties which a young dramatist has to encounter in order to get his piece pro- duced. A few personal reminiscences, collected from any half dozen men of letters, would per- haps save hini the trouble. From the Atheneum the following announce- ments have been copied : Mr. Andrew Lang has two new books in the press. The first is a series of papers called “The Cock Lane Ghost and Common Sense.” They are a study of “spooks.” The second is a collection of verses called “ Ban and Arritre Ban.” Miss Laurence Alma Tadema will publish imme- diately a new novel, called the “ Wings of Icarus.” The Dean of Lichfield, Dr. lLuckock, a “History of Marriage, Jewish and Christian” (Longmans. ) Mr. Lowell’s Lecture on “ Imagination ”’ is to be published for the first time in complete form in the new (March) number of the Century. A second series of ‘“‘ Village Sermons,” by the late Dean of St. Paul’s, will be published by Messrs. Macmillan. 380 THE AUTHOR. About £150 has been collected for the proposed memorial to Professor Minto, which is to take the form, according to the wish of Mrs. Minto, of a scholarship or prize in connection with the English class at Aberdeen University. Mr. Coulson Kernehan has nearly ready a volume of essays called “Sorrow and Song” (Ward, Lock, and Bowden.) Gerhardt Hauffman’s Heinrich has been trans- lated by Mr. William Archer, and will appear in the New Review. The “ History of the Scottish People,’ begun by the late Rev. Thomas Thomson, has been completed by Dr. Charles Annandale. Mr. F. Moore has in the press a new work deal- ing with journalistic life. It is entitled “A Journalist’s Note-Book.”’ Mr. Arthur Paterson, author of “A Partner from the West,” will produce a new story imme- diately, in two volumes (Bentley and Son), It is founded on an episode in the recent history of the Red Indians; one that has not hitherto been presented to English readers: a brief and gallant struggle made by the Nez Percés Indians against the United States Government, in which a few hundred braves, carrying with them their wives and children, fought their way for a thousand miles with the design of settling in British territory, and were only defeated when the frontier was actually in sight. The Andover Review has suspended publication in its tenth year. An odd volume of Emerson’s Essays, picked up at an old bookstall by the late Professor Tyndall, is said to have upon the fly-leaf the words, ‘Purchased by inspiration.” James Whitcomb Riley, hke Mr. Howell’s new hero, proposes to attempt the stage. Deas WHAT THE PAPERS SAY. I.—R. M. BaLuanryne. HE death of Mr. R. M. Ballantyne, which we announced yesterday, is the close of a long and busy and distinguished literary career. The news will have been received with regret by the many readers whom Mr. Ballantyne’s books have stirred and stimulated and charmed. They were written avowedly for boys, but they have been caught up eagerly by readers of every age, old and young alike, and when once taken in hand have seldom been laid down again until the last page had been reached. Mr. Ballantyne was a writer of almost inexhaustible fertility. He is’ credited with being the author ° of seventy-four books for boys, and all marked by the same general characteristics. They are books specially of adventure, full of stirring inci. dents, of hairbreadth escapes, and of deeds of courage and of devotion to duty. But if the nature of their subject is somewhat narrow, their range is none the less wide. They take us with them to all parts of the habited and uninhabited globe. We follow with rapt attention the fortunes of their young heroes over sea and land, The scene is laid sometimes at home, more often in far distant countries, but the type is every- where the same. It is the triumph of energy and courage and perseverance over dangers and difficulties by the way. The central figures of Mr. Ballantyne’s tales never fail to be interest- ing. They represent to boys just what boys themselves most wish to be and to do, and small blame it is to older readers if they, too, force an entrance into the charmed circle, and submit themselves for awhile in fancy to the same spell. We need not say much about the positive instruc- tion which Mr. Ballantyne’s books afford. He was a careful writer, well aware that he must learn before he could describe, and that his own personal experience was the surest warrant for the correct setting of his descriptions. This, however, is a comparatively small matter. His readers would have been well satisfied with less accurate work. They asked not to be instructed, but to be amused, and Mr. Ballantyne was always ready to meet them on their own ground, to amuse them to their heart’s content, and to set before them at the same time those lessons of pluck and steadfastness and ready resource with which his stories are everywhere replete, and to which they owe at once their value and their charm. They are thus good reading in every sense of the word, and we do not envy those boys for whom they have no attraction and no message. Boys in the present day have much to be thankful for. They are better treated in a thousand ways than their predecessors were half a century ago, and more perhaps in their books than in anything else. In no other department is there a more marked contrast between the present and the past, between tales for the young as they used to be and as they are now. - Those ‘of our readers whose memories can carry them back to the old days will be in doubt as to the change which has been brought about. They will remember a time when boys’ bookshelves were slenderly furnished with reading matter of any kind, and when they hardly owned a volume, except the immortal “Robinson Crusoe,” which boys of the present day would so much as con- descend to look at. Miss Edgeworth’s Tales were among the best, and are not wholly out of favour .  ise ont (OAG 16Q BES THE AUTHOR. yet, though they no longer stand in anything like the front rank. But can we say as much as this for ‘Sandford and Merton,” for the ‘‘ Fairchild Family,” or for the well-meant efforts of Mrs. Barbauld and Mrs. Cameron? For Sunday reading there was the “ Pilgrim’s Progress” of immortal fame, but when this was exhausted there was little else, except possibly some tracts on the evils of Sabbath-breaking or of drinking and profane swearing. The present generation of boys is more lavishly supplied. It has com- mand of the services of half a dozen first-class writers and of half a hundred others. Mr. R. M. Ballantyne is but one of the great host. We must add the names of Kingston and Henty and Jules Verne to the list, and though Mr. R. L. Stevenson and Mr. Rider Haggard do not write only for boys, we have had boys’ stories from both of them, and stories such as boys love. We will not go further with the catalogue. Our recent notices of Christmas books are proof how long it might be made, and what an almost endless variety of books of all sorts it would include. It presents, indeed, a positive embar- rassment of riches, so many and so excellent are the authors of the new literature which it chronicles. And this, it must be remembered, is but one season’s work, one drop, as it were, added to swell the ever-flowing tide of books for the young. It may be thought that there is danger in the profusion, tbat with so many books to choose from the choice will often not be of the best, and that an age of careless, inattentive, desultory half-reading will succeed an age in which every book that was worth reading had to be read a dozen times over, and in hick a good many books had to be read that were not worth reading atall. We are not sure that it is a danger much to be feared. Boys are not now the passive recipients of literature furnished for their use. They have become a critical. race, with rules and canons of their own construction to which books must conform if they are to read them. They are a gregarious race, too. The word is soon passed from one to another of them what books are and what are not to be read, and though they may not always follow the best guides, it is some- thing that they will submit to be guided, and most important of all that, pick and choose as they will, they will find nothing mischievous or debasing in any of the books written for them and likely to come into their hands. Their instincts will usually be correct. They are no hypocrites in their pleasures. They know what they like, and they turn with confidence to books which come out recommended by the right name. It is certain that a great deal 381 of what is written for them misses its mark, and falls flat and unappreciated. Ballantyne they could always trust, and their choice of him as a chief favourite is no small proof of their dis- cernment and of their literary good sense.— Times, Feb. 10, 1894. Il.—ConsrancE Fenrimore Woo.son. By the death of Miss Constance Fenimore Woolson, which occurred at Venice, Italy, January 24, America lost one of the best of its fiction writers. She wrvte a great many short stories and sketches, besides a half dozen or so extended novels; the last of these, “ Horace Chase,’ was lately published as a serial in “ Harper’s Monthly,” and will soon appear in book form, Miss Woolson was born at Clare- mont, N. H., in 1845, her mother being a niece of Fenimore Cooper. From an authentic sketch of her life, written by Mr. Arthur Stedman, and published in “The Book Buyer” for October, 1889, we make the following extracts: “While yet a child, Miss Woolson,was taken by her parents to Cleveland, Ohio, her father’s business interests having become centred there. She was educated at a Cleveland young ladies’ seminary and at the famous French school of Madame Chegaray in New York. Her summers were chiefly spent, while a girl, on the island of Mackinac, in the straits connecting Lakes Huron and Michigan. She often, however, accompanied her father on his business trips to the shores of Lake Superior, through the farming districts of the Western Reserve, and up and down the Ohio Valley, until she became familiar with a great part f the country that imcludes the great lakes and the Central States. “Her father’s death, in 1869, and the conse- quent breaking up of the family, cast a shadow on her life, and urged her to serious pursuits. She had been brought up strictly in the Episcopal faith, and at this time had published a number of articles in periodicals of that denomination. Her literary field soon extended, and stories, sketches, and poems appeared in profusion in ‘Harper’ s’ and other leading magazines. Selected stories relating to the region “of the great lakes were published as Miss Woolson’s first book, in 1875, with the title, ‘Castle Nowhere: Lake-Country Sketches.’ “In the fall of 1873, her mother’s failing health necessitated a trip to Florida. There, at St. Augustine, and on an island in the St. John’s River, Mrs. and Miss Woolson remained for five winters, the summers being spent in the mountains of North Carolina and Virginia, in South Carolina and Georgia, and later with their  382 The literary results of this long stay in the South are readily to be discerned. “The death of her mother in February, 1879, caused a complete change in Miss Woolson’s plans, and the same year she sailed fur England. Since then she has been in America but once, relatives at Cooperstown. and fora very short time. Her winters have been passed chiefly at Florence, though she has resided for long periods at Rome and Sorrento. In summer she has lived at Venice, and at various resorts in Switzerland and Germany. -. Since the beginning of 1887 Miss Woolson has lived at the Villa Bricchieri, just outside the Roman gate of Florence, the same locality that is mentioned in Mrs. Browning’s ‘ Aurora Leigh,’— “*¢T found a house at Florence on the hill of Bellosguardo. —The Dial, Chicago. 229 III.—Dr. Jounson’s Haunts. With reference to a recent statement that Dr. Johnson entertained his friends at the Cheshire Cheese, the assertion is absolutely devoid of foundation. I have seen it again and again, but so far have never taken the trouble to contradict it. But the City Press is an authority on every archeological question with the City, and its accuracy makes its statements pass for gospel, and, as a lover of the City and its archeology and of accuracy, I protest against the paper seeming to stamp that legend with the seal of truth. I have known the Cheshire Cheese inti- mately for nearly a quarter of a century—for many years I dined there, three times out of four—and I have seen the legend grow up. Dr. Johnson’s tavern, of course, was the Mitre; “his place of frequent resort was the Mitre Tavern in Fleet-street,’’ says Boswell, who spent his first evening at the tavern “ with the orthodox High-Church sound of the Mitre.” And when the Doctor, nearly twenty years after that first meeting, was writing to “* Bozzy,”’ he closes with the remark, ‘“‘ We will go again to the Mitre, and talk old times over.” Nor is the Mitre the only tavern mentioned in the immortal “ Life.” We have the Anchor and the Black Boy, the Boar’s Head and the Crown and Anchor, the Hssex Head and the Hummums, the Old Swan and the Pine Apple, the Prince’s and the Somerset Coffee House in the Strand, and Tom’s and the Turk’s Head, and others, as frequented by Johnson or mentioned by Boswell; but on the Cheshire Cheese the oracles are dumb. Nay, more, although Fleet-street, Bolt-court, Falcon- court, Fetter-lane, Gough-square, Johnson’s- court, New-street, and other purlieus of Fleet- THE AUTHOR. street are mentioned; Wine Office-court, in which the Old Cheshire Cheese is situate, nowhere finds mention. Bosweiiran.—City Press. IV.—CrEnsorsHip AND JEWISH LITERATURE. At a meeting of the Bibliographical Society, the Rev. A. Lowy, LL.D., read a learned and interesting paper on “Censorship and Jewish Literature.’ He divided the subject into two parts, the first dealing with censorship in so far as it affected Jewish literature, the second devoted to considering a very rare MS. copy of the “ Index Expurgatorius,” or list of books forbidden to be read by Catholics, dating from 1596. This was recently sent from Paris to Dr. Lowy; only one other copy is said to exist, and that is in the Vatican library. The lecturer said that the censors appointed by the Popes to consider what works or passages in works were dangerous to Christian faith or morals belonged chiefly to the Dominican Order, but by far the severest among them were ex-Jews—men who reflected little credit on the synagogue that produced them or the church that fostered them. The Talmud was specially obnoxious to them. This volume was originally written partly in Aramaic, partly in faulty Hebrew, intermixed with Greek and Latin words, and treated of Jewish ceremonies, ethics, customs, and folk-lore. It was compiled about the year 550 of the Christian era, and remained nearly 1000 years in MS., but with the invention of printing copies multiplied. Dr. Lowy gave particulars of the various defacements and muti- lations suffered by the Talmud previous to the edition of 1578, when Marco Marino, a Christian by birth, but a marvellous Hebrew scholar, was asked by the Jews to remove from the Babylonian Talmud all parts objectionable to Christians, which he did, later editions labouring under his corrections. Turning to the “Index Expurga- torius,” Dr. Lowy said the great interest of this particular book was that it gave rules for the guidance of the censors written in Hebrew, and compiled by an ex-Jew, Dominico Gerosolemitano, for the use of the Inquisition in Mantua. He then read extracts from the rules translated into English, giving directions as to substituting one word for another, the deletion of obnoxious terms or phrases, and occasionally as to the destruction of chapters. At the conclusion of his lecture Dr. Lowy was warmly thanked—Daily Chronicle.  EY THE AUTHOR. NEW BOOKS AND NEW EDITIONS. Theology. Atwoop, Rev. H. 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By QUILLIM RITTER. ‘‘ For his satirical arrows he has chosen promising game—the heiress who would reclaim the East-end and all humanity ; the working man M.P., who thinks to run the nation as easily as a Hyde Park demonstration; the man about town who, to bein the swim, forswears drink to talk about the inequality of social punishment and the mystery of human misery; the irrepressible busybody, who starts societies for the suppression of vice in high life; all familiar types in an age of sentiment and fads and Mrs. Besants. The most successful passage is that recording the final catastrophe, when the benevolence of the West leads, not to the building of palaces of delight. but to its own destruction by an East-end weary of being patronised; and there is a laugh in the fate of heiress and working man left to punt in peace on a placid river.”— Pali Mall Gazette. ‘This is a powerful one-volume story.”—Publishers’ Circular. “It is an odd world that Henry Jacobson sways. is own.” —Black and White. Mr. Quillim Ritter has put it all very cleverly, and added some neat epigrams of WINDSOR HOUSE, BREAM’S BUILDINGS, B.C. 388 ADVERTISEMENTS. MESDAMES BRETT & BOWSER, TYPISTS, SELBORNE CHAMBERS, BELL YARD, TEMPLE BAR. Authors’ MSS. carefully and expeditiously copied, from Is. per 1000 words. Extracarbon copies half price. Refer- ences kindly permitted to Augustine Birrell, Esq., M.P. THE AUTHOR’S HAIRLESS PAPER-PAD. (Tue Leapenuatt Pruss Lrp., E.C.) ree Contains hairless paper, over which the pen slips with perfect freedom. Sixpence each: 58. per dozen, ruled or plain. TYPEWRITING. SCIENTIFIC, LITERARY, AND MEDICAL MSS. CAREFULLY AND PROMPTLY COPIED BY RAYNE & CO., 40, NORFOLK STREET, STRAND, W.C. Higuest REFERENCES. Private Room ror DICTATION. TRANSLATIONS. SEARCHES MADE. MISS E. W ALLEN AND CO., TYPE AND SHORTHAND WRITERS, Scientific Work and Translations a Special Feature. 39, LOMBARD ST., BC. References to Authors. Office No. 59 (close to Lift). SHORTHAND WRITER, TYPIST, ps SECRETARIAL WORK. Own machines (Remington, Yost). Special Reports taken. TRANSLATOR FRENCH, GERMAN. “Z.,” 23, Canterbury - terrace, Maida Vale, W. a FLEET STREET TYPEWRITERS, 115, Fiert-street, E.C.—Lowmst CHARGES. Every kind of Typewriting Work done. Highest speed. 115, FLEET-sTREET, LONDON. Price List. ANOBIUM ERODITUM, THe DEVOURING BooK-woRM, Turns up its nose (and its toes) at STICKPHAST PASTE. MRS. GiLege, TYPE-WRITING OFFICE, 35, LUDGATE HILL, E.C. (ESTABLISHED 1883.) ere Shere oes Authors’ MSS. carefully copied from 1s. per 1000 words. Plays, &e., 1s. 8d. per 1000 words. Extra copies (carbon) supplied at the rate of 4d. and 8d. per 1000 words. Type-writing from dictation 2s. 6d. per hour. Reference kindly permitted to Walter Besant, Esq.; also to Messrs. A. P. Watt and Son, Literary Agents, 2, Paternoster- square, E.C. Miss eo 44, Oakley Street Flats, Chelsea, S.W. Authors’ MSS. carefully transcribed. References kindly permitted to George Augustus Sala, Esq., Justin Huntly McCarthy, Esq., and many other well-known Authors. Fire- Proof Safe for MSS. Particulars on application. Telegraphic address: ‘‘ PATZEN, LONDON.” LITERARY PRODUCTIONS OF EVERY DESCRIPTION AREFULLY REVISED, CORRECTED, or RE- WRITTEN by the Author of “The Queen’s English up to Date.” Facilities for publication. Typewriting 1s. per 1000 words. Address SecRETARY, Literary Office, 342, Strand, W.C. THE AUTHORS’ BUREAU LIMITED. A Literary Syndicate and Press Agency. ‘‘A Medium of Communi- cation between Authors, Editors, and Publishers.” Advises upon, revises, and negotiates MSS. Consultations (by appointment only) free.—Address the SECRETARY, 3, Victoria-street, Westminster. PRINTING AND PUBLISHING. TO AUTHORS. Special attention given to the above. Terms moderate Estimates free. ACCOUNTS VERIFIED BY CHARTERED ACCOUNTANT. Address ManacEr, Roxburghe Press, 3, Victoria-street, Westminster. TO AUTHORS & PUBLISHERS. HAMPTON & GCO., 13, CURSITOR STREET, H.C.- Are prepared to submit inclusive ESTIMATES for the PRINTING and PRODUCTION of BOOKS, MAGAZINES, PAMPHLETS, 0R WEEKLY JOURNALS Best WORKMANSHIP. MODERATE PRICES. PUNCTUAL DELIVERY. OUT OF PRINT BOOKS SUPPLIED. THE MOST EXPERT BOOK-FINDER EXTANT. PuEAsE STATE WANTS. 2000 BOOKS WANTED, 5s. to £5 each given. LISTS. FREE, BAKER’S GREAT BOOKSHOP, BIRMINGHAM. Printed and Published by Horace Cox, Windsor House, Bream’s-buildings, London, E.C.  ADVERTISEMENTS. 355 Mr Horace Gox’s New Novels. NOW READY, AT ALL LIBRARIES. In Two Vols., crown Svo., price 21s. eB! CENTURY’S EBB By CYPRIAN COPE. “Tf * At Century’s Ebb’ is Cyprian Cope’s first venture into the field of authorship, she—for the evidence gained from the style is allin favour of a feminine source of origin—may fairly be congratulated on having written a novel containing a good deal of strong incident, much variety of character, and a love interest of an unforced and natural kind. Much praise is due in spiteof some immaturity of style.’—Daily Telegraph, Dec. 15. ey In Three Vols., crown 8vo., price 31s. 6d. > octEe ASIDE. By GWENDOLEN DOUGLAS GALTON (MRS. TRENCH GASCOIGNE). ‘+A Step Aside’ is a stirring BtOTY, in which deep tragedy alternates with light comedy and tender pathos with sparkling humour. . In‘A Step Aside’ there is not a single dull or redundant page. .. In a word, the book is worthy of unqualified praise.” —Daily Telegraph, Oct 20. “A most interesting novel, in which the humour, pathos, and vivacity of the numerous characters are happily blended with some capital descriptive writing of Italian scenery.”—Zssex Times, Oct. 20. Oe Crown 8vo., with Illustrations, price 3s. 6d., Cheap Edition of A STUMBLE ON THE THRESHOLD. By JAMES PAYN. ‘Mr. James Payn’s pleasant story contains a startling novelty. . . . The leading actors are a group of undergraduates of Cambridge University. Mr. Payn’s picture of University society is frankly exceptional. Exceptional, if not unique, is the ‘ nice little college’ of St Neot’s. Cambridge men will have little difficulty in recognising this snug refuge of the‘ ploughed.’ . . . An ingenious plot, clever characters, and, above all, a plentiful seasoning of genial wit. . . . The uxorious master of St. Neot’s is charmingly conceived. If only for his reminiscences of his deceased wives, ‘ A Stumble on the Threshold ’ deserves to be treasured. . . . We turn over Mr. Payn’s delightful pages, so full of surprises and whimsical dialogue. . . -’—The Times. ‘“ A very interesting story, and one that excels in clever contrast of character and close study of individualism. The characters make the impression of reality on the reader. . . . Extremely pleasant are the sketches of University life.”’—Saturday Review. ‘* Mr. James Payn is here quite at his usual level all through, and that level is quite high enough to please most people. . . . The character drawing is good. The story of the master sounds strangely like truth, . . . A book to read distinctly.”—Daily Chronicie. . The dramatic unity of time, place, and circumstance has never had a more novel setting. . . .”— Daily Gr aphic. ‘‘ The most sensational story which the author has written since his capital novel, ‘By Proxy.’ . . . Never flags for a moment.”—The World. “«, . . Ingenious and original. Mr. Payn knows how to invent and lead up to a mystery.”—Black and White. os Crown 8vo., with Illustrations, price 3s. 6d. THE MARTYRDOM OF SOCIETY. By QUILLIM RITTER ‘* For his satirical arrows he has chosen promising game — the heiress who would reclaim the East-end and all humanity; the working man M.P., who thinks to run the nation as easily as a Hyde Park demonstra- tion; the man about town who, to be in the swim, forswears drink to talk about the inequality of social punishment and the mystery of human misery; the irrepressible busybody, who starts societies for the suppression of vice in high life; all familiar types in an age of sentiment and fads and Mrs. Besants. The most successful passage is that recording the final catastrophe, when the benevolence of the West leads, not to the building of palaces of delight, but to its own destruction by an Hast-end weary of being patronised ; and there is a laugh in the fate of heiress and working man left to punt in peace on a placid river.”"—Pall Mall Gazette. “ This is a powerful one-volume story.”—Publishers’ Circular. ‘*It is an odd world that Henry Jacobson sways. . . . Mr. Quillim Ritter has put it all very cleverly, and added some neat epigrams of his own.”—Black and White. WINDSOR HOUSH, BREAM’S BUILDINGS, EC,  390 ADVERTISEMENTS. PUBLICATIONS OF THE SOCIETY. 1. The Annual Report. That for January 1893 can be had on application to the Secretary. ®. The Author, A Monthly Journal devoted especially to the protection and maintenance of Literary Property. Issued to all Members. Back numbers are offered at the following prices: Vol. L., ros. 6d. (Bound) ; Vols. II. and III., 8s. 6d. each (Bound). 3. The Grievances of Authors. (The Leadenhall Press.) 1s. The Report of three Meetings on the general subject of Literature and its defence, held at Willis’s Rooms, March, 1887. 4, Literature and the Pension List. By W. Morris Conuzs, Barrister-at-Law. (Henry Glaisher, 95, Strand, W.C.) 3s. 5. The History of the Société des Gens de Lettres. By S. Squirz Srricez, late Secretary to the Society. Is. 6. The Cost of Production. In this work specimens are given of the most important forms of type, size of page, &c., with estimates showing what it costs to produce the more common kinds of books. Henry Glaisher, 95, Strand, W.C. 2s. 6d. 7, The Various Methods of Publication. By S. Squire Spriegax. In this work, compiled from the papers in the Society’s offices, the various forms of agreements proposed by Publishers to Authors are examined, and their meaning carefully explained, with an account of the various kinds of fraud which have been made possible by the different clauses in their agreements. Henry Glaisher, 95, Strand, W.C. 3s. 8. Copyright Law Reform. An Exposition of Lord Monkswell’s Copyright Bill now before Parlia- ment. With Hxtracts from the Report of the Commission of 1878, and an Appendix containing the Berne Convention and the American Copyright Bill. By J. M. Leny. Eyre and Spottiswoode. 1s. 6d. 9. The Society of Authors. A Record of its Action from its Foundation. By Watrer Besant (Chairman of Committee, 1888—1892). 1s. Windsor House PRINTING WORKS, BREAM’S BUILDINGS, E.C. OrFiIces oF ‘‘ THE FIELD,” ‘THE QUEEN,” “THE LAW TIMES,’”’ &c. Mr. HORACE COX, Printer to the Authors’ Society, takes the opportunity of informing Authors that, having a very large office, and an extensive plant of type of every description, he is in a position to EXECUTE any PRINTING they may entrust to his care. ESTIMATES FORWARDED, AND REASONABLE CHARGES WILL BE FOUND. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Author, Vol. 04 Issue 10 (March 1894) Subject The topic of the resource <em>The Author</em>, Vol. 04 Issue 10 (March 1894) Type The nature or genre of the resource Publication Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1894-03-01-The-Author-4-10 publications The Author https://historysoa.com/files/original/5/461/1894-04-02-The-Author-4-11.pdf 898ae69057f1b73902c7c9162a26929f PDF Text Text ������������������������������ Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Author Subject The topic of the resource <em>The Author</em> Description An account of the resource A digitised run of the Society of Authors' monthly periodical, <em>The Author</em>, 1890<span>–</span>1914, made available together for the first time.<br /><br />Currently users can browse issues and <a href="https://historysoa.com/items/browse?search=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Index&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;tags=&amp;exhibit=&amp;date_search_term=&amp;submit_search=Search+For+Items&amp;sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CTitle">indices</a> (not available for all volumes). Full text search for all issues, and other additional search functionality, will be added in 2022. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1890–1914 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context The-Author-Issues Publication Date The date of an event (in YYYY, YYYY-MM or YYYY-MM-DD format) 1894-04-02 Volume 4 Issue 11 Pages Page range in volume 391–420 Ngram Date Version of the date in YYYYMMDD format for use by the Ngram plugin 18940402 Ngram Text Version of the text with no HTML formatting for use by the Ngram plugin The Huthor. (The Organ of the Incorporated Society of Authors. Monthly.) CONDUCTED BY WALTER BESANT. Vout. IV.—No. 11.] APRIL 2, 1894. [Prick 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. pee Seeretary 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. @ 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 :— 1. SeR1AL Ricurs.—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. Svrame yYouR AGREEMENTS. — Readers are most URGENTLY warned not to neglect stamping their agreements immediately after signature. If this precaution is neglected for two weeks, a fine of £10 must be paid before the agree- ment can be used as a legal document. In almost every case brought to the secretary the agreement, or the letter which serves for one, is forwarded without the stamp. The author may be assured that the other party to the agree- ment never neglects this simple precaution. The Society, VOL. IV. 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 SIDBS BEFORE SIGNING IT.—Remember that an arrangement as to a joint venture in any other kind of busi- ness whatever would be instantly refused should either party refuse to show the books or to let it be known what share he reserved for himself. 4. Lirerary 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 OF PropuctTion.-—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. Fururs Worx.—Never, on any account whatever, bind yourself down for future work to anyone. 8. Royvaury.—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. Personau Risk.—Never accept any pecuniary risk or responsibility whatever without advice. 10. REJEctED MSS.—Never, when a MS. has been re- fused by respectable houses, pay others, whatever promises they may put forward, for the production of the work. 11. AMERICAN Ruiautrs.—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 oF 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. 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, PortuaaL Street, Lincoun’s INN FIEeups. HH2 394 HOW TO USE THE SOCIETY. 1. VERY member has a right to advice upon his K 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 sofar. 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 Awthor notes of everything important to literature that you may hear or meet with. es 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 vooking fee is charged to cover postage and porterage. 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 THE AUTHOR. 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. 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 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 ?  ch uD Kt THE AUTHOR. 393 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. pec GENERAL MEETING. GENERAL MEETING of the Society of Authors was held at the rooms of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society, 20, Hanover-square, W., on Monday, the i1gth day of March, 1894, at 5 o’clock. Sir Frederick Pollock, Bart., took the chair, and was supported by the following members of the Council: Mr. Walter Besant, Mr. J. M. Lely, Mr. Lewis Morris, and Mr. J. J. Stevenson. The report and balance-sheet for the past year were laid before the meeting. Sir Frederick Pollock stated that as the report had been sent to all the members, he thought those present might take itas read. If, however, anyone objected to this course of proceeding the secretary would read it. As no member present dissented from the course proposed, Sir Frederick Pollock then commented on the report and the prosperous position of the Society. The Society was in a solvent and flourishing condition, and since the commence- ment of the present year there had been a further increase of about eighty new members. He then referred to the fact that the Society had been in a manner endowed by a member lately deceased, who had appointed the Society his literary executor, and had left an ample sum of money to cover all expenses that might be in- curred, which would leave a fair balance in hand. At the present time he would not mention the name of the gentleman, as the legacy had been so recently left that the question as to the publi- cation of the MSS. and the other business which it might be necessary for the Society to under- take could not yet be settled; no doubt, how- ever, at the dinner of the Society, which would take place in the late spring, the testator’s name might be revealed, and further particulars disclosed. He further mentioned to the meeting that the publication of the Author, which was a most useful part of the Society’s business, was of course a large tax on the resources of the Society, and although it was sent gratis to all members, he thought it was the duty of those members to support it who were in a position to do so. The report was then unanimously approved. A member of the Society then rose and made a suggestion that the list of members of the Society should be published. Sir Frederick Pollock, in answer, informed the meeting that the matter had been carefully considered by the com- mittee, and at the present time, for various reasons which he mentioned, among which were the confidential position of the secretary to the members, resembling that of a solicitor to clients, and the fact that no material advantage would be gained by such publication, it had been unani- mously decided by the committee that the list should not be published. However, the com- mittee would be willing to consider any proposi- tion which was backed by a considerable majority of the members of the Society, and no doubt the Editor of the Author would be willing to place a paragraph in that journal asking for opinions. At the same time, he thought that if any con- siderable minority of the members had a decided objection to the list being published, their wishes should be respected. The sense of the meeting seemed to beagainst publication, but the Chair- man thought it would not be proper to take a vote, except ina fuller meeting and after notice. After some further discussion, Mr. Besant stated that he would place a notice in the Author inviting opinions. Mr. F. W. Rose proposed a vote of thanks to the chairman, which was seconded by the Rev. Dr. Samuel Kinns, and carried unanimously. The proceedings then terminated. te THE REPORT FOR 1893. HE Report for last year is now in the hands Lr of members. It is to be hoped that it will be regarded as eminently satisfactory. The income for the year shows an increase of £153. There are about 200 members more than were on the roll a year ago, the number now being over 1200. Let us note that it is impossible ever to give the exact number of members; we could give the number on the books, but there is a certain percentage in every society of members who drop off every year. Thus the number on the books at the end of the year was probably 394 THE AUTHOR. about 1250. Since the beginning of the year 85 new names have been received. The special cases, 7.e., not such cases as are settled by a word of advice or a letter, but cases involving trouble and solicitors’ work, amounted in the year to 100. Thirty-six of these cases in- volved the recovery of money due and unlawfully withheld. Twenty-nine cases were successful, and, of the remainder, one failed because the member was unwilling to prosecute, and the other because the opponent had no money. The case of secret profits prepared by the Society’s solicitors and submitted to counsel, viz., Mr. H. H. Cozens-Hardy, Q.C. and Mr. James Rolt, will be found at length on pp. 394-398. Members are invited to give it their most serious consideration. All those who have profit-sharing agreements are interested, and should examine their accounts with the greatest care under the light of this important opinion. De LITERARY PROPERTY. T.—Secret Prorits. I, CASE FOR COUNSEL. HE Incorporated Society of Authors desires to be advised as to the legal position of authors under a certain well-known form of publishing agreement, known as the share- profit system, in reference to the charges made by publishers and otherwise, particularly as tested by the manner in which the courts would deal with charges in the publishers’ accounts if they were being taken by the court. A case which raises the point on which counsel’s opinion is sought is as follows : An author, A. B., enters into an agreement with publishers, C. D. and Co., in the following terms :— Copy of Agreement. Memorandum of agreement made this day of between A. B. of the one part and C. D. and Co. of the other art. . It is agreed that the said C. D. and Co. shall publish, at their own risk and expense—(title of work); the exclusive right of printing and publishing which shall be vested in the said C. D. and Co., subject to the following conditions, viz., that after deducting from the produce of the sale thereof all the expenses of printing, paper, binding, advertising, discounts to the trade, and other incidental expenses, the profits remaining of every edition that may be printed of the work during the term of legal copyright are to be divided into equal two parts, one part to be paid to the said A. B. and the other to belong to the said C. D. and Co. The books to be accounted for at the trade sale price, 25 as 24, unless it be thought advisable to dispose of copies, or of the remainder, at a lower price, which is left to the discretion of the said publisher. Accounts to be made up annually to Midsummer, delivered on or before Oct. Ist, and settled by cash in the ensuing January. Some time subsequent to the publication of the book an account in the following terms was sent to the author :-— PUBLISHER'S ACCOUNT. As rendered to the Author. 2 2a Composition (17 sheets at £1 10s.) ue 25 10-8 Printing (Cs i: 128.) 3, 2 5 100 4 Paper cC yy SL O08.) OL sO Moulding Be a a ee Stereotyping 3: G06. a ee Binding (at £2 5s.per 100 copies) ... ... ... 22 10 O Advertising ae as iyo ae CAI 106 Corrections 44.0. ee oe Paper Wrappers 3. 4 113 0 Postage... 6. Se a a £136 16 10 Proceeds of sale of g50 copies at ge. Od. ce IO 5 Incidental expenses (5 per cent. dedutted)o0 3. ee 8 6. 3 ——_— “sy 136 16 10 £21 1 it Alleged half profits ... £10 10 II Which shows that after the sale of the whole of an edition of 1000 copies, profits to the extent of £10 10s. 11d. were credited by the publishers to the author as his half share. Upon a close investigation of the account, it was discovered that on all the cost of production, 7.e., com- position, printing, paper, moulding, stereotyping, and binding, the publishers bad added to the actual cost 10 per cent. on each item. This addition had been made secretly, and the author was not in any way informed of what had taken place. The following amended account shows the actual amounts of charges invoiced to the pub- lishers by their printer, paper-maker, binder, and advertising agent in respect to the items before referred to :— Reau Cost oF PRODUCTION. Boe Composition (17 sheets at £1 7s.) (30 ha et 8 Printing (2 4 108. Od) Se eRe 6 Paper ( 0 A reece sheet), 8 ik GO Moulding ( 4, ., 58. Sheet) ae ee Stereotyping( ,, ;, 98. sheet) oy oe eg As Ce Binding at sd. per volume... ... ... .. «=. 2016 8 Advertisitig: 1.0 ose a ee Corrections =. ee a Paper Wrappers (0 4... 3. ks Postage, &0s 0 a a 16 0 £105 4 10 Proceeds of sale of 950 copies at an average of 48, 6d, 8 COPY i Ge ok a OS Less the cost ... ... 105 4 10 Profit... 20552 2 Ol. 02 Actual half profits to author on this account ... 30 10 I With regard to the item of advertisements, it was further found that the publishers, being only aed  THE AUTHOR. 395 able to show vouchers to the amount of £20, the rest of the sum charged was made up of charges for advertisements in the publisher’s own maga- zines, for which, of course, he paid nothing, and “exchanges” with other magazines, #.e., adver- tisements in magazines for which the publishers pay nothing, they in their turn inserting gratis in their own magazines similar advertisements for the publishers of the other magazines. It is suggested that the charge for incidental expenses was inde- fensible. The result is that the author was entitled to £30 10s. 1d., but the publishers proposed to give only £10 tos. 11d. Nature of relationship between parties to agreement.—Dealing now with several points that arise on this case :— (1.) The above agreement is what is commonly known as a share-profit agreement, and it is sub- stantially, though there may be minor points of difference, what is offered by all publishers as a share-profit agreement, the share being usually, as here, one half. As to the general position of the parties under such an agreement, it is submitted that although the author is not able to be sued by any outsider in case of default of the publisher, the agreement amounts to a partnership agreement, or joint adventure in the nature of partnership gua the book concerned; or if not to an agreement for partnership or joint adventure, then to an agree- ment making the publisher trustee for the returns due to the author, and, therefore, unable to make any profit out of his trust other than such, if any, as he has expressly stipulated for, and the half share of profits. (IL.) Duty of the publisher to account.—The author in the above agreement cedes to the pub- lishers the exclusive right of printing and pub- lishing the book during the legal term of copy- right, and such is the effect of most share- profit agreements. The consideration for this is the publishers paying to the author half profits, z.e., half of the net proceeds of sale of copies after expenses of the publishers have been deducted. It is presumed that whatever be the precise legal relationship of author and publisher under such an agreement as above, the pub- lishers are bound to account fully and exactly to the author, and this appears to involve, as of right, without any express provision in the agreement, (a) production of vouchers for all expenses charged by the publishers, and (6) pro- duction of such books as are usually kept by publishers recording sales; also all records of books received, and the stock in hand, in order to. enable the author to check the number of books accounted for as sold. On this point it is believed some publishers would contend that their word is to be accepted as absolute as to number of sales in such cases, but this, it is submitted, is wrong, and that the author has the above right of examining the publishers’ books. As regards the vouchers, the production of these seem to be essential. If they are produced they would reveal such a transaction as that disclosed in the before-mentioned accounts with- out the necessity of instituting independent inquiries of printers, binders, &c., from whom it might be difficult for an author to obtain infor- mation. (II1.) Right of publisher to charge more than actual expenses—Several questions arise on the accounts above set out as to the publishers’ dis- bursements; and first, there is the addition of 10 per cent. to the actual prices charged him for the several items of work done—printing, binding, &c. It issubmitted that this is equally indefen- sible, whether (a) the publisher discloses to the author that he has charged at a higher rate than he himself is charged, there being nothing in the agreement providing for his charging what he likes; or (0) as in the above instance, he conceals this, and so makes a secret profit. The matter appears to be analogous to the transactions which were held to be indefensible in Williamson v. Barbour (9 Ch. Div. 529). : The defence of the publishers would probably rest on “custom of trade;” an open and well recognised usage the publisher could not prove, and an infrequent or secret practice it is believed would not constitute a custom. This matter was discussed in a recent case of Rideal v. Kegan Paul & Co., but this was only before the Registrar of the City of London Court. In that case the agreement, a half-profit one, proved that in the accounts “the work shall be debited with all expenses of every kind of or incidental to the publication of each edition of the work, including Mr. George Redway’s charges for printing, plates, illustrations, stereotyping, paper, binding, and advertising.” Mr. Redway charged more for these things than prices invoiced to him, and the Registrar held he could not do so. (1V.) Whether publisher's conduct fraudulent. —Would the court regard the conduct of a pub- lisher who made a secret profit in the manner before stated as fraudulent, so that, e.g., he would be ordered to pay the costs of an action for account if such a fact was brought to light in it? (V.) Discounts——There is another question which is often mixed up with the question under head No. III., but which is really quite a distinct matter, and apparently more difficult of decision,  396 THE AUTHOR. that is the question of discounts which a publisher gets allowed him from the printers, binders, paper-makers, &c., he deals with. It is customary for a publisher to obtain six months’ credit from a printer. If he pays cash he receives certain discounts. If these discounts are to go into his own pocket, what is there to prevent him from arranging with the printer for a bill off which he is to receive heavy discounts in order to bring the actual cost to the publisher down to ordinary prices, but seriously affecting the state of accounts between author and pub- lisher? It is submitted that any advantages obtained for the quasi partnership by cash pay- ments should be credited tothe book. Counsel is referred to the accompanying print of article, “Some Considerations of Publishing,’ by Sir Frederick Pollock, in which this point is fully discussed. (VL.) Right to charge for advertisements not actually paid for.—A very important point, which is also dealt with in Sir F. Pollock’s paper, and which is of daily occurrence on publishers’ accounts, is as to the charge for advertisements. As seen in the before-mentioned instance, pub- lishers charge what they call scale prices (being the prices they would charge to outside persons, such as makers of soaps, pills, &c.), for (a) Advertisements inserted in their own magazines, including their own trade lists of books. And (6) advertisements inserted by exchange without payment in other publishers’ magazines. In neither case does the publisher pay directly or indirectly anything more than the cost of printing and paper for the pages of advertise- ments, and possibly a mere trifle extra for carriage and binding. It is submitted that beyond these small payments the publisher ought not to charge the author anything in respect of such advertisements. It will no doubt be contended by the pub- lishers who do make these charges, that if they did not insert these book advertisements they would be able to advertise so many more soaps and pills; but even if this were the fact (which it probably is not), it is submitted that it forms no legal justification. A strong case exemplifying the evils cf this system occurred as follows :— A clergyman named A. gathered many notes about his church, intending to write a history about it. Pressure of other work made it difficult for him to digest and write out his notes, and after some delay he handed everything over to B., who wrote the book out. B. then haying full powers, he went to C., a publisher. He said to C., ‘we want this handsomely printed and bound, We ask no remuneration. I[t can never havea very large sale. We therefore ask you to take it off our hands completely, only reserving the right to take as many copies as A. requires at cost price.” This proposal was willingly accepted. B, went away for his health, having told A. all about the (verbal) agreement into which he had entered, and explained in particular that under no circum- stances was A. to be called upon or to make any money payment. As soon as his back was turned, C. sent A. a bill for £30 for advertising. It so happened that among C.’s clerks was a young man who was connected with A.’s church, where he had been educated. This clerk, seeing A. by chance in C.’s anteroom waiting for an audience, conferred with him on the subject, having only time to say ‘‘ Do not pay anything without seeing the vouchers.” A. took this advice. C. showed him vouchers for £3 4s., which A. paid under protest. C. promptly cashiered the clerk who had given A. the advice. When B. came home and heard the story, he went to C. and said, “You must at once return the £3 4s. to A. with an apology, as you know perfectly well he owed you neither £30 nor £3.” But this C. would not do. If the publisher is justified in charging for either of the above-mentioned kinds of advertise- ments, the matter must be further considered from other points of view. Counsel will observe what a large door is opened to fraud if the sight of charging for advertise- ments which cost nothing or next to nothing be conceded to a publisher. There is nothing to prevent him from putting the whole profits of a book in his own pocket’ by largely advertising in his own magazine or by exchanges. Further, it has been found by long experience that a book will only “stand” a certain amount of advertising, ¢.e., there is a point at which further expenditure does not advance sales, and is only money wasted; also, in the opinion of many experts, the advertising of books in magazines is of very little use (because most of the English magazines have a very limited circulation) compared with their advertisement in the great daily papers. (VIL.) Moulding and stereotyping. — The accounts above set out contain a charge for moulding, which is rightly charged to the first edition of a book of more than ephemeral interest, because the moulds are taken in case a new edition should be called for. But the stereo- typing need not be executed, and seldom is, until the second edition is wanted. If a pub- 4 lisher charges stereotyping when it is not done, this no doubt will be indefensible. If it is done  THE AUTHOR. unnecessarily, can he be made to bear the amount himself ? (VIII.) Right to deduct a charge for incidental expenses.—It will be seen in the above accounts that the publishers have charged “paper wrappers ” and “ postage,’ presumably for send- ing copies of the book for review, and have de- ducted 5 per cent. from the proceeds of sale for “incidental expenses;” and publishers justify such a charge by saying that it is to cover the book’s share of their general office expenses (rent, wages, &c.). This seems clearly indefensible ; the publisher gets half the profits for (1) his risk of loss if there is any 1isk—very few publishers do, in fact, run risks through the book not paying expenses—this falls entirely on the publisher; and (2) his position in the publishing trade, for which his offices, his clerks, travellers, &c., are a sine qud non. The questions on which counsel is asked to advise are as follows: 1. What is the exact relationship between the parties to a share-profit agreement ; is it one of partnership, or rather joint adven- ture, or of trusteeship, or what ? . In any view of the relationship, ought not the publisher to render fullaccounts, and to give full opportunity of checking them by production of vouchers and books as mentioned above ? 3. Isthe publisher entitled, under a share-profit agreement, to charge expenses at a higher rate than he himself makes; whether this is disclosed to the author after the con- tract, or is a secret profit made by the publisher ? 4. If the answer to the last question is in the negative, would not the existence of such charges, when proved to the court, be a sufficient case for reopening a_ settled account which contained charges embody- ing such profits P 5. Is the publisher under a share-profit agree- ment entitled to charge the author the full amounts of invoices to him for expenses of the book when he himself only pays such amounts less discounts ? 6. Has the publisher the right under a share- profit agreement to charge for advertise- ments (a@) inserted in his own magazines or trade lists, and (0) inserted in other publishers’ magazines by exchange with- out payment ? 7. Can the publisher under a share-profit agree- ment charge stereotyping against the first edition where it is not done ? 8. Has the publisher under an ordinary share- profit agreement, in the absence of ex- VOL. Iv. nN 397 press stipulation, the right to deduct a percentage on books sold for “incidental expenses ? ” II. COUNSEL'S OPINION. 1. In our opinion, an agreement such as that set out in the above case creates between the par- ties to it a joint adventure, involving some (but not all) of the incidents of partnership, and con- stitutes a fiduciary relation on the part of the publisher towards the author. 2. Under such anagreement the publisher is, in our opinion, bound, in anv view of the relationship of the parties, to render proper accounts and to produce all books and documents necessary for the proper vouching of the items of such accounts. 3. Under such an agreement the publisher is, in our opinion, only entitled to deduct from the pro- ceeds of sale the actual expenses of printing, paper, &c., and he cannot therefore charge such expenses at a higher rate than he actually pays. It would not, in our opinion, make any difference in this respect whether the publisher, after the execution of the agreement, informed the author that he intended to charge, or had in fact charged, the expenses at such higher rate (unless there were additional circumstances which might evi- dence a waiver or abandonment of rights on the part of the author) or kept the matter secret. 4. If the existence of such charges as those mentioned in.the last question were satisfactorily proved, it would, in our opinion, be a sufficient ground for reopening the account in which such charges were contained, even though such account had been settled and approved by the author, assuming, of course, that the account had been so approved by him in ignorance of its containing such charges. 5. This question is one of some difficulty, but, in our opinion, the publisher, under such an agreement, is only entitled to charge for what he actually pays, and therefore cannot charge the full amount of the invoice where he obtains a discount. 6. The publisher is, in our opmion, only entitled under such an agreement to charge the actual cost of advertisements, whether inserted in his own magazines or trade lists, or those of other publishers. He cannot charge against theauthor the sum which a stranger would have paid for the insertion of such an advertisement. The actual cost in case (6) would in effect appear to be the actual cost to him of inserting in his own maga- zine an advertisement in exchange for the adver- tisement of the work in question in another publisher’s magazine. 7. The publisher is not, in our opinion, entitled to charge for work which hus not in fact been done. II 398 8. The term “incidental expenses” in the above-mentioned agreement is extremely vague and unsatisfactory, but, m our opinion, it includes those expenses which, or a portion of which, are incidental to the particular book referred to in the agreement, and does not includea share of estab- lishment charges generally. Unless, however, the charge for incidental expenses could be shown to be excessive or improper, the publisher would not, in our opinion, be called upon to furnish a detailed account of the items of whichit was made up, and the fact that the amount of such inci- dental expenses was arrived at by taking a percentage on the returns would not, in our opinion, of itself render the charge improper. Hersert H. Cozens-Harpy. _ J. Rot. Lincoln’s Inn, Dec. 9, 1893. II.—Coryricut or TRansiatTions oF Tousrot. The following letter appeared in the Times of March 9, 1894 :— Srr,—As the question of the rights of the publication and translation of one of Tolstoi's novels has recently been before the public, and as the matter is one of great interest to all persons connected with literature, the Society of Authors submitted the following questions to Mr. Blake Odgers, Q.C. :— “With reference to the general view, ‘7, Whether publication of an original Russian work in England prior to publication in Russia, with the leave of the author, gives copyright to the publisher in the said original work? “2, Whether, if so published, it gives to the publisher under the Berne Convention the right of assigning the property in the translation of the said work? «3, Whether it is possible to secure any kind of copyright for the original or translation of a Russian work in England ? “With reference to the particular case, “4, Whether, where a Russian author avowedly disclaims any exclusive right in the publication of his works, it is possible to obtain copyright in any such work by prior publication in England or otherwise ? “5, Whether it is possible to obtain the ex- clusive right of translation of such a work under the same circumstances ? ” Mr. Blake Odgers’s opinion in answer to the above questions is as follows :— «4, Blm-court, Temple, E.C., March 2, 1894. “3. If a foreign author published in England an original work which has not previously been published elsewhere, he can now acquire English copyright therein in precisely the same way as if THE AUTHOR. he were a British subject. The language in which the book is written is immaterial, and so is the nationality of the author. Again, if the executor, administrator, or assign of a foreign author pub- lishes the book under similar circumstances he would also acquire English copyright. It was formerly considered necessary that the author should be temporarily resident somewhere in the British dominions at the date of publication. But since the Aliens Act of 1870 this is, m my opinion, no longer requisite. The subsequent production of the same book in the native country of the author would not affect rights already acquired in England. “But although a foreign author, or the executor, administrator, or assign of a foreign author, may thus acquire an English copyright in a book written in a foreign language, still he would not, in my opinion, acquire thereby any right to restrain or prohibit the publication in England of a translation of that book. Copy- right means ‘ the sole and exclusive liberty of printing or otherwise multiplying copies of any’ composition, and a translation is not a copy, but a new production upon which ‘the translator has bestowed his care and pains.’ Moreover, the original and the translation are intended for diffe- rent classes of readers. The publication of the translation will not sensibly diminish the sale of the original, and is, therefore, I think, no infringe- ment of the copyright. I cannot say that the English law is clear on this point, but that ap- pears to me to be the better opinion. I note that Mr. Copinger takes the opposite view (3rd edition, page 238). The International Copyright Acts and the Berne Convention throw no light on the point, as they contain no provision applicable to the publication in the United Kingdom of a translation of any book originally published im England; nor (in the absence of any treaty between England and Russia) of any book origi nally published in Russia. “Tf Lam right, it follows that any number of persons may publish in the United Kingdom independent translations of any book first pub- lished in England or in Russia without the leave of the author or other owner of the copyright in the original. Each such translator can acquire copyright in his own translation, and will then be entitled to restrain any subsequent translator from copying it or making any unfair use of the results of his labour. But he cannot prevent any- one else from undertaking similar labour. The law does not, in my opinion, recognise the existence in England of any ‘authorised translation’ of a book which was first published here or in Russia. “1, So far I have dealt only with cases in which a book in a foreign language, hitherto unpub-  THE AUTHOR. lished, is published in England by the author or by his executor, administrator, or assign. And by an ‘assign’ I mean some one to whom the anthor has consciously and intentionally trans- ferred some interest in the copyright in that book. Tf a man who is neither the author, nor his executor, administrator, or assign, publishes such a work in England he will acquire no copyright whatever therein, even though the author knew » of and consented to such publication: (Clementi as and others v. Walker, 2 B. & C. 861.) And it J) clearly follows that such a publisher will have no » exclusive right to translate that work or to pub- “| lish a translation of it in the United Kingdom. “2, Had the original work been first produced ' im one of the foreign countries of the Copyright J Union, a publisher who was neither the author nor a ‘person claiming through the author,’ ' might possibly acquire the right to forbid un- authorised translations under section 2 of the Act of 1886 and section 3 of the Order in Council dated November 28, 1887. But neither section confers any such right in the case of a book first published in the United Kingdom or in Russia. “4.5. If a Russian author avowedly disclaimed » all exclusive right in the publication of his works, | knowing that he had such rights and intending ' to divest himself thereof, then his works would become publict juris, and it would be impossible for anyone else to acquire copyright in any such »~ work by prior publication in England, or to lo obtain any exclusive right of translation. The 4 ‘Berne Convention, while giving to ‘authorised 7 translations’ the same protection as original works, expressly provides that ‘it is understood that in the case of a work for which the trans- lating right has fallen into the public domain, the translator cannot oppose the translation of the same work by other writers.’ At the same time I do not suppose that Count Tolstoi has consciously disclaimed any such right. By the law of Russia an author has no power to prevent anyone else from publishing a translation of his vy work, except in the case of a scientific work “© imvolving original research; and it has perhaps *@ never occurred to the Count that the law may be ‘| different in other European States. “W. Brake OpcErs.” The statement by Count Tolstoi, published in ‘7 this morning’s papers, appears to confirm the “8 assumptions of fact on which the case and ‘0 opinions proceeded. I am, Sir, yours, &c., F. Pottocr, Chairman of Committee of Management. The Society of Authors (Incorporated), 4, Portugal-street, Lincoln’s-inn-fields, W.C., March 8. VOL. Iv. 399 II.—Resvutr or THE BERNE CONFERENCE. Vouga v. The Artistic Printing Union. This was an action, based upon the International Copyright Act, for infrmgement of copyright. The defendants pleaded a defence denying the plaintiffs copyright and also the infringement, but did not appear at the trial to defend the action. Mr. Willis Chitty (Mr, Pollock with him), for the plaintiffs, said the plaintiff was a Mme. Vouga, who traded as HE. Vouga and Co. For some time she had produced works of art which were largely sold to art schools, and were con- tained in a book called “ An Illustrated Catalogue of Fine Art Studies.” The plaintiff had regis- tered the copyright in her works of art in Switzer- land. By Article 2 of the Berne Convention authors of any of the countries of the union, or their lawful representatives, enjoyed in the other countries for their works the rights which the respective laws granted to natives. The enjoy- ment of those rights was subject to the accom- plishment of the conditions and formalities prescribed by law in the country of origin of the work, and did not exceed in the other countries the term of protection accorded in the country of origin. The defendants bought some of the plaintiffs pictures, sent them over to Germany to get copied and made up into fire-screens, which were sold for 1s., whereas Mme Vouga’s cost 7s. 6d. He would read the defendants’ answers to interrogatories, which showed that the defen- dants had published 42,000 copies. Mme. Vouga was called, and said she painted the original designs, which were published in Switzerland. She had copyright in her works of art in Switzerland. Mr. Chitty said he asked for an injunction on account of all copies illegally dealt with, and damages or penalties, the penalty imposed by the Act (25 & 26 Vict. c. 68, s. 7) being £10 for each infringement, Mr. Justice WILLs gave judgment in the terms prayed for, and for £1000 damages in lieu of penalties. Execution to issue for £200 and costs, with leave to apply.— Times. IV.—A New Dancer. The following letter appears in the Atheneum of March 24 : A New Dancer For AUTHORS. As my attention has just been called to the fact that a little one-volume story is now being advertised for sale under the same title as that of one of my best-known novels (“ Victims,” published in three volumes by Messrs. Hurst and Blackett, after having run as a serial through All the Year Round, and still in constant circulation), I shall feel greatly obliged if you will allow me, through the valued medium of your columns, to warn the reading public that the volume in question is not, as they might readily suppose, 112 400 a cheap edition of my novel; nor am I inany way connected with it, except in the character of the “ Victim,’ my title having simply been sold for the use to which it has been put by the parties into whose hands the copyright has un- fortunately fallen, without my knowledge or consent, and naturally to my great detriment and annoyance. Trans- actions of this sort, by reason of their very rarity, are not at present attended with any legal penalty. If they become common,. however, they will constitute a new danger for all authors who part with their copyrights, as well as a fraud on the public, who, expecting to buy a cheap copy of some favourite book, find themselves in possession of a work by an unknown writer, in whom, perhaps, they take no interest. I trust, therefore, that by giving publicity to the case in question you may be the means of saving some at least of my fellow writers, and the readers who appreciate them, from the risk of being ‘‘ victimized’ in similar fashion. THEO. GIFT. It is not quite apparent from the letter what has happened. In fact, the letter is anadmirable illustration of tte loose and airy manner in which authors too often express their grievances. We want to know, before the expression of any opinion is possible, (1) when Miss Theo. Gift’s book called “ Victims ” appeared in volume form ; (2) what rights she parted with, whether to Messrs. Hurst and Black-tt, or to anyone else ; (3) whether it has gone into a cheap edition; (4) if not, what she means by saying that it is in constant demand, for the circulation of a three- volume novel cannot be said to last for more than a year as a rule; (5) what is meant by the copyright having fallen into the hands of “ parties without my consent or knowlege?” For if an author sells his copyright to A. or to B., he most certainly sells the power, which A. or B. acquires, of dealing with it as he pleases. Whether he sells the power of dealing separately with the title, ¢.e., of selling the title apart from the work, is a point which can only be dealt with after reading all the agreements in the ease. The point would seem to be whether a title is an inseparable part of the work or not. But the papers and correspondence in the case must first be read. No one would care to bring out a book called “Vanity Fair,’ or “ David Copperfield,” or “‘ Macaulay’s History of England.” On the other hand, if a publisher did not propose to bring out a cheap edition of a three-volume novel of which he held the copyright, seeing that without a cheap or new edition every three-volume novel must infallibly die or become scarce, why sbould he not grant or sell the right to use its title? Without further information one cannot understand the injury done to “Theo. Gift,” or the true nature of her complaint. If “Theo. Gift”? wants advice upon her case, let her send to the Secretary full parti- culars, with all the correspondence, agreements, and accounts, and she shall have a legal opinion from competent persons in her case for nothing. THE AUTHOR. V.—An AGREEMENT. The following were the terms of an agreement recently offered to an author: 1. Kind of Book—A boy’s book; likely to have a large sale; in length, 40,000 words; proposed price, half-a-crown; to be illustrated, as boys’ books commonly are, by half a dozen drawings “ processed.” 2. Terms Proposed.—The author to advance £30 towards expense of production. After the sale of 500 copies, the author to be repaid £15 of his advance. After the sale of the next 500 copies, the author to be repaid the rest of his advance. After the sale of 1500 copies, the author to receive a royalty of twopence in the shilling. In other words, the author was to take half the risk, and to receive nothing for the first 1500 copies. Let us now work this out. We take the figures given in the ‘“‘ Cost of Pro- duction,’ p. 59. The book would make 1131 pages, or, with the illustrations, say, 128 pages, z.e,, eight sheets. (1) Cost of Production. £8 @ Composition, 8 sheets, at £1 4s. psheet 4 9 12 O° Printing, at £1 a sheet ......... 8 oF Paper, at 16s. a sheet ............ 19 4 0 Moulding, at 5s.asheet ...... 2.60 9 * Binding, at 43d. a copy ...... 56 5 36 Advertising (say) «.............. 15 0 0 Illustrations (say) ............... 15 0 @ 124 £ 6 (2) Trade Price——Generally ts. 6d. on a 2s. 6d. book. (3) Author’s Returns : a. After 500 copies, loss of £15. B. After 1000 copies, neither loss nor gain, y. After 1500 copies, neither loss nor gain. 6. After 3000 copies, £31 5s. (4) Publisher’s Returns: a. After 500 copies : s. d. £ 6a Oost 124 1 0 Repaid author 15 0 oO ——139 1 Oo / & 58. d, Advanced by author ...... 30. 6 0 By sales ...... 87 10. @ 088 wi IL. 0 —— 139 1 0 * The cost of binding has advanced since the printing of the last edition of the *‘ Cost of Production.”  THE 8. After the next 500 copies. = Ss. dd: Loss carried down... phage axe. Repaid author 15 0 oO ——— 8611 0O ase. By sales ...... 37 IO 0 JHORS 6 i ie 86.11 7.0 y. After the third set of 500: ss d, Loss carried down ...... 491.0 40,5 10 Ss. od. By sales ...... 87 10 0 FOSS 2 2 3 li, th 0 49 1.0 6. After the next 1500 copies : & sd. Losscarried on II II 0 Paid to author 31 5 Oo iPrott 9) 69.14 ———I12 10 0 os ds By sales [i2 16 0 112 10 © So, by this pretty arrangement the publisher gets more than twice the author. But suppose the book becomes popular, and a second edition of 3000 is called for and taken up. Thus we have the following as the Cost of Production : as od Stereotyping at 8s.a sheet... 3 4 0 Printing 80 70 PAPO boa 19 4.0 Binding 56.56 Advertising 5. O20 Gl 13. 0 And the account will show as follows : Second edition of 3000 copies os ed: Cost of production g1 13 0 Author’s royalty... 62 10 0o Publisher’s profits. 70 17 0 ————225 0 0 8. d. By sales, 3000 copies ab isd. 6.2. 225° 0 © 225 0 6 So that, on the whole sale of 6000 copies the publisher, according to these figures, gets a profit of £140 11s.,and the author a profit of £93 15s. In other words, the administration of property AUTHOR. 401 producing £234 6s., gives to one partner—if they are partners—£47 more than to the other; and to the agent or administrator, £47 more for his services than it gives the producer and proprietor. ————re BOOK-TALK. VERY reader of the synthetic philosophy will be glad that Mr. Spencer has sanc- tioned the publication of a small selection of aphorisms or sentences from his numerous volumes, which have been chosen and arranged by Miss Gingell. The work consists of eleven sections, dealing with education, evolution, science, sociology, politics, justice, liberty, truth, and honesty, sympathy, happiness, self control, &c., which is a very comprehensive programme. Under education there are over thirty extracts, though all are not from Mr. Spencer’s widely- known work of that name, sentences from ‘“‘ The Social Statics,” “The Principles of Sociology,” and “The Study of Sociology,” are alsoadmitted under this head. Lovers of reading will at once search to see what part in education literature is to play, and we must not blink the fact that, except in the sense of scientific literature, it plays no part at all. Here, for instance, is one passage : Reading is seeing by proxy—is learning indirectly through another man’s faculties, instead of directly through one’s own faculties; and such is the prevailing bias, that the indirect learning is thought preferable to the direct learn- ing, and usurps the name of cultivation (p. 8). Which seems entirely to agree with what another philosopher has said on the same subject, to quote Mr. Bailey Saunders’s translation of Scho- penhauer : The artificial method (of education) is to hear what other people say,to learn to read, and so to get your head crammed full of general ideas before you have any sort of extended ‘acquaintance with the world as it is, and as you may see it for yourself. mind. Further, we shall see that letters are ranked as almost entirely ornamental, or at least are classed for their utility as far below science. Again, from “The Principles of Ethics” is given this hard saying : Nearly all are prone to mental occupations of easy kinds, or kinds which yield pleasurable excitement with small efforts; and history, biography, fiction, poetry, are in this respect more attractive to the majority than science—more attractive than that knowledge of the order of things at large which serves for guidance. Tn the face of such astatement, it seems difficult to understand how those who have tried to com- bine work and pleasure by yielding to the popular demand for romance—romantic history and biography, poetry or novels, could defend their So it is that education perverts the 402 position. On the other hand, one comes across another xphorism which, whether so intended or not, seems to justify, or might be made to justify, both the writing and the reading of all forms of romance. The last quotation under “ education ”’ 18: Whatever moral benefit can be effected by education must be effected by an education which is emotional rather than intellectual. If in place of making a child wnderstand that this thing is right, and the other wrong, you make it feel that they are so you do some good. Why should we be expected to put aside, as matter merely for amusement, poetry and its ally, romantic prose, which appeal to our feelings more than to our intellect? We should think that through them the desired emotional education could most readily be brought about. And, besides, as long as the knowledge of certain subjects—let us say especially history—has even a conventional value in social life, surely parents are justified in giving some of it to their children. The wish that these latter should not feel ignorant and awkward in such society as they will probably get does not appear to be entirely an unreasonable one. The other selections in this work are all calcu- lated to send us back to the original volumes to see the connection of the various thoughts— especially as they are so much at variance, nay, even at war, with those doctrines of socialism which, in spite of the most earnest endeavour to believe in individualism, meet us at every turn in current literature. We are bound to pass over them in order to consider a statement which is so intimately connected with much that is discussed each month in our pages. From “ Social Statics ” is given the following: That a man’s right to the produce of his brain is equally valid with his right to the produce of his hands is a fact which has yet obtained but very imperfect recognition. Recognition of the right of property in ideas is only less important than the recognition of the right of property in goods. We learn from the valuable list placed at the end of the book that 1850 is the date of the publication of “Social Statics.”” We may say that since that date the right of property in ideas has been freely discussed, and, whether more gene- rally accepted or not, is certainly very tenaciously held by those who hold it at all. Unfortunately, there are those who seem to think that these “rights” are created by statute, and they are tempted to condemn individualistic methods of asserting them. Take, for instance, Count Tolstoi’s recent method of publication. Accord- ing to the Daily Chronicle, he refused to derive any pecuniary benefit from his latest work “The Kingdom of Heaven is Within You.’ The compe- tition for its publication by rival firms here was THE AUTHOR. very keen (which is evidently an advantage to the buyer), and socialism would say that the author was bound to have availed himself of such means as the law would give him to profit by the sale, if only for the sake of others. But it is really only a happy illustration of the natural truth of individualism, when the writer who is looked upon as the most influential teacher of a mixture of Christianity and Communion, or even Anarchy, by his Quixotic action shows that he has an abso- lute right to do what he likes with the product of his own brain. It is pleasant to turn from Count Tolstoi to an historic example of individualism and the struggles for intellectual freedom by one man now once more retold by the Bishop of Peter- borough in his fifth volume of the “ History of the Papacy at the Time of the Reformation.” The volume deals with the German revolt and the rise of Luther, so that, as may readily be supposed, it is a volume of especial interest. The method is such that we have clearly brought home to us that it was the effect of the New Learning or Humanity in Germany, as the first chapter is styled, which made the Reformation possible. And when this learning came in contact with a religious mind—such as Luther’s was—the old respect for an institution went down before the sympathy with a living man with his new ideals and his courageous action. Ecclesiastical bias apart, when, as nowadays, the teachings and actions of those who call them- selves “individualists”’ are so much decried, the successful struggle of an individual against tyranny, even in the sphere of religion, has ‘a wider interest than the substitution of one theology for another. It will serve to remind us that the crusade against stifling institutions need never to be abandoned. Here is the Bishop’s description of the state of things: By peremptorily disregarding the right of the individual to exercise his freedom within lawful limits, the Papacy outraged German opinion, and led toa new development of theology, which on the ground of Christian liberty chal- lenged the current claims of authority. It is for us to notice to-day, that while theology may rightly be considered a science, the means that the religious have of disseminating opinion and inculcating practice are all rather in the sphere of letters. Eloquence in the pulpit, on the plat- form, and in the religious press, are all subject to literary criticism. Even the religious services, or, at least in the main parts, the words of prayer and praise, are repetitions of certain forms of literature. Macaulay compared Milton’s sonnets to the collects in our Prayer-book, and Arnold has criticised hymns—Hnglish, German, medieval  Latin, to the advantage of the last—but thus indirectly showing that they cannot escape criti- cism because they are religious. We have a right then, to consider Luther as an individualist in the sphere of letters, refusing obedience to authority, and teaching such doctrines as his own experience seemed to him to have confirmed. Most of us take our knowledge of Luther from Hazlitt’s translation of Michelet, and perhaps from Sir James Stephen’s essay. Michelet has a passage in the preface to his work which is conclusive : “Tt is not therefore inexact to say that Luther was, in point of fact, the restorer of liberty to the ages which followed his era. The very line I here trace, to whom do I owe it that Tam able to send them forth if not to the liberator of modern thought?” Let us then note the attitude of Luther before the Diet of Worms, so far as his writings were called in question. Bishop Creighton writes (p. 150): Then he (Luther) was asked if he acknowledged the authorship of the books published in his name, and if he was willing to withdraw them and their contents. Luther acknowledged the books, but, in consideration of the gravity of the responsibility involved, asked time for deliberation before he answered the second question. The next day he was ready with his answer. His books, he said, fell into three classes. The first dealt with faith and morals, the second were directed against Papal laws and Papal tyranny, and the third against partisans of the Pope—and he could not revoke them. Yet, as he was a man and not God, he was willing to be convinced of his error by the testimony of Scripture, and if so convinced would cast his book into the flames. And what Luther did then has been going on ever since. For his appeal was to original docu- ments, and the examination of such documents, whether in religious or secular history, has, equally with the teachings of science, tended to weaken the claims of any authority to teach us what we are to believe. J. W.-8: Sec NOTES AND NEWS. HE legacy to the Society of which Sir ay Frederick Pollock spoke at the General Meeting, is a sum of money, together with the MSS. of the testator, and the consition of publishing these MSS., or some portions of them, in case they appear to the committee, from whose opinicn there is to be no appeal, wortby of publication. The MSS. have been received, and will be considered by the committee without delay. I hope that all readers of this paper will study very carefully the opinions of Mr. Cozens-Hardy, THE AUTHOR. 403 Q,C., and Mr. James Rolt on the subject of secret profits obtained by falsifying the cost of produc- tion, and by charging for advertisements not paid for. An account of this kind can be re- opened at any time, although it has been accepted by the author. Those who have recently received accounts on a profit-sharing agreement will do well to submit them for advice to the Secretary. They must, at the same time, forward the agree- ment and a copy of the book, both of which will be returned. Monsieur le Marquis de (1780-1793). Mémoires Inédits Recueillis par Walter H. Pollock. (Remington and Co.) With noble mien and lordly look, The Marquis sits within his book. In letters black and letters red, The Marquis steps with measured tread. With margin wide to grace his page, The Marquis occupies the stage. The bawling mob, the kennel crew, That pour and roar the wide street through, The Marquis lifts his head to hear With proud disdain and silent sneer. Outside—but not within these leaves— They bawl, this scum of drabs and thieves, “ Death to the Marquis!” Calm and proud He goes to meet the murderous crowd. Nor goes alone. With courteous air He leads the Marchioness to share The curses of the rabble rout, The lifted axe, the savage shout. The pike triumphant with his head— These be the memoirs edited. If dainty words and dainty dress, And page of dainty loveliness, And dainty cover, dainty print, Don’t make a dainty book, the Devil’s in’t. At the general meeting of the members on Monday, the 19th, an informal and rather desul- tory discussion was held on the advisability of publishing a list of members. The chairman, Sir Frederick Pollock replied, leaving the matter open to discussion. It was, however, suggested that members themselves should be invited to forward their opinions to the Editor of the Author. The question is, then, whether the names of the members should be published. It has been con- sidered by the committee, who resolved that the list should not be published. But the question can, in the chairman’s opinion, be re-opened. The following are the points to be considered : 1. The position of members, with regard to the Society, is, or may be, of a confidential character. The Society acts as a solicitor—its secretary is a solicitor—and advises its members, #.e., its clients, on matters perfectly private and confidential. 404 THE AUTHOR. 2. A solicitor does not publish a list of his clients. 3. Men in business or practice of any kind do not publish the names of their advisers. 4. A large number of the most distinguished writers is shown as members every year by the publication of the list of stewards who give their names for the annual dinner. 5. The list of council also shows that the Society is thoroughly representative. 6. It has been found by certain members politic, for reasons which need not be set forth, to conceal their membership. Among these are the younger members who are not yet sufficiently assured of their position in the profession of letters. To announce the publication of the list would be an invitation to them to withdraw from the Society. 7. It isalso certain that many members have joined, not because they hope for material advan- tages for themselves, but because they desire to help others not so independent. Some of these would certainly withdraw. 8. Many have joined on the distinct assurance by the secretary that their names would not be published. This pledge must be kept, whatever the opinion of the rest may be. These considerations should be borne in mind before answering the question “ Should the list of members be published ?” The Chairman announced at the general meet- ing the fact that eighty-five persons have sent in their names for election since the beginning of the year. This should make the numbers amount to over 1300. But itis never possible to give the exact number of members, because there is always a fringe of uncertain members, who drop off for one cause or another, generally to the extent of four or five per cent. The numbers are mounting; if our members, now that they do feel confidence in our work and aims, would lend personal assis- tance, we should double our numbers very quickly, Concerning the interview trouble. A correspon- dent, “L.8.,” writes an expostulation. He says that, “there are competent newspaper men engaged in this branch of journalism.” Very likely. He says, further, that in many cases “an article, involving more than a mere superficial discourse, would entail upon an expert the expendi- ture of much more time and work than would a light, chatty interview.” True; but suppose the expert wished to write that article himself, and lived by writing such articles. However, I must acknowledge that, in all my experience of inter- viewing, I have never had to complain until a recent case in which there was a deliberate breach of faith—viz., a proof was promised, but when it was sent the editor actually did not wait for the revise! I have generally had a proof, and I have generally found little to alter. Still, I stick to my text. Always stipulate for a proof. —— Something novel for collectors. In New York they are said to be collecting the monthly adver- tising posters of Harper's, the Century, and Scribner's magazines. “I am told,” says the “Lounger” in the New York Critic, “that you can no longer get back numbers of the coloured posters of either Harper’s or Scribner’s, as ‘ col- lectors’ have exhausted the market.” Would American collectors kindly turn their attention to the coloured posters on our railway stations ? The following advertisement appears in the Times of Monday, March 12 :-— A UTHORS, Poets, Artists, &c., wishing their work to appear in a new monthly should send for PARTICU- LARS (without specimens) ; also all who wish an interview or biographical notice (with photo) to appear in the same magazine should write (stamped address in all cases) X. Y., 6, Peckham-rye, London. A certain curious person, answering it, received the following communication in reply :— “THE WEST-END MAGAZINE.” A High-class Illustrated Family Paper. Price 6d. Monthly. 19, Raul-road, Peckham, 8.E., March 13. Dear Srr,—The new monthly will be called the West End Magazine, and will be issued at 6d. Iam reserving a few pages for outside contributions, for which, however, no payment will be made ; and if a production be used I expect the author will purchase a few copies. In this way I hope to have the pleasure of introducing any latent talent there may be about into the literary world. If you could sendan article or story (500 to 1000 words) or a piece of poetry (thirty lines) I should be most pleased to consider it, and to let you know at once if I can use it. In the case of artists, in addition to taking a few copies, they would be obliged to pay the cost of making the block (from 5s. to 30s.). In case of artists I should print their names at foot of picture, and give them a little notice, if the picture were large enough. I should esteem it a great pleasure to insert a short biographical notice, as U believe people are always inte- rested in this kind of reading. My fee is 5s. without photo block, and £1 if I have to get a block made. The block, after I had used, would be sent to you. I presume, of course, you would kindly take a few copies at 6d. each. Trusting to have the pleasure of a reply, I have the honour to remain—Yours very truly, A. J. CHRIMES. I see no reason whatever for withholding publicity from the name and the address of the writer. Nor do I make any doubt that he will receive a great many letters and a fair number of people who will accept his offer. He says, frankly, “ I shall pay you nothing; I shall expect you to take a few-copies.” It is not the first  ty iF THE AUTHOR. 405 time that such a proposal has been made or such a magazine carried on. It is, however, desirable that all the world should know how the West End Magazine is conducted, so that the authors can go about proudly owning that they have paid for the appearance of their articles by buying twenty, thirty, or even, perhaps, a hundred copies; that the flattering biography and portrait were cheap at a pound ; and the artist can, in the same way, and by the promulgation of the same truths, bring equal glory upon his honourable name. Collectors of first editions and _ other millionaires will perhaps be glad to possess the following, which is extracted from a secondhand book catalogue, and purports to be a complete list of Mr Norman Gale’s works from the beginning. The set may be had for the con- temptibly low figure of 50 guineas net. The envious crowd, livid and green, of authors whose first editions are worth no more than three shillings and sixpence may ask themselves if Mr. Norman Gale’s work is already worth so much, what it will be worth when his nine years of production have become forty-nine. I have seen first editions of a novelist, who shall be nameless, quoted at half-a-crown, and that novelist, I am told, can no longer look into the twopenny box from which of old he has extracted treasures, for fear of find- ing some bid for immortality of his own. Capricious are the gifts of fortune. So young a man—as yet so small a poet—in bulk, I mean— and yet already valued at 50 guineas net ! CoMPLETE Sut oF NORMAN GALE’s WORKS. PRIVATELY PRINTED AND PUBLISHED. Unleavened Bread, 1885 1 Only 4 or 5 copies of each of Primulas and Pansies, 1886 these are known. Marsh Marigolds, 1888, royal 8vo., 60 only printed, numbered, and signed “ Aura.” Anemones, 1890, royal 8vo., 60 only. Meadowsweet, n.p. [1889], pott. 8vo0., 50 only numbered and signed. Thistledown, 1890, pott. 8vo. 40 only, in case, Thistledown Essays, cr. 8vo., LARGE PAPER ed. of above, 22 only numbered and signed, in case. Cricket Songs and other trifling verses, 1890, post 8vo., 80 only. Do. Do. only. Violets, n.p. [1891], pott. 8vo., etching by Herbert Dicksee, 55 only numbered and signed. in case. Violets, cr. 8vo., LARGE PAPER etching in duplicate, 25 only, numbered and signed, in case. Gorillas, n.p. [1891], pott. 8vo., 60 only. Prince Redcheek, N.p. [1891], pott. 8vo., 50 only. Country Muse, 1892, pott. 8yvo., 500 only. Do. do. New series, 1892, post 8vo. Do. do. do. LARGE PAPER, demy ‘8yo. > 75 only. June Romance, 1892, 12mo., 80 only. Do. do. demy 12mo., LARGE PAPER with auto- LARGE PAPER, 20 graph lyric by the author inserted, 23 only numbered and signed, in case. Fellowship in Song, 1893, pott. 8vo., 310 only, in case. Do. do. Large cr. 8vo., LARGE PAPER, 50 only. Orchard Songs, 1893, fep. 8vo. Do. WHATMAN PAPER, 150 only, bound in English vellum. Of the younger American poets we know next to nothing; they do not send their verses to our magazines, only ‘by chance we hear, now and then, of Woodberry, Eugene Field, Gilder, Riley, Louise Chandler Moulton, and so many others, recognised across the water. Now and then one or other of them is kindly and gracefully held up to derision in one or other of our papers; it is seldom that journalist or critic takes the trouble to read American verse, and to treat American poets with courtesy. This is not well done; we should be ready with recognition ; we should even exaggerate recognition, just as we exaggerate the pleasure of receiving a friend. These courtesies are simple things; they may be taken for what they are worth; yet they help to maintain good feeling. This paper is not a review, but one may call attention to things. Now, there is a singer from the Ohio Valley; his name is Piatt; he has gathered his poems together, and has published them in New York and in London. (Idylls of the Ohio Valley. Longman.) Iventure toask of those who read poetry to give consideration to this new comer; a recognition of the qualities in him. There are many kinds of poetry; place him in his class; it is the simpler class which, at its highest, becomes, through its very simplicity, the most subtle; and read him without the pre- judice with which for some reason or other American writers of imagination seem to be generally approached by English critics. I venture to quote a few verses from a poem called “ Sundown ” :— On many a silent circle blown, The hawk, in sun-flushed calm suspended high, With careless trust of might Slides wing wide through the light— Now golden through the restless dazzle shown, Now drooping down, now swinging up the sky. Wind worn along those sunburnt gables old, The barns are full of all the Indian sun, In golden quiet wrought Like webs of dreamy thought, And in their winter shelter safely hold The green year’s earnest promise harvest won, With evening bells that gather low or loud, Some village, through the distance, poplar bound, On meadow silent grown, And lanes with crisp leaves strewn, Lights up one spire, aflame, against a cloud That slumbers eastward, slow and silver crowned. —_—  406 Whether there is promise in the young American poets or not, there is most certainly the richest possible promise in the young English poets—Watson, Le Gallienne, Norman Gale, Francis Thompson, and one or two more—it may be called performance as well as promise, but one would be sorry to think that the little dainty volumes of their verse represent them at their highest and best. At present they are all in the stage of short poems—six pages is the utmost they dare attempt as yet. One would not go so far as to say that the short poem may not be as worthy of a great poet as a long poem; but we want a long poem, if only to revive and encourage and extend the taste for reading poetry. No long poem has been written by any poet younger than Swinburne. Great thoughts come to those who treat of great subjects; to Tennyson, his noblest thoughts came when he meditated upon Death and his lost friends. What great subjects are left? All; because to every generation, every ambition, every passion, every emotion, every suffering is new and fresh, and may be treated by its own poets. The following announcement appeared in the Times of Saturday, March 17 :— Professor John Robert Seeley, M.A., has been made a Knight Commander of the Order of Saint Michael and Saint George. He was educated at the City of London School and Christ’s College, Cambridge, whence he took his degree in 1857, being bracketed with three others at the head of the first class in the classical tripos. He was also Senior Chan- cellor’s Medallist. In the following year he was elected a Fellow of his college, subsequently becoming principal clas- sical assistant at his old school. In 1863 he was appointed to the Professorship of Latin in University College, London, and in 1869 the Queen on the advice of Mr. Gladstone nominated him to the Professorship of Modern History at Cambridge. He was elected to a professorial fellowship at Gonville and Caius College in 1882. It is an open secret that Professor Seeley is the author of ‘“‘Ecce Homo: a Survey of the Life and Work of Jesus Christ,’ which first appeared anonymously in 1865, though 1866 is the date on the title-page. This book caused great excitement at that time among the various Protestant communities, and many replies to it were published. But Professor Seeley has no doubt received the great colonial order as a recognition of his Imperial sympathies. His “Expansion of England,” 1883, has had considerable popularity. Among his other works may be mentioned “ Natural Religion,” 1882, “ Clas- sical Studies as an introduction to the Moral Sciences,” 1864, an edition of Livy, with an introduction and historical examination, 1871, ‘‘ Life and Times of Stein,” 1879, “A Short Life of Napoleon the First,” 1885, and “ Greater Greece and Greater Britain,’ 1887. Professor Seeley has also frequently contributed to various reviews articles on oo method of history and the place of history in educa- on. It is perhaps satisfactory, because every step in advance, however short, is satisfactory, but it is rather humorous, to find a great leader in literature recognised as an equal to the Governor of Tobago, THE AUTHOR. the Premier of Queensland, or the Chief Justice of Turk’s Island. The man who taught the English-speaking race for the first time the meaning of the British Empire; the man who put new life into the chief religion of the world; the man who has laid bare the secret of Germany’s power, confers distinction upon any order that may be bestowed upon him. There is no reason why the greatest men of the country, those to whom the nation owes most, should be appointed to one order more than to another. But when such men are rewarded (?) by such titles, those national distinctions should be bestowed which are considered the highest, and not the lowest. Certainly the name of John Robert Seeley will live long after most of the present Knights of the Garter are forgotten. A note from the Daily Chronicle. It published an estimate, some time ago, of the National Book Bill—two estimates, in fact, by two publishers ; one of these estimates made up the total to £6,250,000; the other to £4,600,000. I am re- minded of these estimates by a statement made in the year 1835 that the book bill of 1833 amounted to £415,300. So that we have multiplied the book bill, taking the larger estimate, by fifteen. Our own population has increased in the same period by 75 per cent., without counting Australia, New Zealand, India, Canada (which does very little for us in books), and the other colonies. The enormous increase in the book bill is due mainly to the spread of education. For one reader in 1833 there are now twenty, and the number increases daily. By such figures as these we may form some conception of what the National Book Bill is likely to become in twenty years. All other professions and callings and trades tend to a smaller income due to increased competition ; the profession of literature alone will become, year after year, greater in position, greater in authority, greater in the prizes—the vast prizes of honour as well as of wealth—which will then belong to the successful. The unsuccessful will always be able to cheer their souls with the fact that popular success is not always given at first to the best writers. Count ToOLSTOI AND HIS PUBLISHERS. ~The Editor of the Daily Chronicle. Srr,—I beg you to find room in your paper for the following declaration. Some years ago a notice was made by me in the Russian Press to the effect that, as I do not consider it right on my part to receive money for my literary work, I therefore grant the right, without any exception or difference, to all who wish to print or reprint, in the original or from translations, in their entirety or in the newspapers, my works that have appeared or are about to appear, commencing from the year 1881.  THE AUTHOR. 407 Notwithstanding this intimation made by the writer, and which has probably not reached the French, English, and German publishers abroad, I frequently receive letters offering to print in journals for a stipulated payment, together with the request to give this or that publishing firm the exclusive right of publishing. There are even instances when certain publishers ascribe to themselves this exceptional right, and contest it with others; as this has now occurred in England between the firms of Heinemann and Walter Scott, and in Germany between publishing firms in Munich and Stuttgart. In view of these misunderstandings, I again declare that I do not give anyone the exclusive, or even the preferential, right of publishing my works, and translating from them—I offer it indiscriminately to all those publishers who find the publication of my works or their translation desirable. Leo To.usTot. Count Tolstoi has a perfect right to do what he pleases with his property. It pleases him to give it to the publishing trade. Perhaps he thinks that he is thus giving it to the world. This is exactly as if the owner of a vineyard at Chateau Lafitte were to give his wine to any merchant who chose to sell it. We are obliged to give our property, after the legal term of copyright, for nothing at all, to publishers. If we give it for nothing before the legal term we may imagine that we are conferring a very magnificent benefit upon the world at large, but we are merely enriching a certain class. Suppose that Count Tolstoi’s work produces, say, £3000 a year, which is the wiser course—to give this money to those who sell the work in order to make them rich, or to use it for some useful purpose? In the former case the Count simply helps forward the very thing against which, as I under- stand it, his teaching is always directed—the accumulation of wealth. In the latter case he might at least alleviate the lot of those whose lives and work have been used up in making others rich—say the company of martyrs who produce literature. For more than two months there has been lying before me a paper cut from the Daily Chronicle on the subject of the cost of printing in Holland. The figures quoted show that printing can be done in Holland at a price far below that estimated in our “Cost of Production.” Very soon after that book was published a Dutch printer called upon our secretary, and stated that he was willing to print as many books as we would give him at a cost of 10 per cent. less than the figures in that book. It has never been the desire of the Society that printing should be cheap—more than any other class, writers should be interested in help- ing all those who work to obtain fair wages, because the circulation of their work depends on the general prosperity, not the enrichment of a few; therefore nothing was said about that Dutchman or his offer. It now appears that he, or some other, has issued a pamphlet in which his prices are placed side by side with those of our estimate. And it is stated, whether rightly or wrongly, that some publishers are sending their books to Holland. Now, we must remember that sending work out of the country means so much lowering of the general prosperity. If a single man is thrown out of work by the sending abroad of the work he should have done at home, that man with his family has to be kept ; he and his arealog; we have to deny ourselves something—a book, perhaps—in order to keep that man and his family alive. The Daily Chronicle suggested that every book so printed should be distinctly marked “ Printed abroad.” I hope that the idea will not be lost. If we could get this done, the next step—to awaken public interest in the matter; to make authors themselves act ; to make book- sellers act—would be easy. I commend the sub- ject to the attention of the Society of Compositors. I think we may safely assure them of the sympathy of all men and women of letters. If there are any who do not agree with me, let them give their reasons. The “unalienable rights of authors” are thus set forth in the New York Writer. The word “author ” is used in a somewhat limited sense for “ contributor to magazines.” American customs are not always our customs. Our editors, as a rule, have no time to make remarks on the pages of MSS., and the request to the postmaster to for- ward would not be of much use here. However, here are the “rights” : (1.) ‘‘ We demand that, when our manuscripts are returned, only the first and last pages shall be crumpled beyond recognition. : (2.) ‘We demand that editors’ memoranda on the margin of our manuscripts shall not be made in indelible ink. (8.) ‘We demand that, when manuscripts are returned after a period of more than fifteen and a half years, the editor shall write on the envelope the words, ‘ Postmaster, please forward.’ : (4.) “We demand that, when manuscripts are published without being acknowledged or paid for, the editors shall return us the stamps which were enclosed in case of rejection. : (5.) “We demand that, when editors desire to add material to our contributions, they shall give themselves credit for the addition over their own names. (6.) “We demand that, when editors desire to cut out portions of our articles before publication, they shall insert the word ‘ Mutilated’ immediately under the title.” The “Decay of Literature’? was sure to form the subject of an article in some magazine in March ; it was due; there had not been, so far as I know, any paper on the subject for at least three months. Mr. Joseph Ackland has filled up the place in the Nineteenth Century. He shows that literature is in decay by an unexpected 408 argument. It is, briefly, this: that there has been a decline, in certain directions, of output during the last ten years; or, if not a decline absolute, then a check to the increase of the out- put. Fiction alone is the exception; and, in fiction, there has been a smaller percentage of new editions—therefore, he contends, a falling off in quality. This, I think, is a fair statement of his case. But, first of all, he has not made any attempt to show what number of copies have con- stituted the editions recorded. Now, it is quite certain that during the last twenty years the first edition of every book which is certain to be success- ful has grown larger—it is evident that the publisher saves greatly if he can safely produce a large edition at one time. Without this informa- tion statistics and figures are practically worthless. Again, the complaint has always been that the output is too large, including, as it undoubtedly does, a vast quantity of rubbish which ought never to have been published at all. The un- fortunate authors pay for them; nobody buys any copies; the books sink, and are forgotten as soon as they are born; they appear in the lists, and are recorded in the Publishers’ Circular side by side with a novel by Hardy or Meredith. These books ought to be subtracted from the list; this done, the apparent increase in fiction would disappear. But, indeed, we ought to protest in the strongest terms against an estimate of Literature based on the number of books produced, or on the books bought, or on the books offered to the public. These things have nothing to do with the advance or the decay of literature. That must be estimated by the lterary value and importance of the works produced, not by their numbers. For instance, in Poetry, which everybody puts first, we have, besides a great number of minor poets, the living names of Alfred Austin, Edwin Arnold, Austin Dobson, Edmund Gosse, Richard le Gallienne, Lewis Morris, William Morris, Swinburne, William Watson, Mrs. Webster. In History of all kinds we have Lecky, Seeley, Froude, Bryce, Gardiner, Fraser, Stubbs, Creighton, Bright. In Criticism we have John Morley and Leslie Stephen. In Fiction we have Barrie, Black, Blackmore, Doyle, Hall Caine, Stevenson, Haggard, Hardy, Payn, Rudyard Kipling, Mrs. Oliphant, Mrs. Humphry Ward, Mrs. Lynn Linton, and a great many others. While these men and women write and live, it cannot be said that literature is in decay. Never before have there been so many writers living at the same time so much above the average, so likely to endure with that limited extension of life which is granted to those who do well, yet fall short of the best, which endures for ever. WaLterR BESANT. THE AUTHOR. THE RULERS OF MANKIND, Pee the National Review, by permission of the author. What though the Sword, incarnadined and crowned, Yoke to its car the servile feet of Fate, What though the sophist Senate’s pompous prate Engross the hour, and shake the world with sound, Their carnal conquests can at best but found Some tinsel-towering transitory State On force or fraud, whose summits, soon or late, Fresh fraud or force will level with the ground. It is the silent eremitic mind, Immured in meditation long and lone, Lord of all knowledge while itself unknown, And in its cloister ranging unconfined, That builds Thought’s time-long universal throne, And with an unseen sceptre rules Mankind. ALFRED AUSTIN. ees: FEUILLETON. Tue Critic’s Dream. E was no insignificant critic. He repre- H sented one of the great dailies, and thought he represented the taste of Great Britain—a not uncommon failing of critics. He had in his day slaughtered more budding authors than any other half-dozen ordinary critics, and had showered more fulsome flattery on the recog- nised favourites of the boards than even the actor, who has a capacious gullet for praise, could conscientiously swallow; indeed, until the great Thespians read the greater critic’s eulogistic articles, they had no idea what sublime artists they were. With the recognised dramatists it was the same—our critic possessing a marvellous appreciation of the recognised. They were all geniuses, every man of them, with a subtlety of thought which only a great critic could properly elucidate ; though, and this was hard from him, and one of those things which never met with their entire approbation, he not infrequently chided them on their seeming lack of originality. Not that they really lacked it, only they were apt to grow careless if not kept up to the mark; and as the fate of the British drama lay entirely in his hands, he never neglected his duty. But with the novice at playwriting it was different. In him the lack of originality was obviously the result of a barren mind, and on _ the presumptuous offender’s head was poured the vials of the great man’s wrath. For to this liberal axiom had he clung tenaciously: That the use of stock motives and situations by a beginner was little less than a criminal offence, while the same act, perpetrated by an expert, became a remarkable exposition of ingenious stage craft. THE AUTHOR. The great critic was perturbed as he entered his club that afternoon. He had been to a matinée —of all things in the world! It was not often he went—he had more respect for himself ; and yet he was, according to his own account, a student of the drama. From which it might be gathered that he did not think unknown authors wrote drama. For how could there be drama without financial success? And yet he wasa student of the drama, and a serious one, too. If not, why had he gone to this matinée, why had he actually condescended to sit out a new play by an unknown author, in which there was no popular actor-manager, not even a society lady making her first appearance? How he came to do such an absurd thing he could not imagine. He was almost ashamed to be seen entering the doors, for his unfailing instinct told him that the affair would prove a deplorable fiasco. In fact, he expected such; he went with the idea of seeing such; he would have been annoyed had he not seen it. And yet he wasa man without preju- dice of any kind. He was troubled when he entered the gloomy little playhouse. He looked about for the familiar faces of his brother slaughterers ; but with one or two exceptions—earnest students like himself—they had all sent representatives. This angered him not a little. He felt as though he had been imposed upon; cheated in some way. He was decidedly out of place in such poor company. The music irritated him, and the happy chatter of a light-hearted woman just behind him sent the cold shivers down his back. Yes ; somebody should smart presently for all this annoyance. If he was troubled when he entered the theatre, he was more troubled when he came out. The play had gone with a roar of approbation from beginning to end. No ominous hiss, no discord of any kind had marred the success of the after- noon. Artists and author were called and cheered enthusiastically, which enthusiasm angered the critic immeasurably. ‘‘ Friends,” he muttered, as he wrathfully jammed his hat down over his eyes, “all friends. It means nothing.”’ In the vestibule everybody was talking of the play, and, what was worse, everybody seemed delighted. ‘‘ By George,” said one man to another, ‘it’s one of the cleverest plays I’ve ever seen.” The critic glared at the imprudent speaker. How could men delight in proclaiming their ignorance to the world? The critic dashed out into the street, the cheers of the audience ringing in his hears. He was quite auvxious to put his pen to paper. “ Among those whom the burlesque poet placed upon his list as being of no concern to 409 man, whatever they may be to the angels, we should be inclined to add the matinée author.” Then he dropped his pen and stared vacantly at the words, not that what he saw struck him as being rude, vulgar, or beside the mark. On the contrary, he thought it rather clever ; an induce- ment to his jaded readers to read on. But would it do? The play did go well, there was no doubt of that, and if it had been by a man of recognised position it would have been extremely funny. But could he really overlook the faulty construc- tion here and there, the occasional want of taste ? And yet, confound it! he had never seen a play, even by his especial pets, which he thought perfect in every way. Hang it, he was hardly fair to the novice. As for the questionable taste —were not the things he objected to the very ones which the audience laughed most heartily over? Everything was not as it should be in this best of all possible worlds. And, not a little agitated, he gazed at the sarcastic sentence which was to head his article, and as he looked the words began to run one into the other. His vision grew feeble; he dozed. And this was his dream. He was in a theatre—a huge theatre, compared with which his beloved Drury Lane was a band- box—and in some inexplicable manner he was acting one of his own plays ; one of those grand works which, notwithstanding his high position, he could get no manager to accept. But the most curious, the most terrible thing about the whole business was that he had to play every part him- self, for not one of the actors whom he had so assiduously coached had put in an appearance. He struggled bravely, to be sure, remembering what he was; but neither his courage nor his modesty met with a proper appreciation, for the audience laughed itself into hysterics over the fustian he had written. and, to make matters worse, there were his confréres in the stalls abso- lutely dying of laughter. He groaned in spirit as he thought of the morrow, for he knew that only in one paper might he hope for praise. But ere his groans had passed with his fustian into oblivion, there was a sudden, an awful, rustling of wings, and out from the dark places of the pit and upper galleries trouped the ghosts of all the plays that he kad damned—a legion of grinning, gibbering imps. And they bore in their midst a huge cauldron, into which one, the Spirit of Ambitious Tragedy, bade our criticlook. And he looked, but seeing nothing but a thick black liquid, he cried out ‘“‘ What is this?’ ‘The ink you have wasted,” said the spirit grimly. The critic shivered. He liked not the malicious look in that demon’s eyes, nor did he feel one whit more com- fortable when the spirit handed him a huge iron 410 ladle, saying, in a terrible voice, “Stir!” With trembling fingers the critic seized the ladle and stirred, and as he did so he saw that in the bottom of the cauldron lay an evil, foul-smelling pulp, which, in some indefinite way, seemed strangely familiar to him. “What is it?’’ he gasped, “What do you call it?” The Spirit of the Ambitious Tragedy fixed his malicious eyes upon him. ‘ Rubbish!” he said in his grim way. “The paper you have spoiled.”” The critic broke out into a violent perspiration. “ What do you want?” he murmured feebly, seeing a menace in the demon’s eye. A malicious smile curved the spirit’s lips. “Eat,” he said, “and drink.” “What, eat my own words,” cried the indignant critic, “never!” Then at a sign from their leader the demons began to dance round the stubborn one, pricking him with the sharp points of pen and pencil, while all the theatre—the whole world it seemed to him—laughed like a mad thing at the highly humorous spectacle. He tried to break away from his tormentors, but they hemmed him in on every side, and when he used force those pens and pencils suddenly grew more terrible than bayonets. He raised the ladle, and amid fiendish shrieks of delight filled his mouth with the odious stu He awoke with a start, in an agony of perspi- ration. But there was a splendid notice of the play in the next issue of the great daily, and the public gave him the credit of discovering a new dramatist. W. C.D. ee: DANTE’S LIBERTY. “La cradelta che fuor mi serra Del bell’ovile ov’ro dormii agnello.” Par, xxv. 4-5. Poet, who mountest where the fixed stars burn, Can e’en their glory, e’en thy lady’s smile Thy soaring spirit still not quite beguile, To thoughts of Florence mustit ever turn, On threshold e’en of highest Heaven yearn To enter once again 8. John’s dear aisle ? Florence, who gave the anguish and exile And Heaven’s greatest gift in scorn did spurn. Oh! princely poet-patriot, hadst thou not When wandering still the stars, the rolling sea ? * Was not thine exile a more blessed lot Than that of slaves who sell their liberty ; If scorned by those whom envy had begot Did not thy spirit soar sublime and free P NoRLEY CHESTER. *See Dante’s Epis. V. THE AUTHOR. 80-80 SOCIOLOGY. (Continued from p. 159.) 110, = LL is fair in love;” all that’s foul is always only licence. 111. Only the wisest can best value the weeds and the wastes. 112. Opportunity is the masculine of capacity. 113. Peace helps the vegetable which helps Man to consume the mineral. 114. War helps the mineral which helps the vegetable to devour Man. 115. Progeny is an epitome of ancestry. 116. The greatest imbecile, and the most hopeful, is the infant. 117. Man less prefers proof of truth than truth of preference. 118. Vanity is the lieutenant of vacuity. 119. Who look(s) for souls in corpses would seek for love in gold. 120. Love is singular in principle and plural in practice. 121, Self-concentration sometimes passes for self-consecration. ; 122. The mind’s moods may be judged by the voice’s tenses. 123. Accent is an accident of life; voice, a voucher of soul. 124. Tact is virtue or vice, according to sym- pathy or treachery. 125. Modern beauty is a lineal descendant of ancient expediency. 126, Correction is not a matter of contradiction but of co-operation. 127. As saint to sinner, so is conscience to conceit. 128. Instinct guesses; insight guides. 129. Sects are conic sections of the one solid, with smallest atop. 130. The soul prays; the self preys. 131. Time can heal nothing, but (re-)growth in time may heal all things. 132. Imagination grows with insight; phan- tasy goes with short-sight. 133. Every soul has a “ dark continent,” with unknown wealth within. 134. Venom is a weapon of the dwarf, the savage, and the weakling. 135. Time can no more heal everything than space cure anything. 136. Divorced from love, the offspring of truth is only bastard. 137. Aspiration meets with inspiration, when Man aspires aright. 138. The priest is blessing or curse, according as he is minister or master. 139. Form is the fetich, of which reform is the faith.  THE 140 There would be no crime, were there no rivalry. PHINLAY GLENELG. Dos CORRESPONDENCE. I.—No REMUNERATION. T may interest some of your readers to know I that, having been asked by the Imperial and Asiatic Quarterly Review to contribute an article to that periodical, I took the precaution of inquiring about remuneration, concerning which nothing was said in the application. In reply I was informed: “I cannot hold out to you the attraction of an honorarium. ie We shall, however, be very glad, as a slight acknowledgment of your trouble, to place a hundred or more pamphlet reprints of your article at your disposal, and also, if you like to have the Review, to place you on our free list for this year.” I have suggested to my correspondent that he should at least treat professional writers as I suppose he would treat his grocer if, when ordering a pound of tea, he desired to be perfectly straightforward and yet not to pay for the goods. Of course he might not get the tea. Certainly he has not got my article. The Review is a fat budget of 240 pages or thereabouts, costing 5s. net, and purporting to have existed since 1886. Some of its contents, strange to say, appear to possess a value u.stinctly above that which, by implication, the editor attaches to them. W. L. C. I..—Merir anp Succszss. Is merit the only passport to literary success ? Tell me this, my masters. Is merit when it belongs to an isolated being in the country, with- out a single friend at court—is it then a passport to success? Ah! me, I fear not ; no matter what your answer may be. I fear it to be a case of not known not read. ForI do not forget how one of the most popular lady novelists of the day horrified me in my room at the beginning of the year by the utterance of these words: “ Mr. —-” (the Editor of a magazine now grown historic in the literary world) “ never reads a single MS. sent to him, unless he knows some- thing of the writer!’’ Is merit, I say, the only passport to success, GzroreE, Moruey. Leamington. III.—EquipMeENtT. May I answer question 8, at p. 376 of the Author for March 1? Ido not admit that he dare is “ present and AUTHOR. 411 past.” It is in the same case as “ he can ” and “ he could.” That is to say, the correct forms are “he dare”’ and “he durst.” In cases of difficulty, consult a good grammar, As to dare, see Mason’s ‘Shorter English Grammar,” 1879, sect. 243; Morris’s ‘“‘ Historical Outlines of English Grammar,” sect. 299; Sweet’s “ Short Historical English Grammar,” sect. 719. Or learn a little Anglo-Saxon. Water W. SKeEat. ee IV.—PERIODICALS FOR THE Discussion oF OLD AND ForeotTren Books. It would be interesting to know whether the following are all the periodicals that have been published relating to old and forgotten books: The British Librarian, edited by Oldys, ap- peared monthly from Jan. to June 1737. He was librarian to the Earl of Oxford—Robert Harley— and wrote the rather well-known song, “ Busy, curious, thirsty Fly.” The Librarian, by James Savage, of the London Institution, ran from July 1808 to Dec. 1809, being published monthly. The British Bibliographer is in 4 vols., 1810-14, edited by Sir Samuel Egerton Brydges, “a man to all the book tribe dear,’ and Joseph Haslewood. The Retrospective Review, edited, I think, by Sir Egerton Brydges, ran from 1820 to 1826 (14 vols.), and then again appeared in 1828, when 2 vols. only were issued. HERBERT C. FYFE. V.—ANOTHER COINCIDENCE. Some time ago I submitted to the editor of a certain paper a suggestion for a series of bio- graphical articles of well-known actors and actresses, the articles to be short, about four to a column each week, and inclosed the MSS. of the first four. The editor very courteously wrote me saying that he had himself already contemplated a similar series, and about a fortnight after he commenced them exactly on my lines, and headed his first column with the name of one of the four subjects I had submitted to him. In the mean- time I suggested the idea to the editor of another paper, who rather curtly replied “ that he did not think it at all suitable to his columns.” Mark the result! Very shortly after the appearance of the first in the first paper, the second editor follows suit with an almost identical series, and is immediately pounced upon by the first editor, and severely admonished for stealing its “thunder.” Meanwhile I le low and smile. GO. H.R, 412 VI.—< Tue Youne Person.” The other day the review of a story issued by a first class firm, concluded as follows: ‘‘ This is not a book for the young person.” Did that reviewer realise how many “young persons,” would read that review, and perhaps make a note of that book for purchase; and also, how fully every moral phrase is now presented in _litera- ture, and how the tendency of writers to invest stories with interest by the “frailties,” alias the silliness or immorality, of married women, is increasing ? Ican just now recall three stories by popular authors in high class Christmas numbers whose interest turned on these points. These reach most “ young persons,’ and can be bought at all bookstalls. The fear is that such a remark from a reviewer will open the ‘‘ young person’s ” purse for the forbidden thing, and the pungent incident so freely handled, her mind, too, to a pre- ference for the Edith rather than the Alice Dombey of life. No moral was pointed in any of these stories, they were presented as naturally to-be-accepted situations, and, depicted as they now are, in ostensibly “high tone” magazines and literature, it seems best not to draw further attention to them by forbidding them, as the well meant, but curiosity-rousing and suggestive con- demnation of a reviewer can do. Do reviewers know how few girls are now guided to their reading ; does he realise that the bookstall and the drawing room both present all literature to the ‘young person.” ‘There are still girls in the world who would not foresee or relish the “something up” between an Edith Dombey and a Mr. Carson, but the tendency is by liberal fiction and desultory reading to foster a disdain for the “mild” as childish. This increases the necessity for personal moral decision, and from that there surely springs the critical faculty which gives equal safety and interest to the reading of—for instance, “ Le Roman du Mariage,” or ‘‘ Home- spun.” Mary Exiz. Stevenson. VII.—Succress anp REwarp, Until quite lately Mr. A. was one of the proprietors of a weekly journal which has since changed hands. There have appeared in the journal from time to time different series of articles, more or less technical in subject, but popular in style, which have afterwards been published as shilling books. In this form they _ have had, and are still having, a large sale. There are, perhaps, ten or a dozen of these books alto- gether; all have done well, and one has gone through three editions of 50,000 copies each. They have for years been producing an excellent income, and £10,000 is now asked for the copy- THE AUTHOR. rights. How much. does anyone suppose, has been received by their authors? Guess! For serial rights as well as copyright? In no case more than £20, and in one case only £5. I state these facts on the authority of Mr. A. himself. Will any publisher come forward and say that he considers this fair business? Legally it can be justified, but what about equity? Of course, nothing can be done for an author who has sold his work outright, no matter how ridiculously low the price. He has made his bargain, and must abide by it. But it is just such a case as this which shows the need of the Society, for one of its chief objects is to give authors some idea of the value of literary property. Mr. A. admitted to me that the fairest arrangement was a sliding- scale royalty—a royalty increasing as sales increased. Having retired from the business himself, he gives this opinion gratuitously to other publishers. VITI.—Anotuer Journatistic Jornt Srock Company. I have another experience to relate. Being desirous of writing fora weekly journal, of which six or seven numbers had appeared, I called upon the editor, whom I shall always esteem for his kindness and urbanity; and I entirely absolve him from any blame in relation to after events. My first contribution was accepted. I called again, and suggested a series of original prose articles of a satirical nature. I wrote one, which was duly published, and afterwards arranged for their continuance at a fair price. Things pro- ceeded merrily. The composition of my articles was an exceeding great joy to me; my verses may have been bitter, but their melody was sweet. In course of time, I sent in my account, with a polite request for a cheque. I waited a few days. I received no reply. I wrote, called, and continued in patience, and I worked at my satirical articles and bitter poems, and sent in my copy with scrupulous regularity. I had inter- views with the business manager, an Irishman with a smiling aspect, who promised:me a cheque as soon as the directors of the company met, but somehow or other these personages could not get up a quorum. One or two of them was always away shooting or fishing, or otherwise enjoying themselves. At last I, with other contributors, received a small cheque on account, which was consolatory, but hardly satisfactory. Then a dreadful interregnum of soliciting, hoping, and waiting ensued, and I had almost considered the balance due to me as a bad debt, when happily I was disabused of this idea. I learned that the chairman of the company was a gentleman of position and reputed wealth; a proprietor of  THE AUTHOR. 413 other papers. When I heard this, a sense of confidence and security possessed me. There was surely hope in the future for a journal with an eminent chairman of such assured financial position. My doubts and fears were swept aside. T had no misgivings as the weeks sped on without my receiving a cheque. And when one morning I was notified to attend at the office of the paper. I was still not im the least discon- certed. It was only when I was actually asked to sign a paper accepting ten shillings in the pound for my debt that I was puzzled. More- over, on being assured that fresh capital would be raised, and that contributors would in future be paid weekly, I signed that paper, being con- soled with the proverb of half a loaf being “better than no bread. The dénouement can be guessed: The fresh capital turned out a myth, and the journal died a lingering death. In the meantime, however, the chairman of his own accord remitted ten shillings in the pound to the contributors. Of course he need not have done this. There was no legal liability on his part. But I maintain he was morally responsible to them. LuUNeEtteE. TX.—* For tHe Encouragement or Epirors AND THE ADVANCEMENT oF Goop LiITERA- TURE.” I and a few other unrecognised geniuses have arrived at the conclusion—based upon a careful examination of the contents of the hghter maga- zines—that the magazine editors have gone out on strike, and have left the work of rejection and selection to be arranged by the contributors themselves, who, judging by the poor quality of their work, must be shareholders or other influen- tial persons. The aforenamed spirits and myself, having read the short stories which had gained approval in the magazines for this month, afterwards proceeded to read our own rejected MSS. Well, Sir, I must say, without undue vanity, that no unprejudiced person could pos- sibly refuse to admit the superiority of ow? un- published masterpieces. I therefore wish, with your co-operation, to suggest a plan for educating editors. Will you, Sir, favour some talented but impecunious beings with a vacant room at the Authors’ Club? Here we will reverse the usual method, which I believe prevails with your members, of reading the MSS. of successful writers, and, instead, read to one another and to any appreciative American or other millionaires, our rejected MSS. If editors, who will be charged a small fee—in revenge for unstamped returned MSS.—do not blush and feel staggered when they learn what wit, brilliancy, humour, and even genius they have despised, then there is no hope for English fiction. In any case, I fear there isn’t much. I sign myself, Sir, not, I hope, inappropriately, Movesty anp TALEnt. Se “AT THE SIGN OF THE AUTHOR'S HEAD.” HE new Library Edition of Chaucer, in six volumes, edited by Prof. Skeat, and published by the University of Oxford, is in course of publication. Vol. IL, contaiming a Life of Chaucer, the Romaunt of the Rose, and the Minor Poems, has already appeared. Vol. II. will contain the translation of Boethius (the first modern edition, with notes), and Troilus and Cresseyde, with introductions and a full apparatus of notes, and will probably appear in April. Mrs. Lynn Linton’s new novel, ‘The One Too Many,” has passed almost directly into a second edition, having received high praise from all the leading reviews. It is dedicated to the “ sweet girls still left among us who have no part in the new revolt, but are content to be dutiful, inno- cent, and sheltered.” Our own impression is that the book is as much aimed at the folly of some parents as at the want of refinement in the smoking, spirit - drinking, evil-speaking, and emancipated person who, accordmg to Mrs. Linton, is the product of the higher female education. It is curious that the title should be almost synonymous with that of another novel, “A Superfluous Woman,” which has also passed into its second edition, but which treats of the position and duties of womenin greater sympathy with the emancipating process. The two novels have one special point in common. In each a girl with every opportunity of choosing her friends in her own sphere forms an attachment with a man in a lower station of life. Major Seton Carr has added to his other books, warning the inexperienced against national vices, a volume dealing with betting and gambling. The main idea, so far as the remedy for the evil is concerned, is that we must not look to legisla- tion, but to the growth of public opinion, which will discountenance and suppress gambling in the same way as duelling was suppressed. Mr. Joseph Hatton’s new novel is to be called “The Banishment of Jessop Blythe.” It is an English story. The exile is driven out from a community of workmen. The love story of his daughter is the chief motif of the novel; but there is a strong underlying plot with a murder in it, and the scene of it is a romantic bit of the 414 North at present some miles beyond railways. It is a story of to-day, though the strange commu- nity from which Jessop Blythe is banished is of ancient origin and more or less socialistic in its laws and regulations. Like most of Mr. Joseph Hatton’s novels, the forthcoming story has been written for Messrs. Tillotson’s newspaper syndi- cate, and the first chapters will be published in October. The novel will not appear in three- volume form until next year, thus giving plenty of time for securing copyright in America. In addition to the publication of ‘‘ By Order of the Czar,” in Swedish, one of Mr. Hatton’s earliest successes, ‘‘Clytie,” is being translated into the same language for immediate publication. It had already been published in Germany as the feuilleton of the North German Gazette, and in two volumes. Tt is not often that a provincial paper has to make a move into London. This fortunate event has happened in the case of Chat, a weekly paper published at Portsmouth under the editorship of Mr. F. J. Proctor, author of “Timothy Twills’s Secret,” “Richard, I.: a Drama,’ &c. The pub- lishing office will now be at 68, Fleet-street, as well as at Portsmouth. « Ancient Ships,” by Cecil Torr (Cambridge University Press), is the first instalment of a great work treating on the shipping of the Medi- terranean for 2000 years, viz., from 1000 B.c. to 1000 A.D. Archeologists may note that this is a book where they will find all that can be learned in the manner of the ancient ship. Mr. W. P. James has issued, under the title of “ Romantic Professions,” a volume of essays con- tributed by him to Macmillan and Blackwood’s magazines. Our readers may remember a novel published some six or seven years ago, called “ Jack Urqu- hart’s Daughter,” which was a distinct success. The author, Miss Young, has again brought out a novel with the title ‘Needs Must,” which is being widely read. We have seen more than one review which, while praising the work, has been cruel enough to tell the story. We will only say here that the book ought to have been called “The Green Diamond” in spite of Mr. Justin MacCarthy’s latest success with ‘‘ Red Diamonds.” Those who have been interested in the article on Signor Crispi in the March number of the Fortnightly Review will be glad to be reminded of a small volume, “ Comedy and Comedians in Polities by the Comtesse Hugo.” In it they will find a good deal of light thrown on the position of Crispi and his popularity with the Italian public, the author having been so much behind THE AUTHOR. the scenes that it became necessary for her to leave Italy and take refuge in England. Mrs. Edith Cuthell’s new novel, “ A Baireuth Pilgrimage,” a story of the Wagner Festival, will shortly be issued in two volumes by Messrs, Sampson Low, Marston, and Co. The same author’s yachting story called “The : Wee Widow’s Cruise,” will also be published shortly by Messrs. Ward and Downey. Mrs. Alfred Marks’ new work is to be pub. lished early in April. Itis entitled “Thorough,” and it deals with the Irish Rebellion of 1641, The publishers are Messrs. Richard Bentley and Son. Mr. George Halse, author of ‘‘ Weeping Ferry,” will shortly bring out a new novel, in three volumes, entitled ‘‘ Phil Hathaway’s Failures.” It will be published by Messrs. Henry and Co. Under the title of ‘“ Poet’s Parables,” the Rey. Frederick Langbridge, of §S. John’s Rectory, Limerick, proposes to issue a collection of poems, chiefly narrative, of spiritual and moral sug- gestion. Mr. Langbridge would feel greatly obliged to any correspondent who would kindly direct his attention to legendary or allegoric poems lying outside the beaten track. The first of a series of The Annabel Gray library, at cheap and popular prices, entitled “The Ghosts of the Guard Room,” a tale of military life, will appear immediately. “The People’s Family Prayer Book,” by Dr. Joseph Parker, of the City Temple, tos. 6d. (Simpkin, Marshall, and Co.) is announced as entering its fourth thousand. Hach prayer is one page long, and in very large type. Messrs. Sampson Low, Marston, and Co. have just issued another thousand copies of “The Way they Loved at Grimpet,” by E. Rentoul Esler. The reception accorded to this book should encourage those who, having no press connec- tions, despair of generous praise in the reviews. It would be impossible for criticism to be more kindly cordial, more universally eulogistic than in the case of this little volume of village idyls. “Nature, Wild Sport, and Humble Life - (Longmans), by Mr. Austin Trevor Battye, is another of the books on the outdoor life and what one can see who has eyes in his head, of which there have been so many lately. There is plenty of room for all; none of them copy or imitate those who have gone before; nature is inex- haustible. In this volume the title of the “Procession of Spring” may seem to be an imitation of Jefferies’ “ Pageant of Summer,” but the treatment is different. The author says 1  THE AUTHOR. his preface: “I have tried to mirror something of the many-sided life of Nature where it beats through the seasons in this and other lands. I have tried, too, to keep touch with an influence there is out of doors, comparable with that of the beautiful in art, but deeper reaching, wider, finer.” ec WHAT THE PAPERS SAY. Tue Narron’s NeGLect OF THE COPYRIGHT Law. HE failure of a good law has a new and striking illustration in the almost total paralysis of the copyright law. If any- thing on our statute books has ever been more completely nullified by neglect in carrying it out we should like to know it. We have not the least reference to a party in power or out of power. Both parties united in passing the new copyright law three years ago, and both parties are responsible for neglecting it. Having been enacted, it seems to have been supposed that this law was endowed with automatic functions. Its very existence seems to have dropped out of the memory of our rulers. The scheme of the copyright law is twofold—it records the title of a book before publication, and it requires the forwarding of two copies of each work to the Librarian of Congress before or on the day of publication. Now it is of the utmost importance that the title be recorded at Washing- ton before the book is published or a copy sold. In fact, unless this is done the copyright is not worth its weight in an old patent-office report, for the reason that the record of a title after publication would indicate that the publisher has issued his book without authority of law. The publisher is interested in carrying out the law to the letter. Unless he does it, his book is not protected. Here comes in the sad condition of things. The Washington office, through no failure on the part of the Librarian of Congress, but through the inadequacy of means at his command for purely clerical force, ties the publisher hand and foot. A New York house, for example, has long had a book in hand, and is now ready to publish. The title is in the hands of the Librarian of Congress. He sends on his two copies for the Congressional Library. But suppose he gets no word that his title has been received. What is he to do? Possibly his letter has been lost, and in his un- certainty he writes again, and once more sends on his title. No answer still. Often months elapse before he receives any answer to his application for the privilege to publish. In the 415 large volume of business in the field of copyright mistakes must occur. But as the law is at present administered it is next to impossible to even learn of them, much less to correct them. In one case we know of, where the question was the renewal of a copyright about to expire, the record of renewal did not reach the publisher until about five months after the application had been mailed in New York. Thus the new term of copyright was impaired, if not entirely destroyed, because it was not practicable to advertise within the time required by the statute. Such is the deplorable fact. How shall we account for it? Why is it about as useless for a publisher to write to the copyright office in Washington as it would be to address his letter, properly registered, to the fifth satellite of Jupiter? The story at the Washington end of the line is soon told. It seems to have been entirely forgotten to provide enough clerical help to conduct the business. Since the international copyright law was enacted the business has been multiplied. But the Librarian of Congress, in whose hands the entire business of registry is placed, has been granted but one additional clerk. Until three years ago there were no arrears known in the office, but now they are alarmingly large. Of course it is to be inferred that the office must pay its own expenses, and that the want of sufficient clerical force arises from the meagre income from copyright fees. But precisely the contrary is the fact. Not only does the office receive enough fees to provide clerical help, but a large slice of the income goes into the general Treasury of the United States. From the reports of the Librarian of Congress we learn that the Treasury received in 1891 38,000 dollars from copyright fees alone. In 1892 this sum ran up to 44,000 dollars, and in 1893 it was still larger. Fewer than thirteen clerks do the whole work. The surplus of revenue in the copyright office goes to—what shall we say t—the dredging of worthless streams, paying indemnities to Peruand Italy for our own lawlessness, and to the thousand and one open mouths which feed upon the bread from the government table. Great is the benefi- cence of literature! But who ever heard of the fees which publishers pay into the General Treasury for the privilege of publishing books going to support the expenses of the United States government ? Whatever may be said of the inability of our great departments to support themselves, here is one—that of copyright—which not only pays its own way, but aids in keeping the wolf from the door of its elephantine companions.—Harper’s Weekly.  416 THE BowpD.LeERIsing THE British Museum. There must be a short Act to prevent the British Museum from being bowdlerised. Mrs. Martin has laid her finger upon a defect or an ambiguity in the powers of the trustees of the national library; and whatever be the legal effect of the findings of the jury yesterday, no time should be lost in making another such an action as Mrs. Martin’s impossible. . More important than the personal question—though Mrs. Martin has a perfect right, not to be grudged her, to clear herself from all calumnies against her—is that nothing shall be done to lessen the utility of the national library for this generation and generations to come, and to insure that it shall continue to be a comprehensive collection of the literature of the world. It would bea national misfortune if the museum ceased to act as it has done on the maxim Nihil humani alienum; and we look to Parliament to make it clear that the trustees are not expected to exercise the impossible due diligence in which the jury have found them wanting.— Times. A Tutne to Note. Although copyright with the United States has so long been established, there are many things that still render it incomplete. The agents of the American publishing houses are not given a free hand, but have always to communicate with their principals upon literary business, which causes great loss of time. A young—and, let us hope, rismg—author complains not only of this, but that much discourtesy is shown in the delay of replies—beyond even what is necessary— to offers from this country. ‘Though they may not want my book,’ he pathetically remarks, “they need not keep me on tenterhooks when all that it would ‘cost them to relieve my mind is twopence-halfpenny (exactly).”’ Such conduct is, of course, very rude, but, it seems, is not without reason, for he adds: ‘“ I am afraid this silence is sometimes designed, as more than once when I have failed in getting an American publisher, the very house that has turned a deaf ear to my offer has afterwards brought out my book without paying for it. This is a sad story, but I venture to think my correspondent has not been dealing with first-class houses.—Jamrs Payn (Jilustrated London News). . ea: AUTHOR. NEW BOOKS AND NEW EDITIONS. Theology. ANNOTATED PARAGRAPH BIBLE. New Edition. R.T.S. 285. CHOLMONDELEY, Ruy. F. G. 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The Solicitors’ Law Stationery Society Limited. Cuzaver, H. P., anp RoHRWEGER F. Parochial Assess- ment Rules. Hadden, Best, and Co. Happan, Rearnaup. The Inventor's Adviser. Harrison. and Sons. Newspo.t, FRANK. Sale of Goods Act, 1893, with Notes. Sweet and Maxwell Limited. Ricwarps, H. C. The Candidates’ and Agents’ Guide in Contested Elections. Second edition. Jordan and Sons. 2s. 6d. Smirn, James Water. The Law of Bills, Cheques, Notes, and I.0.U.’s. Entirely rewritten. Effingham,, Wilson, and Co. ts. 6d. Tur Reports of Cases in all the English Superior Courts. January, 1894. Edited by John Mews. Sweet and Maxwell Limited. Witson, R. Denny. The Law of Trustees, new and The Investment of Trust Funds. Effingham, Wilson, and. revised edition. Is. Third and revised edition. Co. ts. Educational. Greaves, Joun. A Treatise on Elementary Hydrostatics.. The Cambridge University Press. 5s. Tranr1an Lessons, with exercises. Cassell and Co. Limited. 3. Od. tensa Cuartes G. Elementary Metal Work: a. practical manual for amateurs, and for use in schools. Tllustrations. Whittaker and Co. Morison, BR. C. H. Chambers’s Elocution, Selections. New edition. W. and R. Chambers Limited. 2s. 6d. i :  ‘ ADVERTISEMENTS. 419 The Society of Authors (Sncorporated). PRESIDENT. GHEORGHE MERE DITE,. COUNCIL. Sir Epwin ARnoxp, K.C.LE., 0.8.1. ALFRED AUSTIN. J. M. Barrig. A. W. A Becker. RoBERT BATEMAN. Str Henry Berene, K.C.M.G. WALTER BESANT. AUGUSTINE BIRRELL, M.P. Rey. Pror. Bonney, F.R.S. Ricut Hon. James Bryce, M.P. Haut Carne. EGERTON CAsTLe, F.S.A. P. W. CLAYDEN. EDWARD CLODD. W. Morris Cones. Hon. JoHNn Courier. W. Martin Conway. F. Marion CRAWFORD. OswaLD CRAWFURD, C.M.G. EpMUND GOSSE. THomas Harpy. J. M. Ley. THE Eart or DESART. Austin Dogson. A. Conan Doyuz, M.D. A. W. Dusoure. J. Eric EricuHseEn, F.R.S. Pror. MicHaren Fostsr, F.R.S. Ricgut Hon. HERBERT GARDNER, M.P. RicHarp Garnett, LL.D. H. RipER HaGGAarpD. JERomME K. JEROME. RupYARD KIPLING. Pror. E. Ray LANKESTER, F.R.S. Rev. W. J. Lortiz, F.S.A. Pror. Max-MULuerr. Pror. J. M. D. MEIKLEJOHN. Herman C. MERIVALE. Rev. C. H. MippLeETON- WAKE. Lewis Morris. J.C. PARKINSON. Tue Ear or PEMBROKE AND Mont- GOMERY. Str FREDERICK PouLock, BArt., LL.D. WALTER HERRIES POLLOCK. A. G. Ross. GEORGE AUGUSTUS SALA. W. BapristE SCOONES. G. R. Sms. S. Squrre SPRIGGE. J. J. STEVENSON. Jas. SULLY. WitiiAm Moy Tuomas. H. D. Trarut, D.C.L. E. M. UNDERDOWN, Q.C. Baron HENRY DEWorMs, M.P.,F.R.S. EpMUND YATES. Hon. Counsel — E. M. UNDERDOWN, Q.C. COMMITTEE OF MANAGEMENT. Chairman—Sir FREDERICK PoLtock, Bart, LL.D. A. W.A Brecxert. WALTER BESANT. EGERTON CASTLE. W. Morris Conuzs. EpmMuND GossE. OFFICES : Hon. JoHN COLLIER. W. Martin Conway. J. M. Lety. A. G. Ross. S. SQUIRE SPRIGGE. H. RipER HAGGARD. Solicitors—Messrs. FreLD, Roscoz, and Co., Lincoln’s Inn Fields. 4, Portueat Street, Lincoun’s Inn Fiexips, W.C. Secretary—G. Hurpert THRInG, B.A. Mr. Horace Cox's New Novels. NOW READY, AT ALL LIBRARIES. In Two Vols., crown 8vo., price 31s. 6d. AT CENTURY'S EBB. By CYPRIAN COPE. In Three Vols., crown 8vo., price 31s. 6d. A Stee Api DE. By GWENDOLEN DOUGLAS GALTON (Mrs. TRENCH GASCOIGNE). Crown 8vo., with Illustrations, price 3s. 6d,, Cheap Edition of A STUMBLE ON THE THRESHOLD. By JAMES PAYN. Crown 8yo., with Illustrations, price 3s. 6d., THE MARTYRDOM OF SOCIETY. QUILLIM RITTER. WINDSOR HOUSE, BREAM’S BUILDINGS, E.C. POETRY AND THE DRAMA. SONGS GRAVE AND GAY. By F. B. DOVETON, Author of ‘‘ Snatches of Song,” ‘: Sketches in Prose and Verse,” ‘*Maggie in Mythica,” &c. In cloth lettered, gilt edges, 5s. LYRICS. By Dr. J. A. GOODCHILD. Cloth lettered, price 5s. TALES IN VERSE. By Dr. J. A.GOODCHILD. Cloth lettered, price 5s. SONGS OF THE CASCADES. Feap. 8vo., cloth boards, 6s. THE FAIREST OF THE ANGELS, and Other Verse. By MARY COLBORNE-VEEL. F cap. 8vo., cloth boards, 3s. 6d. THE WANDERER IN THE LAND OF CYBI, and other Poems (1886-93). By CLIFFORD BROOKS. Feap. 8vo., cloth boards, 3s. 6d. POEMS. By LEWIS BROCKMAN. boards, 5s. By ERL VIKING. Crown 8vo., cloth London : Horace Cox, Windsor House, Bream’s-buildings, E.C. Published every Friday morning; price, without Reports, 9d.; with Reports, 1s. HE LAW TIMES, the Journal of the Law and the Lawyers, which has now just completed its fiftieth year, supplies to the Profession a complete Record of the Progress of Legal Reforms, and of all matters affecting the Legal Profession. The Reports of the Law Times are now recognised as the most complete and efficient series published. Offices: Windsor House, Bream’s-buildings, E.C. 420 ADVERTISEMENTS. MESDAMES BRETT & BOWSER, TYPISTS, SELBORNE CHAMBERS, BELL YARD, TEMPLE BAR. Authors’ MSS. carefully and expeditiously copied, from Is. per 1000 words. Extra carbon copies half price. Refer- ences kindly permitted to Augustine Birrell, Esq., M.P. THE AUTHOR’S HAIRLESS PAPER-PAD. (Tue LeapenHatt Press Lrp., E.C.) rr Contains hairless paper, over which the pen slips with perfect freedom. Sixpence each: 5s. per dozen, ruled or plain. TYPEWRITING. SCIENTIFIC, LITERARY, AND MEDICAL MSS. CAREFULLY AND PROMPTLY COPIED BY RAYNE & C0., 40, NORFOLK STREET, STRAND, W.C. HicHest REFERENCES. PRIVATE Room FoR DICTATION. TRANSLATIONS. SEARCHES MaApE. MISS E. W ALLEN AND C0., TYPE AND SHORTHAND WRITERS, Scientific Work and Translations a Special Feature. 39, LOMBARD S87 .,-2.¢c. References to Authors. Office No. 59 (close to Lift). SHORTHAND WRITER, TYPIST, ESIRES SECRETARIAL WORK. Own machines (Remington, Yost). Special Reports taken. TRANSLATOR FRENCH, GERMAN. “TJ...” 28, Canterbury - terrace, Maida Vale, W. HE FLEET STREET TYPEWRITERS, 115, FLEET-sTREET, E.C.—Lowxust CHARGES. Highest speed. Every kind of Typewriting Work done. Price List. 115, Funet-streret, LoNDON. ANOBIUM ERODITUM, Ture Drvourine Book-worm, Turns up its nose (and its toes) at STICKPHAST PASTE. MRS. GiLdL, TYPE-WRITING OFFICE, 35, LUDGATE HILL, E.C. (ESTABLISHED 1883.) Authors’ MSS. carefully copied from 1s. per 1000 words. Plays, &c., 1s. 8d. per 1000 words. Extra copies (carbon) supplied at the rate of 4d. and 8d. per 1000 words. Type-writing from dictation 2s. 6d. per hour. Reference kindly permitted to Walter Besant, Esq.; also to Messrs. A. P. Watt and Son, Literary Agents, 2, Paternoster- square, E.C. Miss oa Eee 44, Oakley Street Flats, Chelsea, S.W. ermittied sq., and Authors’ MSS. carefully transcribed. References kindly to George Augustus Sala, Esq., Justin Huntly McCarthy, many other well-known Authors. Fire- Proof Safe for MSS. Particulars on application. Telegraphic address: ‘‘ PATZEN, LONDON.” MISS L. M. DAVIDSON’S TYPEWRITING OFFICE. 87 & 39, ESSEX STREET, STRAND, W.C. SHORTHAND AND TRANSLATIONS. Specialists for French, German, and Italian. Scientific, and Medical MSS. LITERARY PRODUCTIONS OF EVERY DESCRIPTION AREFULLY REVISED, CORRECTED, or RE- WRITTEN by the Author of “The Queen’s English up to Date.” Facilities for publication. Typewriting 1s. per 1000 words. Address SEcRETARY, Literary Office, 342, Strand, W.C. AUTHORS ADVISED AS TO THE PRODUCTION OF WORKS In any Department of Literature, and Estimates for Printing and Publishing sent free. Special attention devoted to Privately Printed and Subscription Works.— Cas. J. Crarx, Publisher of the Illustrated Archzxologist, and to several Learned Societies, 4, Lincoln’s-inn-fields, W.C. THE AUTHORS’ BUREAU LIMITED. A Literary Syndicate and Press Agency. ‘+A Medium of Communi- cation between Authors, Editors, and Publishers.” Advises upon, revises, and negotiates MSS. Consultations (by appointment only) free.—Address the SECRETARY, 8, Victoria-street, Westminster. PRINTING AND PUBLISHING. TO AUTHORS. Special attention given to the above. Terms moderate. Estimates free. ACCOUNTS VERIFIED BY CHARTERED ACCOUNTANT. Address Manacer, Roxburghe Press, 3, Victoria-street, Westminster. OUT OF PRINT BOOKS SUPPLIED. THE MOST EXPERT BOOK-FINDER EXTANT. Puease State WANTS. 2000 BOOKS WANTED, 5s. to £5 each given. LISTS FREE. BAKER’S GREAT BOOKSHOP, BIRMINGHAM. Legal, Literary, Printed and Published by Horace Cox, Windsor House, Bream’s-buildings, London, E.C. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Author, Vol. 04 Issue 11 (April 1894) Subject The topic of the resource <em>The Author</em>, Vol. 04 Issue 11 (April 1894) Type The nature or genre of the resource Publication Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1894-04-02-The-Author-4-11 publications The Author https://historysoa.com/files/original/5/462/1894-05-01-The-Author-4-12.pdf 8ae1cb26c082d6094734ba9ee3939d34 PDF Text Text �������������������������������� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Author Subject The topic of the resource <em>The Author</em> Description An account of the resource A digitised run of the Society of Authors' monthly periodical, <em>The Author</em>, 1890<span>–</span>1914, made available together for the first time.<br /><br />Currently users can browse issues and <a href="https://historysoa.com/items/browse?search=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Index&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;tags=&amp;exhibit=&amp;date_search_term=&amp;submit_search=Search+For+Items&amp;sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CTitle">indices</a> (not available for all volumes). Full text search for all issues, and other additional search functionality, will be added in 2022. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1890–1914 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context The-Author-Issues Publication Date The date of an event (in YYYY, YYYY-MM or YYYY-MM-DD format) 1894-05-01 Volume 4 Issue 12 Pages Page range in volume 421–452 Ngram Date Version of the date in YYYYMMDD format for use by the Ngram plugin 18940501 Ngram Text Version of the text with no HTML formatting for use by the Ngram plugin Che BMuthor. The Organ of the Incorporated Society of Authors. Monthly.) CONDUCTED BY WALTER BESANT. Vou. IV.—No. 12.] MAY 1, 1804. [Prick SIXPENCE. CONTENTS. PAGE : PAGE Warnings and Notices ait aoe eee cs ae oe wee 423 Notes and News. By the Editor... ve ase es ee wee 435 Literary Property.—1. Secret Profits. ‘‘Some Points.” ‘‘ From English Rabelaisians. By G. L. Apperson... an cee ... 438 a Publisher.” ‘ From the Editor.”—2. Thirteen as Twelve.— Correspondence.—l. Herbert Spencer and Literature.—2. The 3. The Transference of a Title.—4. Cox v. Bayles.—5. British Casual Contributor.—3. Industrial England.—4. An Adver- Copyright in Canada.—é. Curious Clauses.—7. Music Copy- tising Firm.—5. The Experience of a Failure.—t. Printing rights.—8. Right of Appearance -.- acs Bee se5 eos 425 Abroad.—7. A Handbook for Authors.—8. A Recent Experi- ‘* Esther Waters.” A Review ..- = ee ae A ..- 430 ence.—9. The Right of Appearance... me Sh oc a. 439 Book Talk. ByJ. W.S. ... ie eee tee a aes wee 432 ‘* At the Sign of the Author’s Head” ... aos ate ie wee 444 So-so Sociology Se ew aes a es eee wee 484 Obituary ae on as = on = ae ie wes 446 San Francisco Literary Congress aes oe Soe on wee 435 New Books and New Editions... vee ae en se woe 447 PUBLICATIONS OF THE SOCIETY. 1. The Annual Report. That for January 1893 can be had on application to the Secretary. 9. The Author. A Monthly Journal devoted especially to the protection and maintenance of Literary Property. Issued to all Members. Back numbers are offered at the following prices : Vol. I., 108. 6d. (Bound) ; Vols. II. and IIL., 8s. 6d. each (Bound). 3. The Grievances of Authors. (The Leadenhall Press.) 1s. The Report of three Meetings on the general subject of Literature and its defence, held at Willis’s Rooms, March, 1887. 4. Literature and the Pension List, By W.Morgris Cotes, Barrister-at-Law. (Henry Glaisher, 95, Strand, W.C.) 3s. 6, The History of the Société des Gens de Lettres. By S. Squrre Spriaex, late Secretary to the Society. Is. 6. The Cost of Production. In this work specimens are given of the most important forms of type, size of page, &c., with estimates showing what it costs to produce the more common kinds of books. Henry Glaisher, 95, Strand, W.C. 2s. 6d. 7. The Various Methods of Publication. By S. Squire Sprices. In this work, compiled from the papers in the Society’s offices, the various forms of agreements proposed by Publishers to ‘Authors are examined, and their meaning carefully explained, with an account of the various kinds of fraud which have been made possible by the different clauses in their agreements. Henry Glaisher, 95, Strand, W.C. 3s. 8. Copyright Law Reform. An Exposition of Lord Monkswell’s Copyright Bill now before Parlia- ment. With Extracts from the Report of the Commission of 1878, and an Appendix containing the Berne Convention and the American Copyright Bill, By J. M. Lexy. Eyre and Spottiswoode. 1s. 6d. 9. The Society of Authors. A Record of its Action from its Foundation. By WautEer Besant (Chairman of Committee, 1888—1892). Is. 422 ADVERTISEMENTS. Che Sociely of Authors (Bncorporated). PRESIDENT. GHRORGH MEREDITE,. Sir Epwin ARNOLD, K.C.1.E., C.8.1. ALFRED AUSTIN. J. M. Barriz. A. W. A Beoxert. RoBERT BATEMAN. Sim Henry Brerene, K.C.M.G. WALTER BESANT. AUGUSTINE BIRRELL, M.P. Rev. Pror. Bonney, F.B.S. Riautr Hon. James Brycx, M.P. Hat Carine. Earrtron Casruz, F.S.A. P. W. CLAYDEN. Epwakrp CLopp. W. Morris Couuzs. Hon. JoHn Conuier. W. Martin Conway. F. Marion CRAwForp. OswaLp CRAWFURD, C.M.G. COMMITTEE OF MANAGEMENT. Chairman—St1rz FREDERICK PoLLock, Bart, LL.D. A. W.A Becxert. WALTER BESANT. EGERTON CASTLE. W. Morris Cones. Solicitors—Messrs. FIELD, Roscoz, and Co., Lincoln’s Inn Fields. COUNCIL. THE EARL oF Dusart. Austin Dosson. A. Conan Doyxz, M.D. A. W. Duzsovura. J. Eric Ericusen, F.R.S. Pror. Micuarn Foster, F.R.S. Ricut Hon. HERBERT GARDNER, M.P. RicHarp Garnett, LL.D. Epmunp Gossz. H. Riper Haaearp. THomas Harpy. Jerome K. JzERomn. Rupyarp Kipuina. Pror. E. Ray Lanxestsr, F.R.S. J. M. Ley. Rev. W. J. Lorin, F.S.A. A. C. Macxenzin, Mus.D. Pror. Max-MUuer. Pror. J. M. D. Merxnrgoun. Hon. Counsel — E. M. UNpERDOwN, Q. Hon. JoHN CoLurer, W. Martin Conway. H. Riper Haaearp. J. M. Leny. Secretary—G. Hersert THRING, B.A. Herman ©. MeRivaue. Rev. C. H. MippLEeton-WAKE. Lewis Morris. J. C. PARKINSON. Ear. or PEMBROKE AND MONTGOMERY Sim FrepErick Pouiock, Bart., LL.D. WALTER Herrizs Pouuock. A. G. Ross. GEorGE AuGusTus SALA. W. Baptiste Scoonzs. G. R. Sums. S. Squire Spriaaer. J. J. StEVENSON. Jas. SULLY. Witi1am Moy Tuomas. H. D. Trait, D.C.L. EK. M. UnpEeRpown, Q.C. Baron Henry pz Worms, M.P.,F.R.S. Epmunp YATEs. C. A.C. Macxernzin, Mus.D. A. G. Ross. S. SqurrE Spriaas. OFFICES: 4, Portuaan Street, Lincoun’s INN Fieips, W.C. Windsor House PRINTING WORKS, BREAM’S BUILDINGS, E.C. OFFICES OF “‘THE FIELD,” ‘‘ THE QUEEN,” “THE LAW TIMES,” &c. Mr. HORACE COX, Printer to the Authors’ Society, takes the opportunity of informing Authors that, having a very large office, and an extensive plant of type of every description, he is in a position to EXECUTE any PRINTING they may entrust to his care. ESTIMATES FORWARDED, AND REASONABLE CHARGES WILL BE FOUND.  The HMutbor, (The Organ of the Incorporated Society of Authors. Monthly.) CONDUCTED BY WALTER BESANT. Vou. IV.—No. 12.] MAY 1, 1894. [Prick SIXPENCE. For the Opinions expressed in papers that are signed or initialled the Authors alone are responsible. None of the papers or pard- graphs must be taken as expressing the collective opinions of the committee unless they are officially signed by G. Herbert Thring, Sec. ae 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. i . 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 :— 1. Sprr1at Ricurs.—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 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, VOL. IV. 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 1r.—Remember that an arrangement as to a 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. Lirerary AGENTS.—Be very careful. You cannot be too careful as to the person whom you appowmt 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 OF Propuction.-_Never sign any agreement of which the alleged cost of production forms an integtal part, until you have proved the figures. 6. Cuorce 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. Royaury.—Never accept any proposal of royalty until you have ascertained what the agreement, worked out on poth a small and a large sale, will give to the author and what to the publisher. g. PERSONAL Risx.—Never accept any pecuniary risk or responsibility whatever without advice. 10. Reszectep 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 RicHTs.—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. Cusston of 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. 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. KK2 424 THE AUTHOR. HOW TO USE THE SOCIETY. I. 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 sofar. 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. De 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 booking fee is charged to cover postage and porterage. 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. spec 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 modes¢ 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 Edito 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 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 ?  THE AUTHOR. 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 canbe 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. ae LITERARY PROPERTY. —— > I.—Srcret PrRorits. I.—SOME POINTS IN THE CASE. ITH reference to “Secret Profits,’ and the case stated in your last number, I should like to call your attention to one or two points on which counsels’ opinion is not quite decisive. Question 5. “ Discounts which a publisher gets allowed him from the printers, &c.’’—Answer com- mences : “This question is one of some difficulty.” Now it appears to me quite clear that the author enters into an arrangement with the publisher which secures him the full co-operation of all the resources at the publisher’s command. One of these is most decidedly the publisher’s capital, or that portion of it necessary to the production of the book. In accepting a discount the publisher is only utilising a resource which he has already hypothecated, and which no longer belongs to him exclusively. It can be put in another way. Presuming that the printer’s terms are three months net or 5 per cent. off forcash, the 5 percent. is nothing more nor less than interest on a loan at the rate of 20 per cent. perannum. This loanismade by the publisher and author, who are undoubtedly partners, to the printer, whose eyes are open, and who pays the 20 per cent. willingly. If, however, the loan is made to the author without his knowledge, the publisher is not only taking an advantage which appears fraudulent, but is lending the author money at a usurious rate of interest which the law would not allow him, even if he could esta- blish a right to a legal rate of, say, 5 per cent. per annum. 425 I do not think that question 5 ought to be treated by counsel as doubtful, as the practice of allowing all the discount to the publisher opens an easy channel to fraud, which it is difficult to check, and which might go much higher than 20 per cent. per annum by private arrangement. Question 6. “ Right to charge for advertise- ments not actually paid for; (a) in his own magazines or trade list.”—May I suggest that these should not be classed together? A maga- zine is a particular venture of the publisher in which the author can scarcely claim the right to a free advertisement, though he certainly ought not to pay more than the actual cost of printing and paper. A trade list seems to me an entirely different thing and is part of the publisher’s resources, and therefore belongs equally to the author as far as notices of the special book in question are concerned. Question 8. “Right to deduct a charge for incidental expenses.”—A publisher must know what expenses are from experience, and I cannot see why such a clause should be inserted. Ay 8B: II.— FROM A PUBLISHER. In last month’s Author, under this heading, there were some important and pertinent ques- tions put respecting the relations between authors and publishers, and they were answered by two learned gentlemen who are recognised as eminent authorities on the law of literary property. Perhaps you will allow me, as a publisher of many years’ experience, to answer the same questions from the trade point of view, doing so with all due deference to the legal opinions. Question 1. Regarding the relationship be- tween author and publisher, when a book is undertaken on the share system, is, I believe, correctly replied to by counsel—that it is .a joint adventure with a fiduciary obligation on the publisher. There is, however, an important con- dition attached to this relationship that requires clearing up. To whom does the copyright belong? Does it wholly remain with the author, or does it become the joint property of the two adventurers? As far as I know, this point has not yet been decided in a court of justice. My own opinion is that, failing any special contract or time arrangement—and these are recommended— the copyright becomes vested in the publisher to the extent of his share in the venture; but this view has been disputed. Question 2 relates to the submission of accounts and vouchers by the publisher. Counsel’s answer is obviously the correct one, that, when asked for, every facility should be given to the author to make himself fully acquainted with the balance- sheet of his own (joint) property. 426 Question 3, as to the justification of a pub- lisher’s charge for extraneous expenditure beyond the ordinary costs of production and sale is also rightly answered by counsel in the negative. Question 4 is a corollary of No. 3. If the author after settling his publisher’s account finds that it contains extraneous charges, added with- out his knowledge and consent, he is undoubtedly entitled to have the account reopened and amended. Question 5 raises a matter of dispute which probably is more for the lawyers than for laymen to decide, viz., whether a publisher, in settling his bills, is bound to pay the printer, the paper maker, &c., in cash, should he have ready money at command. For example, if the account of the printer comes to £100, and he is prepared either to grant a twelve months’ bill for the amount, or to allow the usual discount of 5 per cent. if paid in cash, the publisher may surely accept the bill and charge the book with the £100. So far there can be no doubt; but, on the other hand, if the publisher, using his money (not the author’s), which may be lying in the bank or placed in some investment, elect to pay the printer in cash, can the author claim a share of the discount which the publisher has thus earned by the use of his financial resources? I should say not, Otherwise, in the case of a half profit book, a publisher who employed money bringing him, say, 4 per cent. to pay an acccount in cash under a discount of 5 per cent. would be an actual loser by 1} per cent., while the author would gain 24 per cent. of a discount which had been earned entirely by the publisher’s money. Of course the discount referred to in this question is the recognised 5 per cent. for cash. Anything beyond that should clearly be shared by both parties. Question 6 refers to the publisher's charge for advertisements in (a) his own magazine, (0) his trade list, and (c) exchange magazines. I respect- fully venture to differ from the learned counsel in their answer to this question. They hold that these advertisements should be charged at the price of paper and print; an opitiion that seems to overlook the facts that magazine advertise- ments have a regular market value, and that they form no part of the undertaking jointly engaged in. To my mind it appears somewhat one-sided in the author to expect advertisements to be charged at less than the ordinary rate when they happen to be inserted in a magazine bearing his publisher’s name. This remark, however, does not apply to trade lists, for which, I think, no charge should be made. To provide against the possible abuse of excessive advertising in mediums which the publisher may have a THE AUTHOR. pecuniary interest in, the author’s contract should be furnished with a restricting clause. Question 7 needs little consideration. It would be quite wltra vires in the publisher to charge for unused stereotype plates, made without the author’s approval. Question 8. The opinion of counsel defining “incidental expenses” is a sound one. These items should be strictly confined to petty dis- bursements specially incurred in the sale of the particular book, quite exclusive of establishment charges, and, when amounting to a considerable amount, details ought to be furnished when asked for. ' The general advice I beg to offer to authors in adopting the share system of publishing—and, when honourably carried out, I believe it to be the best—is to make all contracts in writing, care- fully specifying the more important details, and limiting the contract to a period or edition. Such is the friendly recommendation of an London, April 14, 1894. Ex-PousLisHER, III.—FROM THE EDITOR. There is one point which ‘“‘ Ex-Publisher” does not, it seems to me, sufficiently consider in his remarks upon magazine advertising. It is quite possible that it has a regular market value, as he says, but he omits to notice that a publisher with a free hand to insert advertisements as he chooses, as often and as long, of a profit sharing book in his own magazine, can at his own sweet will absolutely divert into his own pockets as much of the profits as he chooses. The same remark apples with still greater force to exchanges. In every profit sharing agreement the author must guard against this danger by a special clause. Experience shows that this is a very real danger. ‘The letter of ‘‘ Ex-Publisher ” demands serious consideration on every point raised. If this spirit and temper were observed by all writers on the subject, our difficulties would soon be ended. IJ.—TuHirtEen as TWELVE. An attempt is constantly made to insert the words, in a royalty agreement, “Thirteen copies to count as twelve,’ or ‘“ Twenty-five copies to count as twenty-four.” The excuse is that if the publisher sells thirteen as twelve he really sells only twelve, and ought not in justice to account for more than twelve. This answer satisfies some; and is, indeed, reasonable, until one comes to examine into it. Does the publisher sell thirteen as twelve, or twenty-five as twenty-four? He certainly does in those cases, and in those cases only, where books are ordered by the dozen or by the  and THE AUTHOR. 427 score. But what are these cases? The circu- lating libraries for some writers may give orders on this lordly scale; the great distributors may also do so for some writers. The rest of the trade buy books by the half dozen, by ones and twos. You may see a pile of copies at one or two leading booksellers in the City or the Strand. They are books of the day, é.e., of a popularity certain, though perhaps ephemeral. As for what is called serious literature, or those books which are in steady, though not in eager, demand, the trade takes them by two or three or even one at a time. Let us illustrate by example—we take a six- shilling book. Suppose that out of an edition of 2000, 50 go for press copies, 500 are taken by orders of twelve and over, the remaining 1450 being sold by ones, twos, and threes. If the agreement gives the author a 20 per cent. royalty on all copies sold, the result is as follows: Author.—20 per cent. on 6s. for 1950 copies= S17: Publisher.—The account stands as follows: The book is what we generally take for an illustra- tion—a six-shilling volume, of 17 sheets or 272 pp. at 253 words a page—70,000 words in all, in small pica and plainly bound. Cost of production (see Society’s volume), nearly ...--.... 3... £1000 © PAMUNOY 66. oc 622... 117 0 O Publisher. -..2:..5.. 117 10 0 £334 10. © Sales : 1450 at 3s. 6d....... £253 15. 0 500 at 3s. 6d. (and 13.a0 12) 3... S015. 0 334 10 0 If the author receives a royalty calculated on thirteen copies being sold as twelve, his share will be £108 instead of £117, and the publisher’s account : Cost of production ... £100 0 Oo thor 20. 108 © © Publisher .........:..... 126 10 O 334 10, © Sales as above. Of course, in the case of a larger sale—say a first edition of 1000, followed by a -second of 3000, the two accounts would be materially altered. For instance, the cost of a second edition of 3000 copies is about £125. The author would receive on this edition £180. The publisher, allowing 1000 copies for thirteen as twelve, would receive £206. If the author is to be allowed only thirteen as twelve, he receives £166 and the publisher £232. And this on a royalty which, before the Society exposed the figures, would never have been given to any author however successful. We now understand what is meant by the clause in the agreement that copies are to be counted as thirteen for twelve. If the clause in the agreement is simply for a royalty of so much for every copy sold, the discount, if claimed, must not be allowed when the accounts are rendered, except for those large orders where it was allowed to the trade. —— > —- TII.—THe TRANSFERENCE OF A TITLE. 1. Some twenty years ago the Rev. D. Rice- Jones, then engaged in London work, wrote a dozen chapters from his own experience on the poor and the way they live. He offered these sketches and stories to the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge by Christian methods, i.e., of course by methods just, equitable, and beyond the shadow of sus- picion or reproach. This august body bought these sketches for the sum of twenty-four guineas —actually two guineas a chapter! They bought them thus separately because they intended to bring them out in pamphlet form, twelve short stories of the London slums. This they did, and then, without any further pay- ment, they issued them as a book. The book, called “From Cellar to Garret,” made its mark, and continued to sell, edition after edition, for a great many years. Remark, that the society in this way managed to secure the copyright of a valuable book for twenty-four guineas! Remark, further, that they have never thought it just or equit- able to recognise the disproportion of their own gains to the author’s remuneration. Now note, on the other hand, what is done by a purely lay, secular, money-making firm. It happened only the other day that this firm, on finding that a book, published by them on certain terms, was turning out a success beyond their expecta- tion, tore up the first agreement, and voluntarily gave the author a new one based upon the success of the work. To be sure, this is not a religious society, but one which carries on its business avowedly for profit. Two years ago the author entered the office and asked for copies of his book. He was told that it was out of print. He saw the secretary. He was informed that they would not, probably, reprint the book, but that they might want to wse his title for another book! The secretary also told the author that he could not expect a book to last for ever. The question arises—has a publisher who buys the copyright of a book the right to use the title for another book ? 428 2. Another case was that quoted from the Atheneum in our last number. IV.—Cox v. Baytzs. (High Court of Justice ——Chancery Division, — Before Mr. Justice Currry). This was a motion by the plaintiff, the pro- prietor of the Field newspaper, for an interlocu- tory injunction restraining the defendant Bayles, the proprietor and editor of a newspaper called the Meld Register, from publishing and selling such newspaper, or any other newspaper being a colourable imitation of the plaintifi’s newspaper, or calculated to lead the public to believe the same to be issued from the office of the plaintiff’s newspaper or to be a publication in any way con- nected with the plaintiff’s newspaper. The defen- dant’s newspaper was a weekly newspaper, and had recently been issued. It was published on Monday or Tuesday, and its contents for the most part consisted of information and articles on horseracing. It also, however, contained items relating to yachting and angling, and other sporting or country pursuits. Its price was 3d. The plaintiff’s case was based on the colourable use of the word “ Field,” being the principal part of the name of his newspaper, and the name under which it was solely known and widely known to the public. The defendant stated that there was no intention on his part to copy or imitate the plaintiff’s newspaper, and pointed out dissimilarities between his newspaper and the plaintifi’s. tion to mislead. Mr. S. Hall, Q.C., and Mr. Percy Gye appeared for the plaintiff, and Mr. Kenyon Parker for the defendant Bayles, and Mr. Ashworth James appeared for printers added as defendants. Mr. Justice Currry said that it was plain that the word “ Field” was placed in the most promi- nent position and as a leading word in the title of the defendant’s newspaper in order to attract some of the reputation belonging to the plain- tiff’s newspaper. Both newspapers were intended for the same class of readers, and the defendant’s newspaper was calculated to damage the plain- tiff, even if, as it had only recently been started, actual damage as yet was not shown. That being so, the plaintiff was entitled to an interlocutory injurction. His Lordship added that all cases like the present proceeded on the same basis— namely, that the title of a newspaper was a trade name, being similar in this respect to the name of a brewery (Montgomery v. Thompson, L. R. (1891) A. ©. 217) or of an insurance office (Hendriks v. Montagu, L. R. 17 Ch. Div. 638), and what was at the bottom of such questions THE AUTHOR. He also stated that he had no inten- : was whether the defendant was endeavouring to sell his goods as those of the plaintiff. Injunction granted accordingly. V.—Britiso Copyricut rn Canapa. Ottawa, April 10. The Government have forwarded an important despatch to the British Colonial Office, informing the Imperial authorities that after the next Session of the Dominion Parliament the collec- tion by the Dominion Customs of a royalty of 124 per cent. on foreign reprints of British copy- right works for the benefit of copyright-holders will cease. The colonial authorities have been induced to take this action in view of the expected changes in the Imperial copyright laws as applic- able to Canada.— Reuter. VI—Cvriovus Cuauses. 1. Account Clauses :— Accounts shall be made up annually as soon after June 30 as practicable, and payment will be due in the January following. If a book is published early in the autumn the chief sales occur before Christmas, and, if the account is paid within six months after, the pub- lisher may hold a large part of the unfortunate author’s share in his own hands for nearly twelve months, Bankruptcy may also occur in so long an interval. Another account clause : Account of sales of the work to be made annually to June 30, rendered and payable before the end of the year. This is subject to almost the same remarks as the previous clause. . The following seems to be a fair account clause : The publishers shall furnish their accounts half yearly, on June 30 and Dec. 31, paying to the author all royalties due at the time of furnishing the accounts. 2. Royalty Clauses—So much for account clauses. The following is a curious clause re- ferring to the payment of royalties: The publisher shall pay to the author on all such copies sold at above half their published price a royalty of 15 per cent. of their published price, and on all such copies sold at or below half their published price a royalty of 7} per cent. of the net receipts of such sales. It is always advisable, if possible, that the interests of the author and publisher should be the same—that the sale of the book at proper rates should be as_ beneficial to the author as to the publisher; but on working out the arrange- ment in the above clause it is clearly to the advantage of the publisher under certain circum- stances to sell below half the published price. This question has been fully discussed in -a  THE AUTHOR. previous number of the Author. There is scarcely need, therefore, to do more than bring it again before the notice of authors. It is a clause to be refused instantly. 3. Agency Charges in Publishers’ Agreements. — Considerable stir has been made lately by discussion as to the work and charges of literary agents. The charge of 15 per cent. is denounced as preposterous, and ro per cent. as little less heinous. It will be interesting, therefore, to look at the agency clauses taken from various pub- lishers’ agreements, and it will be found that the charge is generally considerably in advance of to per cent. or even 15 per cent. Except as in clause hereof, the copyright, whether English or foreign, in the said work, including the rights of translation, dramatisation, and publication of any dramatic yersion thereof, shall not be sold, assigned, or transferred by the author, either as a whole, or for a limited time, or over a, limited space, without the consent of the publisher. That the proceeds of the sale or transfer of copyright, as defined in the above clause, shall be divided in the propor- tion of one-half to the author and one-half to the publisher. In the same agreement there is a clause for the sale of American rights on the same terms, so that the publisher who objects to the agent’s 10 per cent. actually claims 50 per cent. These clauses are, perhaps, as strong in favour of the publisher, and to the detriment of the author—not only in the magnitude of the powers conveyed, but also in the price to be charged—as it is possible to conceive. Here, should the author act as his own agent with regard to translation or foreign production, should he make arrangements absolutely without the assistance of the publisher, he must still pay 50 per cent. ; Further, should he dramatise and produce his own work in dramatic form, 50 per cent. must be handed over. Here is another clause : And the said publisher shall be entitled to dispose of any other rights (rights of translation, American rights, or such like) in the said work ; the said publisher to have one-third of all profits arising out of the sale, lease, or conveyance of such rights, and the said author to receive the remaining two-thirds thereof. - Here the change is 33} per cent., but the dramatic rights are not included; on the other hand, the author has no powers to act as his own agent. Again: - The publishers may effect the sale of Continental rights only with the author’s consent. The proceeds of such sale, if effected by the publishers, shall be divided in the proportion of three-quarters to the author and one-quarter to the publisher. This clause only effects Continental rights, and the sale must be made only with the author's con- sent. The author can, if he likes, act as his own VOL. IV. 429 agent, and make all the profit; but if the pub- lisher does act as agent the charge is 25 per cent. The rights are more limited and the charge is less, but still enormous compared with the agent’s modest 10 per cent. Another : Should the work be issuedin America or any other foreign country, the profits arising from such transactions shall be divided equally between the said author and the said publishers. The charge is again 50 per cent. It would be easy to quote clauses without end bearing on the same point. In none of the many agreements is the charge below 25 per cent. How does the author’s agent live when the publisher can only stand at 25 per cent.? On these clauses it can only be added that, where the author transfers the copyright, the publisher usually deals with all subsidiary rights without reference to the author. He sometimes shares the returns with the author, and sometimes does not. A case has been known, however, in which a publisher bought the copyright from an author, and, on the book being published in England, the author neglected to secure the American rights. There were no rights therefore in America, and the book could have been pirated by anyone. An American publisher, wishing to republish the work, wrote to the English publisher, inferring that he was acting for the author, and stated that he was desirous of publishing the book and of paying an honorarium for leave to do so. The publisher this side, in virtue of his non-existent American rights, took the honorarium to himself. 4. Remainder Sales.—The clauses referring to remainder sales are very often of an arbitrary character, for example : The publishers shall have the power to sell the residue of any edition at a reduced price or as a remainder. This clause occurs almost word for word in two separate agreements. It does not give the author any option of purchase, and it gives the publisher the opportunity of clearing his shelves before the bond fide sales are at an end. Sometimes there is no. clause relating to remainder sales, but this subject is governed by a clause leaving all rights as to the methods of publication and sale of the work with the pub- lisher ; then the same result occurs. An agreement regarding remainder sales is certainly necessary, and the following may be cited as a good clause : In case of the publication proving unsuccessful the pub- lishers reserve the right to dispose of the stock after a period of not less than two years in the way they may think best, the author having previously been communicated with regarding such copies as he may wish to retain. The above is clumsily worded, and has this LL 430 serious fault that there is no price named at which the author may purchase. The following is a still more reasonable clause touching the same point: That should the publishers at any time after two years from the date of publication of the said work desire to sell the stock as a remainder, notice of such intended sale must be given to the author, who shall have the option of pur- chase of the remainder stock at a valuation. 5. Incidental Expenses. —'The phrase “and other incidental expenses”? is altogether too vague to have a place in any legal document, and should certainly be more clearly defined. 6. To meet Demands.—The phrase “to meet the demand up toso many copies ” is also unsatis- factory. It generally occurs in agreements where the author pays a portion of the supposed cost of production of the number of books up to which the publisher will meet the demand. Of course, the publisher knows very well that the demand is most unlikely to reach the number, and he prints an edition of no greater number than the payment of the author amply covers. 7. Buying Copyright.—If there is anything to set the interests of the author and the publisher at variance it is the following clause : It is agreed that if and when any edition of the said work is issued at any lower price than 6s., the publishers shall have the right and option of buying the copyright free from all royalty for the sum of £50, to be paid to the author within a month from the date of publication of such edition, failing which payment this option shall be no longer in force. The greater part of the agreement is an elabo- rate statement of the royalty to be paid under certain conditions, from which one would naturally infer that the MS. would be as a matter of course published at 6s. or over. But, although the author has assigned the right to publish, there is no reciprocity on the part of the publisher, he does not undertake to publish the book at all, and there is nothing to prevent him from pub- lishing at 5s. 6d., paying the £50, and securing the whole copyright for that small sum. 8. Contradictory Clauses.—Here are two con- tradictory clauses in agreements from the same publisher referring to books of similar sizes. The question is the payment of royalty which is to be paid on every copy sold, Except one copy in seven, according to the usual trade custom. The next agreement contains: Except one copy in thirteen, according to the usual trade custom. It is evident that there cannot be two separate customs as above for the sale of similar articles. The one custom excludes the other. Yet, out of a dozen agreements from this same publisher, four had one clause and eight the other. THE AUTHOR. VII.—Music Coprricuts. At a sale of music copyrights, recently con- cluded at Messrs. Puttick and Simpson’s rooms, some remarkable prices were realised. The song “ Anchored,” by the late Michael Watson, realised £1,212 15s.,the highest price, it is believed, that. has ever been obtained for a song. Tito Mattei’s “First Waltz” brought £386 8s.; “ Yorkshire Bells,” by J. Pridham, £715 1os.; ‘‘ The Bugler,” by Pinsuti, £189 3s.; ‘‘The Valley of Shadows,” by O. Barri, £109 7s. 6d.; a march by W. Small- wood, £184 16s.; operatic solos, by W. Small- wood, £338 6s.; John Hiles’s “ Catechism of Music,” £550. The total of the two days’ sale, which comprised some 320 lots, was over £10,000. These facts and figures should start the ques- tion, how far this property, which undoubtedly has been created by musical composers, and is originally their property, has been shared with them by the acquirers ? Would it be possible, for instance, for any of the composers concerned in the above sale to publish the terms and con- siderations for which they parted with their property P VIII.—Ricut or APPEARANCE. On page 444 of this number of the Author will be found a letter with this title. The subject is more important than would at first appear. Many valid reasons may exist why an editor, even though he has accepted a paper, may not find himself able to publish it. But, by not publishing it he kills it. Not only does he kill it for the time, but for ever. Thus an editor accepts and produces a paper. If nothing is said to the contrary in the agreement he has bought the serial right only for a term of years beginning after publication. On the expiration of that term the author can republish. But if the editor does not publish, the time between production and the right to reprint never even begins. How is this difficulty to be got over ? sme ESTHER WATERS: AN EXACT TREATISE.* ET us get the worst that can be said of “Esther Waters” over at once. The book is all about low people, and, consistently enough, they do low things. The central figure isa servant girl, who, during her career as a servant, is emphatically a “slavey,” in contradis- tinction to a young lady in service. Her lovers are a footinan, who aspires to be, and becomes, a By George Moore. Walter 1894. * Esther Waters: A Novel. Scott and Co. Limited, London.  THE AUTHOR. sporting publican, and a stationer’s assistant of aggravated sanctimoniousness, who had been in business in the west end, “ until an uncontrollable desire to ask every customer who entered into conversation with him, if he were sure that he believed in the second coming,” obtained for him his dismissal. A pious and over-procreative mother, a drunken step-father, an illegitimate child, and the woman who minds him con- stitute her private domestic circle. The scene is laid, firstly, in a big country racing establishment ; and, secondly, in a Soho public-house, a cleanly oasis in their sordidity being furnished by the West Kensington maisonette of a literary lady. There is no doubt about one thing. This book is not by Mrs. Gore, or the authoress of “ Lords and Liveries”; it is no sequel to “ Dukes and Déjeuners.” And this brings us straight to a side of Mr. George Moore’s work upon which we must touch. It would be idle to ignore that its episodes and its out-speaking may give offence. It would be idle to pretend that we consider it an apt object of presentation to a god-child, or a suitable holiday book for the young person. The moment that we admit so much we are in the very lists of controversy; but with the discretion of Orpheus C. Kerr’s brigadier-general, “ we resign our com- mission and go home.’”’ Nothing is to be gained by remaining to controvert. Nothing good has ever come out of these discussions. No issue has been made clearer. Whether this or that subject can be made a fit subject for artistic treatment is, we humbly think, of no practical consequence. Art has no limits, says one—a jeune feroce this. Tf art comes in the form of a novel which may lie about on the drawing-room table, it should have the strictest limits, says another—a pater- familias this. With half an eye it will be seen that a mutual understanding as to the exact meaning of the word art might reconcile the combatants, and with half a thought it will be compre- hended that no mutual understanding on the definition could ever be arrived at. So we desire to speak of “Esther Waters” only, which is a book well worth speaking of, and not of the abstract principles that should regulate the pen of the right-minded author—for is not this rather a large question, although the recent reviews of several novels have glibly proposed to answer it in a sentence or two? The author «f “ Esther Waters” has treated the many difficult episodes logically arising in the course of his, narrative with almost invariable restraint. f here and there he has introduced a touch which he believed necessary to accentuate the truth of his picture, and which we, on perusal, believe would have been better omitted, it isa small thing; and we VOL. Iv. 431 are entirely happy to credit the constructor of an excellent piece of work with knowing his busi- ness. For remember the episodes are logically necessary to the theme of the book. They are truly illustrative of the author’s design, and not dragged in. Quarrel with the theme by all means (that is a matter of pure private taste) but do not carp at the episodes, whose setting- forth constitutes the only possible manner of writing a book upon the theme. “There are some very exact treatises on astro- nomy, the use of the globes, agriculture, and the art of making paper flowers. Upon the less apparent provinces of life I fear you will find nothing truthful.’ Thus the inimitable and senteutious Prince Florizel, who may now add to his comical list of subjects that have undergone exact literary treatment, horse-racing, its fasci- nations, its disappointments, and its surroundings, with their intimate blending of the sad with the hilarious, and the reckless with the calculating. “ Aisther Waters” is a tract against the evils of the turf. But it is free from the usual sin of the novel with a purpose—exaggeration. As a rule the protest of the novelist against an ill habit loses its accuracy in its picturesqueness, and sup- porters of the abuse, resenting the attack upon them, are able to convict the author of perversion of the facts. Mr. George Moore has painted a truthful picture that will be recognised as truth- ful by two sets of readers—those who know and those who do not. Those to whem the daily market odds in our papers are so much Runic will see at once that a great deal of what is described in “ Esther Waters ”’ must be going on around them. Those whose daily profession or pleasure it is to study these figures will be compelled to admit that the book has been written with the authority that is only born of knowledge. There has been no attempt to make a popular goody-goody suc- cess by an overstatement of evils. We have here no story of high-born, open-handed youths of promise starting in the flush of juvenile enthu- siasm to end bankrupt of fame and fortune. Every bookmaker is not a welsher or a scheming diplomatist. There is no chronicling of enormous wagers, of startling coups, or of roping and coping schemes. These things may occur on the turf, but a description of them—much less a description of them alone—forms no truthful presentment of the turf. The design of the author of “ Esther Walters ” has been to point out the extent to which the craze for betting has deeply infected a large section of the community, and incidentally to write an artistic story. And he has succeeded. The description of the great racing establishment at Woodview is perfectly life-like. The master is no victim of blue-blooded heedless- Le 432 ness. He is, on the contrary, of not particularly select extraction, and races on strictly business principles, backing his horses according as they are “meant.” He finally fails because his son, the gentleman rider, proves unable to pull a horse without being observed. ‘“ He couldn’t sit down and saw his blooming ’ead off right in th’ middle of the course, with the ’andicapper’s field glasses on him. He'd have been warned off the blooming ’eath, and he couldn’t afford that, even to save his own father,” is the way the bookmaker puts it. Surely this situation is much more impres- sive as well as much more truthful than the ordinary story of a turf failure. If a man whose extravagance is in his blood fail on the turf it is not fair to blame the turf. Such men can ruin themselves playing cat’s cradle for kisses. But the picture of a man, who, racing for business— and that go strictly that he is willing to lose his own and his son’s honour in his attention to business—can yet only encompass ruin, forms a real argument against turf speculation. The fidelity to life which characterises the pourtrayal of the master of Woodview and his entourage is equally manifest in the description of Esther’s betrayer and husband, the ex-foot- man, the sporting publican, the ready-money bookmaker. He deserts the mother of his illegitimate child, and is clearly dissolute, low- lived, and unscrupulous. But he is very human. He is kind-hearted. He is honest according to the code of a ready-money bookmaker, and his wrath at the mere use of the word welsher in his presence is as natural as it is justifiable. He is a good husband in a way. He is a good fellow in a way. He isa mean scamp in most ways. And a most convincing picture. No less faithful to life are the votaries of the turf who assemble at the bar of the ‘‘Spread Hagle.” Their superstitious credulity, their belief in omens and in strange tips, combined with their real knowledge of their subject, are admir- ably hit off. The wide-spread evils of betting— its inducements to pilfering and general laxity— are exemplified without being insisted upon. Mr. Leopold is, in particular, a wonderful study made in true Balzac vein. The little sallow, mysterious, unmoved man, the incarnation of racing lore and the genius of cold calculation, whose nickname testifies to the popular belief that his turf know- ledge has made him a millionaire, is all his life on the edge of bitter penury, an unsuccessful, ever- trusting plunger. ‘Chis one man is an exhaustive homily against the national sport. Of Esther herself, the modest but unchaste, dowdy but noble little figure around whom this mean crowd revolves, we do not intend to say much. Mr. George Moore has told the story of t f & THE AUTHOR. her life without padding (which is equivalent to admitting that any attempt to make an abstract of it would be useless), and we commend the reader to his pages. Esther struck us as natural in her contradictions. She is consistent to her character, which is eminently malleable. A puritan in her religious home, in the lax sur- roundings of the racing establishment and under the influence of a first love she falls. Asa mother she rises splendidly to the emergencies of a cruel situation, and is displayed as a brave self- sacrificing woman. As the wife of a sporting publican she learns to look leniently upon a very seamy side of life. Into the grossness of it she never falls, but it belongs to her character that she should assimilate herself to her environment to some extent. She starts in Mr. George Moore’s romance asa good girl; she sees life (life with a vengeance, as Mrs. Quickly would have said) for twenty years; and she endsas a good woman. And throughout her moral and material fluctua- tions she is constant to one predominating design—the design to bring up her boy ‘to earn good money,’ that is, to be a self- respecting citizen in some reputable walk of life. And in this she sueceeds. She makes no fine speeches and is unconscious of her bravery, but not of her frailty. Yet of this latter she has a word to say. She claims, or rather appeals, to be considered a good woman in spite of her youthful lapse. We have no doubt whatever of our own answer or of the author's to Esther’s appeal. Mr. George Moore is to be thoroughly con- gratulated upon his novel. It is an eloquent exhortation on behalf of charity and against greed. 22 —————— BOOK-TALK. oh AN-HUNTING IN THE DESERT” is the title which Captain Haynes, R.E., has given to his account of the search expedition undertaken in 1882-83 by Sir Charles Warren to clear up all doubt as to the fate of Professor Palmer, Captain Gill, and Lieutenant Charrington. With what result is well known ; the committal service in St. Paul’s and the erection of the memorial tablet will be within everyone’s recollection. The tablet is figured in this book, but it is not the only memorial. A cairn of stones surrounding a wooden cross was built in the: desert by Sir Charles Warren close to the scene.of the murder, on a spot chosen by Miss Charrington. -The cross bears the names of the murdered men, and states also that they were killed while on a special mission from the British  THE AUTHOR. Government, To these must be added the window in Rochester Cathedral, erected to the memory of Captain Gill by his brother officers. Should time and circumstance take away these memorials, there is still the actual gravestone in Saint Paul’s Cathedral, which is lettered thus : EB. H. P. AGED. XLII. W. J. @. XXXIX, H. C. XXVI. It had been arranged at first that Sir Charles Warren should write the account of the search expedition, but, pressure of public work prevent- ing this, Captain Haynes undertook it. There are, however, three appendices written by Colonel Warren :—(A) On his connection with the expedi- tion; (B) an abbreviated account of Professor Palmer’s expedition ; (c) notes on Arabia Petreea and the country lying between Egypt and Palestine. Painful as the account is which Captain Haynes has to tell, he has made it readable by keeping carefully to the narrative style, and does not dwell unnecessarily on any of the harrowing details. It is sufficient to say that he relates how the murderers were discovered with infinite difficulty, the different witnesses on sO many occasions having prearranged the story they should tell, and how justice was at last done. Sir Charles Warren, to the satisfaction of all associated with him, insisted upon putting in such evidence as would have obtained a conviction according to the procedure of an English court, which is more exacting than the mixed tribunal at Tanta and Alexandria before whom the prisoners were tried. Five were sentenced to death, and seven others received from three to fifteen years imprisonment. There are some points still open to conjecture with respect to the cause of the murder. Whether the three men were murdered for the money they had with them, or whether the crime was part of the Holy War set on foot by Arabi, which im- plied the massacre of the Christians, is still an unsettled question. It would seem that Colonel Warren inclined to the former view and Captain Haynes to the latter. Then, also, there is the part played by Ali Effendi, the Governor of 433 Nakhl—the place where Palmer was going, and where he had arranged a meeting of the Sheikhs. This proposed meeting itself presents a difficulty, because it is not clear whether Palmer knew that Ali Effendi favoured the cause of Arabi. It was from a letter written by the Governor of Nakhl to a colleague the Governor of Akabah, instructing him how to defend the latter fort, that the search party first learnt that the missing men were dead. This letter was given up to the search party by the Governor of Akabah, and does not show Ali Effendi in a bad light. Captain Haynes prints it in his fourth chapter ; and, since it contained orders not to kill, but only to take prisoners, considers it under the cir- cumstances a very proper instruction. When, however, the search party got to Nakhl, after the site of the murder had been visited and the remains recovered, the Governor’s evidence was taken, Then it came out that at time of the murder he had left Nakhl, and was hovering about close to the spot where the crime was committed. He explained his action by saying “it was in the hope of conducting the English gentlemen to their destination.” The reader will not be surprised to learn that it was part of the plan of the search party to instal a new governor at Nakhl. Ali was afterwards discharged the service, and suffered a year’s imprisonment with hard labour. There seems to be little doubt but that he knew the crime would be committed, and that if he did not order it, at least he did nothing to prevent it. The rest of the narrative deals with the discovery of the tribe to which the murderers belonged, which appears to have been almost as difficult a task as to pick out the actual culprits. The search party also succeeded in recovering some of the money Palmer had taken with him. Captain Haynes manages to bring forward each point of interest with telling effect, which is greatly enhanced by his uphold- ing the opinion that the Professor’s mission was a success, and that, without the journey from Jaffa and Gaza to Suez, our difficulties in retain- ing command of the Canal must have been much more serious, and that up to a certain point Palmer’s influence was felt among tribes of the desert. It is, perhaps, anatural mistake to think that, because a man meets with treachery and is killed, that therefore his work must be considered a failure as well as a misfortune. It is made clear in these pages how partial and wrong such a view would be. It is chiefly in the last chapter that the author allows us to see what he himself thinks of the whole affair — the Palmer expedition, and the search expedition. His reflections are of such a nature that they deserve the closest attention.  434 He does not fail to show us how contemptible the House of Commons can be on occasion, and though he hazards the remark that it is perhaps idle to refer to some of the statements made in the House, yet the references he does make are by no means the most pleasant reading. With regard to the members who did not hesitate to challenge Colonel Warren’s integrity in the conduct of the investigation, instancing also the case of Captain Lugard, the author writes : The eagerness with which people at home adoptand make public the gravest and most discreditable charges against their countrymen beyond the seas, when they are unable effectually to defend their own conduct, occasions some of the saddest moments in the lives of those whose duty it is to serve their country in foreign lands. In fairness, this may be said to refer as much to outside opinion as to an attack in the House; and it is difficult to believe that members would care so little whether they accused an absent individual falsely or not, so long as they could discredit the Government. It ma y be worth while to notice that in each of these cases the action of the parties in question was defended not in the Commons but in the Lords. One other reflection which especially deserves attention is as follows: “The circumstances which surrounded Palmer’s untimely death seems to suggest some error of judgment in his selection for the work to be done in the desert.” Captain Haynes then quotes from the “ Life of Palmer” a passage in which his biographer says : Yet Palmer ought not to have been allowedto go. On this point there seems no doubt or dispute whatever. So long as there was a single soldier in Her Majesty's dominion who could be intrusted with the work this scholar should have been spared. Since those words were penned we had to send a soldier to do a soldier’s work, and the result was the same—treachery and death. It seems impossible now when reconsidering the murder of Palmer and the work done to insure our supremacy in Egypt, not to look further forward to the murder of Gordon and the attempt to evacuate the Soudan. They are succeeding chapters in the same history which tell how even British lives are not rendered any safer by party politicians, with their conflicting views of our duty in Egypt and our interest in India, Of these two men, Gordon and Palmer, we dare not ask which was the better man, but we may ask which stands the higher in the national mind. Undoubtedly Gordon. His simplicity of character, his charity, his personal piety, have all tended to make him a popular hero. But lest it should be thought there can be no heroism outside the soldier’s life, it seems perfectly excusable for once to be an advocate for another’s claims, and say THE AUTHOR. that the persevering scholar, the student of many tongues and many men, has as great a claim on the national memory. ote. 80-SO SOCIOLOGY. (Continued from p. 411.) 141. Were there no insanity, there would be no misery. 142. Beauty is a blend compounded of appre- hension and of appreciation. 143. Too many souls never seem to rise above the grub-stage. 144. Reason is a mean between instinct and insight. 145. The weak wish time, while they merely want talent. 146. While the far prophet gains kudos, the near loses caste. 147. Holiness harmonises the infinite worlds without and within. 148. Charity begins within, and never ends without. 149. Who jests with lying plays practical jokes on his own soul. 150. Forgiveness is worthless, without a fruit- ful future. 151. Many reformations pointed, but none ever failed. 152. Successful selfishness spiritual suicide. 153. Man may raise money, but no mere money ever raised Man. 154. Majority may most lead, but only minority can best leaven. : 155. Beauty attracts, goodness assists, truth attests. 156. When the whole brain wholly sleeps, we call this ‘‘ death.” 157. Had birth begun personal life, death might come to end it. 158. Huthusiasm may often seem extreme, but can never be mean, 159. Pain is a precept as well often as a penalty. 160. Absence of logic does not prove presence of love. 161. None but the fair soul deserves the brave heart. 162. Humanity is the twin sister of humility. 163. Physical energy is often mistaken for mental supremacy. 164. Capacity makes the criminal: opportunity, the crime. may have disap- simply suggests  THE AUTHOR. 165. Were there less ungraciou-ness, there would be less ingratitude. 166. Some minority has most might; other minority has best right. © PHINLAY GLENELG. 2 SAN FRANCISCO'S LITERARY CONGRESS. Tr plans for the Literary Congress, to be held in San Francisco during the month of May, are not yet wholly matured, but the committee in charge has outlined a programme which promises much in the way of interest and practical benefit to participants. According to the present plans the congress will occupy five days, and will be made up of afternoon and evening sessions. The day sessions will be chiefly devoted to the discussion of practical and ethical questions, while the evening sessions will, as far as possible, be con- ducted by American men of letters, and distin- guished foreign guests, and will consist of readings by authors of note, and of discussions of topics of world-wide interest. The first meeting will be an evening session, which will take the form of an informal recep- tion, with an address on “The Influence of Literature on National Character.” This will be followed by a Pacific Coast day, an American day, an English day, and a day which will be an olla podrida of subjects of interest to writers, including a discussion of International Copy- right, talks about French and Russian literature, a debate upon the salutary influence of periodical literature, and an inquiry into the mission of literature and the coming type. The general purpose of the congress is declared to be to discuss the present conditions and the tendencies of literature, and some startling sub- jects will be considered. One of these is “The Novel as a Factor in English Civilisation.” Another is “ Poetry as the Religion of the Future.” The Functions and Titerature of Criticism will be seriously discussed, and “ The Novel or the Newspaper — the Pulpit of the Day?” is suggestive of some bright speeches aud audacious expressions of opinion. The men who are framing the plan of this congress seem to be so prolific in bright ideas that their greatest difficulty is going to be to decide what not to include in the programme. Already they are embarrassed by the wealth of subjects suggested for discussion; not hack- neyed topics, but fresh, original, thought- inspiring questions. F. oH. L. re NOTES AND NEWS. ESS novel of the month arrived very early in the month. There was so much said about it everywhere on its appearance that it seems like old history to mention it here. That “Marcella ’’ has been received with greater favour than either of her predecessors is quite certain; it remains to be seen which of the three will retain the greatest popularity. Meantime the extra- ordinary increase of successful and admirable women novelists is undoubtedly most remark- ably characteristic of literature in this decade. Vividness of imagination; the power of present- ing their characters clearly ; the power of telling a story; many women have shown these qualities during the last half century. What they now show is dramatic force, style, wit, epigram, independence, and freedom of thought. es I have been reading “Esther Waters,” by Mr. George Moore. I venture to express my humble opinion upon the book, viz., that it is, from the artistic point of view, a fine piece of work. In another column will be found the opinion of another man, much to the same effect. The artistic excellence of the book seems indeed to me so great as to place its author in the first rank. It is a real study of life, real and true and courageous. The writer shirks nothing ; gives undue importance to nothing ; does not dwell un- necessarily on subjects unpleasant, yet accepts things repulsive as belonging to life. But, I hear, the story is, in some quarters, considered immoral. This means, I take it, hurtful in some way to morals; encouraging, for instance, one kind of immorality. Does it? For my own part, I cannot find that it does, but perhaps it is a matter of opinion. As men and women of letters, we must own that we may drape, but we must draw from the nude; that is to say, whatever the poet, dramatist, novelist, preacher, essayist, historian writes or speaks, if he would move the world he must have, to work upon, his solid foundations of actual truth, reality, and fact. Things that are, not things that may be, underlie all true literature. Things that are form the real strength and power of this book. But the treatment of things that are—there is the point! Very well. I repeat that I cannot find in the whole book anything at all likely to shake the moral principles of the most weak-kneed moralist. Mr. Feeblemind and Mr, Faintheart may read it without fear, while Christian himself may beguile his pilgrimage with its pages, which will presently cause him to break out into hymns. Should it be given to the Young Lady? We 436 may quite safely leave the question to the Young Lady herself, who is no longer dependent upon Man’s choice of books for her. But I would say to this independent thinker, “ Young Lady, here is a book that treats of things as they are. You have read at school a good deal of literature which deals with human nature and the things of nature; you are not at all an ignorant young person; you have read Ovid, and Virgil, and Horace ; you have read Shakespeare, Molitre, Goethe; you have been told that good literature must be true. Very good. This book is, Lassure you, quite true. It may not make you happier to know the truth about humanity; but it may make you wiser. If there are sinners in the world, you will not be tempted by this writer to go and do likewise. But please yourself.” She holds out her hand. ‘“ Give me the book,” says the Young Lady. Should the book be given to the School Girl? The question may be left to the ladies who have the School Girl under their care. I believe that there are many things in life which are not taught to the School Girl. Perhaps betting is one. Perhaps this or that is another. We have had a great many letters on the subject of editor and contributor. The complaints of the latter have in almost all cases been directed against the editors of low-class organs, poverty-stricken and struggling. One corre- spondent, “‘ Experto Crede,” gives (p. 440) excel. lent advice, that I would beg young readers to consider, and which I here repeat: “ Offer your contributions only to the best magazines, the best weeklies, the best papers. If you cannot get on, after working your hardest and your best, give it up. Don’t try any more. Recognise that lite- rary distinction is not for you. If you persist, remember that on the low levels for which you will write there is no distinction attainable, and a wage which is more miserable than you can get by almost any other kind of work. In the correspondence of this month (p. 442) there is a letter on “ Printing Abroad.” Let everyone have a hearing. Our correspondent argues that it does not matter how many men are thrown out of work if we can only get things cheap. Now to apply our correspondent’s reasoning to an extreme case. Suppose all the printing, paper, and binding sent abroad for cheapness. Suppose, further, that a book can thus be issued at 20 per cent. under the present price. How is the country enriched thereby? First, it gains 20 per cent on its book bill. Against this set the loss of the wages, rent, profit, interest on capital of the whole printing - THE AUTHOR. trade, together with the maintenance of the printers and their families until they can be emigrated. When they are gone we must reckon the loss of so many thousands of productive hands to the country. Again, let us suppose the entire transfer of the cotton trade to Belgium. Cotton becomes cheaper by 10 per cent. perhaps. What will become of the millions who now live by cotton? I, for one, do not believe in the doctrine of cheapness. ETAts-UNIs. New York, le 23 avril. Un projet tendant a créer une institution, analogue a celle de l’Académie francaise vient d’étre soumis au Congrés. I cut the above from the Débats of April 23. As the London papers were not accessible to me on that day, I do not know whether this intel- ligence has appeared in them. Perhaps it is not true. If it is, however, we may hope to get the question of our English Academy properly dis- cussed. Four years ago there was some desul- tory talk upon the subject in the Daily Graphic continued for three weeks or so. But in that correspondence the real points, the points of importance, were hardly more than touched. Most of the objectors assumed that an English Academy must necessarily be an exact copy of the French, with its very limited number and its very objectionable practice of canvassing. For my own part, I should like above all things to see an English Academy, but of a wider kind. This opinion is advanced as purely personal. There are many members of this Society whose views, I know, are exactly the opposite. There should be very important differences between our Academy and the French. In number, for instance. The number forty was chosen when French writers addressed a nation of ten millions with about one million who could read. If the proportions were preserved that forty would now be fifteen hundred at least—too large a body to allow of the election keing a distinction. Since, in our own speech, a writer now addresses a possible audience of a hundred and twenty millions, who can all read; since, if he is successful, he becomes actually known to a fourth at least of that number, would it be too much to give the English Academy, representing all branches of literature, one hundred members? And would it be too much to expect these members to find out for themselves the men and women most worthy of honour? Whether the Academy should have any functions or duties to perform, or whether membership would be a distinction only, is a question that may be reserved.  THE AUTHOR. The Secretary has placed in my hands a letter, which contains the following passage : I believe in the Society of Authors, but so far, while you have most kindly helped me to an abundance of advice, the Society does not seem able to point out publishers who will take MSS. by approved authors and deal fairly with them. If we could do this in every case, all our diffi- culties would be removed. We cannot say of any publisher that he will take MSS. by approved authors ; one can no more persuade a publisher to take a MS. than one can persuade a man to put money in any kind of enterprise ; he has to satisfy his own mind first, and many an author would be surprised to learn the publisher's opinion of his commercial value. As for the fair dealing, we can tell every author beforehand the kind of treatment he will receive at any house; whether he will be bled by secret profits for instance ; whether he will be lured into confidence by an engaging frankness, and then stripped of this right or that right; whether the agreement offered may be considered fair or unfair; whether the publisher will keep that agreement ; whether the estimate of the cost of production is fraudu- lent or not—all these things we can do for our members, and it really seems a good deal. The Figaro has been throwing a little light on the cost of production in Paris. The writer signs himself “ Un Indiscret,’’ which very clearly indi- cates that the same mystery has been thrown over the cost of production in France that we have encountered—and dispersed—here. He takes a French novel of 300 pages, at 30 lines to a page, in the ordinary large type used for such books. T have before me such a volume of Guy de Mau- passant’s, only with 34 lives to a page. A first edition of 1200 copies costs to produce, he says, 1100 francs, a good deal less than such a volume would cost here. If it isa first novel the publisher gives the author 350 francs for it. The average price to the trade is 2°25 francs. If the whole edition goes off the publisher makes a profit of 800 francs. But the whole edition of an unknown novelist may not go off. Thus he may lose by his venture. In this country he would make the author guarantee him against any Icss. It is not stated whether the first novel is bought right out for 350 francs, but that would appear to be the custom. The writer—‘ Un Indiscret” —goes on to tell us that poetry is always paid for by the poet—Alas! poor poet !—and that in many cases where a poet has actually made what appears, outside, to be a considerable name, it must be confined to a very small circle, because nobody buys the new poetry. He then gives figures showing the order of popularity of French novelists. His figures have been dis- 437 puted, so that one need not reproduce them here. The first five, however, are said to be Zola, Daudet, Octave Feuillet, Loti, and Ohnet. Twenty years ago, when there was no copyright with America, anyone in tbis country might pro- duce any American book without paying the author anything. This was done in a great many instances. Prof. Brander Matthews pointed out in a paper published, three or four years ago, in New York, that piracy by publishers was carried on as vigorously in this country as in America. It is therefore pleasant to publish such a letter as the following, addressed to Messrs. Ward, Lock, Bowden, and Co., by the American writer, Max Adeler : It is just twenty years, I think, since my business rela- tions with you were begun. At the end of this long period I regard it as an obligation, as assuredly it is a very great pleasure, to bear testimony to the fact that your treatment of me has been of the most honourable character, and to thank you very cordially for the uniform kindness that I have received at your hands. You could have done nothing for me, in justice to yourselves, that you have not done. The only note that jars is the use of the word “kindness ” instead of “justice.” Not that one doubts either, but between two parties to a business transaction it is justice and not kind- ness that is wanted. The annual meeting of the Authors’ Club, held on the 4th inst., disclosed a very satisfactory condi- tion. The club numbers 300 members ; its rooms are always well filled; the coffee-room charges are extremely moderate, and the members seem quite satisfied with the actual position and_pro- spects of their club. The chairman pointed out that if the numbers were increased by another hundred, a great deal more could be done for the club. A library of reference is in course of forma- tion. Various sub-committees were elected by the members present. The purpose of the founders, to create a club of literary men which shall be at once well appointed and strictly moderate in its charges, promises to be successfully carried out. Every member is a shareholder in the club ; each share is £5, but only £2 are called up; the annual subscription is 4 guineas; once a month there is a house dinner; the situation of the club in Whitehall-court is absolutely central. Perhaps the statement of these facts may recommend the club to those readers of this paper who want such a club. Se The council of the San Francisco Exhibition is about to imitate its Chicago predecessor in holding congresses. ‘There are to be congresses on Mines and Mining, on Economics, on Medicine, on Edu- 438 cation, on Astronomy, on Music, on Temperance, on the Condition of Women, and on Literature. I fear that not many English men or women of letters will appear at the last-named conference, but there may be some. Those to whom a fort- night’s journey does not seem too great a fatigue —those who can spare two months—may find it pleasant and profitable to visit California and take part in the congress. And perhaps there may be among our members one or two who would represent the Society as the delegates. One is quite sure from our experience of Chicago that the reception they would meet would be cordial. — In London for April 19 there appeared an ex- cellent analysis of the reading and the authors read inthe Free Libraries of this City. Our space does not allow us to extract anything from this interesting and valuable paper, but we hope to return to the subject next month. The question of publishing the list of members has awakened very little interest. Since there have been so few replies to the question, and since the balance of opinion, so far, is distinctly against publishing the list, it is not probable that the recent decision of the committee against publish- ing will be immediately reconsidered. Prof. A. C. Mackenzie, Mus.D., Principal of the Royal Academy of Music, has joined the Council and the Executive Committee. Up to the end of April 110 new members since the beginning of the year had either been elected or had sent in their applications for membership. oo At the last moment I have received from the shorthand reporter certain speeches made at a dinner of the Booksellers’ Provident Institution by Mr. John Murray and Mr. Frederick Mac- millan. The remarks which they suggest must wait till our next number, Water BEsant. ect Mopern Literature In Oxrorp. During Hilary Term, 1894, several public lectures were held. Mr. Palgrave read a paper on “The Elizabethan and Jacobean Drama.” Dr. Lentzner gave two lectures on ‘“ Henrik Ibsen,” and began an exposition of “ Goethe’s Faust” by delivering three lectures on the subject. Mr. Morfill delivered a lecture on “Servian Ballad Poetry.” THE AUTHOR. ENGLISH RABELAISIANS. HE influence of Rabelais on English litera- ture has been great and continuous. His satirical work has been pillaged and imitated by very many English writers, and often without the slightest acknowledgment. Rabelais is essentially a literary man’s author. He is “heathen Greek,” or worse, to most general readers, but to a large number of men of letters of the last three centuries he has been a cherished companion; and his influence on the style of many writers has been considerable. A knowledge of Rabelais seems to have spread in England with remarkable rapidity, for in less than half a century after the creator of Pan- tagruel died with a jest upon his lips, reference to his heroes—especially Gargantua—are found thickly scattered over the pages of English writers. There are several in Shakespeare, as, for instance, in “ As You Like It,” when Rosalind overwhelms her cousin with questions, ending with the demand, ‘‘ Answer me in one word.” Celia replies, ‘ You must borrow me Gargantua’s mouth first—’tis a word too great for any mouth of this age’s size.” Similar allusions are common all through Elizabethan literature. Ben Jonson speaks of ‘‘ Gargantuan breeches’; and, indeed, in those days when men’s trunk-hose were worn of the most preposterous size, padded and swelled out to a ridiculous extent, the Rabelaisian adjec- tive was highly appropriate. Nashe, in one of his truculently satirical tracts, calls a pamphleteering antagonist a ‘“‘Gargantuan bag-pudding” ; and, again, euphoniously styles the stately galleons of the Spanish Armada ‘“ Gargantuan boysterous culliguts.” Similar examples might be given from most writers of the Elizabethan period. The name of the gigantic Gargantua was prominent in the oral folk-lore of Brittany, Normandy, and other parts of France, long b:fore Rabelais made him the hero of his chronicle, but the name was almost unknown in literature, and there can be no doubt that our Elizabethan writers were indebted to Rabelais for their knowledge of the ancient giant who derived his name from his appetite. In Spain garganta means the gorge or gullet, and the Spanish for glutton is garganton. Three English writers, two of whom are better known than the third—Swift, Sterne, and Thomas Amory—have all been dubbed in turn “The English Rabelais.” The title was conferred on Swift by Voltaire, and is not inappropriate, for the Dean of St. Patrick’s, in his display of fierce satire and brilliant wit, mingled with much gross- ness of thought and speech, is certainly of the family of Rabelais. Not only does he often  THE AUTHOR. resemble the great Frenchman in matter and style, but some of the incidents in “Gulliver” are boldly imitated—one might almost say “ con- veyed ”—from the history of Pantagruel. Sterne may perhaps be regarded as the most thoroughly Rabelaisian of English writers, if we leave out of sight the moral purpose and the deep thought that informed and justified the satire of the curé of Meudon. Sterne has abundance of wit and satire, but very little moral purpose. Mr. Percy Fitzgerald says that, “the cast of the whole Shandean history, its tone and manner and thought, is such as would come from one saturated, as it were, with Rabelais, and the school that imitated Rabelais.” This is rather strongly put, for, after all, the resemblances between Sterne and the great Frenchman are mostly on the surface. There can be no doubt that Sterne took Rabelais as his model—his chapter on noses is a direct imitation of his great original—but tricks of style and modes of thought are not very difficult to catch, and imitation, to a writer of Sterne’s style and temperament, is an easy and congenial task. Sterne gives us Rabelaisian wit and humour and pathos, with a mixture of Rabelaisian gross- ness, al] in a style modelled upon that of his master; but there the resemblance ends. It is only in comparatively recent years that the true worth and aims and position of Rabelais have been properly appreciated. The popular view of the satirist is expressed in Pope’s lines to Swift, in the “ Dunciad :”— Whether thou choose Cervantes’ serious air, Or laugh and shake in Rab’lais’ easy chair. And this “ easy-chair”’ view, which recognises the great Frenchman only as a humorist of a rather gross type, takes no note of his wonderful satirical powers, of his attacks upon the corrup- tions of his age in morals and in religion, his condemnation of the miserable modes of educa- tion then in vogue, and his exhortations to higher ideals in life and labour, which culminate in his description of the abbey of Theleme. All these high aims and large views could have been plainly preached in those days only at the cost of the preacher's life, and for this reason the satirist put on the fool’s cap and disguised his real intentions and meaning amid a mass of jest: and fun of the most boisterous sort, giving the cap and bells an extra shake whenever the disguise had become for a moment too thin. It is easy, nowadays, for the careful student to read between the lines, to separate the chaff from the genuine wheat of the book; and there ran be little doubt but that many of his con- temporaries similarly penetrated the disguise, 439 and recognised the reformer and preacher behind the antic mask and habit of the clown. The third “ English Rabelais” was Thomas Amory, the author of the “Life of John Buncle.” This extraordinary book, which was published about a hundred and _ thirty years ago, is in the Shandean style —ex- tremely discursive, with discourses on every imaginable subject, mixed up with the discussion of the author’s notions on theology. The laugh- ing spirit of Rabelais pervades the whole. The book was a favourite with Lamb. He recom- mended it to Coleridge’s notice as ‘a most curious romance-like work . . very inte- resting, and an extraordinary compound of all manner of subjects, from the depths of the ludicrous to the heights of sublime religious truth,’ Hazlitt says that the soul of Francis Rabelais passed into Amory—‘ both were phy- sicians, and enemies of too much gravity. Their great business was to enjoy life.” This, again, hardly does justice to the Frenchman. The “easy-chair” view of his work was still pre- dominant. A clearer view of his life and aims was set forth by Coleridge. In his “Table Talk” he exclaims :—‘I think with some interest upon the fact that Rabelais and Luther were born in the same year, Glorious spirits! Glorious spirits!” Coleridge recognised that however diverse were the characters and methods of these two great men--and no two men could have been more unlike one another—yet, essentially, their aims were the same. In another passage, the author of the “ Ancient Mariner” says:—‘ Beyond doubt, Rabelais was among the deepest, as well as boldest thinkers of his age. His buffoonery was not merely Brutus’s rough stick which con- tained a rod of gold; it was necessary as an amulet against the monks andlegates. . . . I could write a treatise in praise of the moral elevation of Rabelais’ work which would make the Church stare and the conventicle groan, and yet would be truth, and nothing but the truth.” G. L. APPERSON. recs CORRESPONDENCE. I.—HeErsert SPENCER AND LITERATURE. N the notice of Miss Gingell’s “ Aphorisms from the Works of Herbert Spencer” im last month’s Author (p. 401), the writer dealing with Mr. Spencer’s views upon education and literature, says that ‘we must not blink the fact that, except in the sense of scientific litera- ture, it (literature) plays no part at all,” 440 developing this a few lines later on by the remark “as long as the knowledge of crtain subjects—let us say especially history—has even a conventional value in social life, surely parents are justified in giving some of it to their children. The wish that these latter should not feel ignorant and awkward in such society as they will probably get does not appear to be entirely an unreasonable one.” The inferences intended to be drawn being that Mr. Spencer thinks pure literature of no educa- tional value; that such subjects as history are valueless; and that it matters not if children feel ignorant and awkward in the society they move in. ‘To anyone who is acquainted with Mr. Spencer’s works it will be quite unnecessary to say how entirely incorrect these statements are. To others it may be of interest to know what our great philosopher has himself said upon these very points. In “ Education” is written, “We yield to none in the value we attach to esthetic culture and its pleasures. Without painting, sculpture, music, poetry, and _ the emotions produced by natural beauty of every kind, life would lose half its charm. So far from regarding the training and gratification of the tastes as unimportant, we believe that in time to come they will occupy a much larger share of human life than now’”’ (Lib. ed., p. 38). In the “Principles of Ethics’”—‘ Literary culture has a high claim, and we may also admit that, as conducing to wealth and force of expression by furnishing materials for metaphor and allusion, it increases mental power and social effectiveness. In the absence of it con- versation is bald” (Vol. I, p.520). That Mr. Spencer values very highly the instruction to be gained from history follows not only from his compilations of ‘‘ Descriptive Sociology,” but also from the somewhat detailed way in which he has defined the kind of history which is alone of use to the citizen for the regulation of his conduct. Summing up, he says: The facts of history “given with as much brevity as consists with clearness and accuracy should be so grouped and arranged that they may be comprehended in their ensemble, and contemplated as mutually dependent parts of one great whole. The aim should be so to present them that men may readily trace the consensus subsisting among them ; with a view of learning what social pheno- mena co-exist with what others”? (‘‘ Education,” Pp. 35): The ill-adaptation of children to their society may be easily met by the truth enunciated throughout,the “ Principles of Biology ’”—indeed, this work cannot be truly comprehended until this truth is thoroughly mastered, and one can THE AUTHOR. as it were think in terms of it. That life 7s the correspondence between internal and external relations; that the degree of life varies as the degree of this correspondence; that perfect correspondence would be perfect life. F, Howarp Couns. II.—Tuer MisrortuNnes oF THE CASUAL ConTRIBUTOR. With reference to your recent correspondence dealing with the relations between editor and casual contributor, when will the latter recognise thaf, as Mr. Barrie puts it, ‘‘ there are only about a dozen papers in London worth writing for’’? When will they see that what is not good enough for a first-class paper or magazine really had better remain unpublished ? Over and over again have you laid down the sound rule that if good publishers decline MSS., to send them to the lower grade houses is worse than useless. The same rule applies to journalism. Send your articles to the best dailies, the leading reviews, the most well-known magazines. If these decline them, set to work on something else ; if this too fails, take to palmistry or any other hobby, but recognise that distmction in the literary field is not for you. Let me give my own experience. Ihave written for a period between four and five years. In that time (I am not speaking of the regular work I have had, but only of casual contributions) I have had contributions accepted by some ten or twelve of the most well-known papers and magazines, the names of some of which I inclose for your private inspection, Mr. Editor, that you may be able to see my authority for so calling them. I have sent nothing to any second-rate paper. The result has been that never once have I had any difficulty about payment, my only scruples have been sometimes in ‘accepting what seemed ludicrously high prices for the amount of work done. And so let me advise ‘ Lunette,” and those in like case, to fly at higher game, and if they fail therein, to give up writing entirely. ExprertTo CREDE. IlI.—“ Inpustrian Enauanp.” The following facts may be of interest to Authors who have been invited to contribute to a series of volumes which, under the general title of “Industrial England,” are announced as being in preparation under the editorship of James Burnley, who writes from 83, Queen- street, Cheapside, E.C., and who says that he has already made arrangements with, among others, Mr. W. M. Ackworth, Sir Robert Rawlin-  THE AUTHOR. son, Mr. H. Fox Bourne, Sir Douglas Galton, Sir Charles Dilke, Mr. Joseph Hatton, Sir Douglas Fox, Mr. G. Barnett Smith, Mr. Grant Allen, the Rev. H. R. Haweis, Mr. Walter Crane, Mr. Morley Roberts, Dr. F. H. Bowman, Mr. Edward Walford, Mr. Archibald Forbes, Mr. Charles G. Leland, and Mr. J. F. Rowbotham, to contribute to his work. 1. On Nov. 11, 1893, Mr. James Burnley, unsolicited and without any introduction, wrote to inform me that the work in question “is now being carried out under my editorship for Messrs. Sampson Low, Marston, and Co.,” and to ask me to contribute on a specified technical subject. To this I replied expressing my willingness to con- tribute. [Editor's note.—Messrs. Sampson Low and Co. have written to state that they had incurred no responsibility in the project. ] 2. On Nov. 17, 1893, Mr. James Burnley wrote to thank me, and to request me to contribute two chapters of about five thousand words each, giving an outline history of the subject up to the beginning of the present century, and subse- quently to continue the history of it, on a more elaborate scale, down to the present moment. After specifying terms, Mr. Burnley concluded by declaring that “ payment would, of course, be made on receipt of same” (viz., of copy). I replied suggesting a written programme, and offering to write ten chapters which should cover the whole subject. 3. On Nov. 20, 1893, Mr. James Burnley wrote, returning my written programme or synopsis, and accepting my offer, adding: “I note that you say that you could let me have the whole of the chapters by April, but it might facili- tate matters if you let me have a couple of chapters in January.” I promised to let him have a couple of chapters in January, and on Jan. 17 I sent him them. 4. On Jan. 18, 1894, Mr. James Burnley acknow- ledged the receipt of these chapters, adding : “I shall soon be able to place them in the hands of the printers, and will forward you proofs in due course.” Some days having elapsed, and Mr. Burnley being a total stranger to me, Iseut him a request for payment for these chapters. 5. On Feb. 5, 1894, Mr. James Burnley wrote : “ Referring to your letter of the other day, I shall have pleasure in placing the matter of your remu- neration before the proprietors at their meeting next week, and will get the account passed.” This wholly unexpectel introduction of “the proprietors” was not quite satisfactory to me; yet I waited patiently until Feb. 13, when I called upon Mr. James Burnley at his office, and saw him 441 in presence of a young lady who appeared to be his type-writing assistant. He expressed himself as being extremely pleased with what I had done for him, and promised to let me hear from him ‘in the course of two or three days ;” but, as he omitted to keep his promise, I wrote on Feb. 21 again requesting payment. 6. On Feb. 22, Mr. Burnley replied, objecting to the tone of my letter, disclaiming any desire to avoid his obligations; pleading that, as he was working with others, “these things had to go through a regular routine;” professing to be “unaware that it is usual to pay for articles on delivery, unless there has been an express stipula- tion to that effect” (see 2); but magnanimously deprecating “ any intention on his part of appeal- ing to the supposed custom”’ ; and hoping “in the course of next week to be able to do what is necessary.” I answered on Feb. 23, insisting that payment was due to meas a right and not as a favour, and saying that unless I received it on or before Feb. 27 I should take further advice. 7. Mr. James Burnley appears to have shown this letter of mine to a friend of his, who wrote on the 26th, asking me to go and see him on the subject in the City. I replied to this gentleman that I could not undertake to do this, as, so far as I knew, no facts were in dispute. 8. Mr. James Burnley wrote to me on Feb. 27, as follows, not on “ Industrial England” paper, but on paper which declared Mr. James Burnley to be a representative of the Gentlewoman, the Bradford Observer, the Nottingham Express, the Leeds Daily News, andthe Yorkshireman, and to be the author of numerous books. The letter was, like a'l the previous ones, type-written ; but on this occasion only, Mr. Burnley forgot to sign his name. “Since,” he said, “ you are so im- patient and unreasonable, I have no alternative but to retura you your MS. It is against all custom to pay for articles before they are used, as you must know. You have allowed no time for the reading or consideration of the articles ; all you have done is simply to deliver them and demand payment—a most unusual course, and one which the proprietors resent. I shall defend any action you may think proper to bring.” g. I acknowledged the return of the articles, explaining that I did so without prejudice. Iam not at present satisfied that an action against Mr. Burnley would greatly benefit my position ; but Iam persuaded that it is desirable that the facts, as set forth above, should be known to authors and to “ the proprietors.” W. 1. C. 442 IV.—An Apvertising Firm. 1. My attention is directed by an innocent young neighbour, who desires to add to her income by her pen, to an attractive notice to authors in a newspaper, to the effect that a firm of publishers want MSS. of sorts, and my advice asked. TUreply “ Wait a little.” 2. I select a MS. story of my own for which I have no immediate use, and send it to the said firm. Itis a story of about 18,000 words, and might, by the exhibition of lead in copious doses, be unhealthily distended to a volume of about seven sheets of pica, I should think. 3. “ After compliments,” the firm propose that Ishould pay them £46, and that they should pro- duce the workin attractive paper covers at Is.,in a first edition of 2000; assure me that I should have two-thirds of the proceeds of sales; add that advertising, reviewing, and the other techni- calities of publishing should have their especial care, and are mine faithfully. 4. I acknowledge compliments, and _ present these gentlemen with mine, adding the following brief calculation: Suppose the whole edition of 2000 (less fifty for the “technicality” of reviewing) to be sold out at the price of 64d., not taking thirteen as twelve, or other reduc- tions into consideration; and suppose me_ to take my two-thirds, I should issue trium- phantly forth £10 15s. 10d. to the bad. There- fore I decline. I further say that during the whole time I have been writing anything which has been published, I have had books brought out at various houses, but never been asked before to pay sixpence ; that, on the contrary, I have usually been paid. Finally I propose a very small royalty or sale outright at a price named. 5. I receive a much briefer letter, with less compliments, inviting me to pay £36 and receive half the proceeds of an edition of 3000. 6. I treat the house to a fresh calculation, based on their improved proposal, and proceed- -ing on the same assumptions as the last, of which the result is that under the most favourable circumstances possible I shall receive about £3, and they will receive about £75, less cost of production of a paper-covered book of about seven sheets of pica. I then repeat my previous very moderate proposal. 7. These worthy publishers send back my MS. 8. I present the whole ‘“ object lesson”’ to my innocent young neighbour, and to all authors to whom it may be of use. A. B. THE AUTHOR. V.—THE EXPERIENCE OF A FAILURE. I was still in my teens when I first sent a paper to a children’s magazine, and I got £3 for it. I next sent a children’s story to a publisher, and received an offer of £5 for the copyright, which I accepted, but stipulated for another £5 if the work went into a second edition. This was some years ago, and the book is still selling. A year afterwards the same publisher offered me £10 for my second book. Irefused, and took the book elsewhere. After some difference about the title, I accepted £36 for the copyright, nothing being said about future editions. Then a fire occurred at this office, and my MS. was burnt. I re-wrote it, half from rough copy, and half from memory. After this I sold another story to the same publisher for £30; it was put into type, but kept unpublished for eight years. During these eight years L wrote a story for girls and two novels. Of the latter, one was refused by fourteen pub- lishers, The other I sent to yet another publisher —he gave ine £50 for the copyright, and the book appeared in 3 vols., receiving long notices both in the Saturday Review and the Spectator. I also received, in addition, £10 which had been sent from America. That was the high-water mark of my literary career. JI then wrote a children’s story, which was offered to a society for £20. They sent me £16, and I had to write and demand the other four. I next wrote a story of Eastern life, and sent it to the same society, with the same instructions. They put the book in type, and then sent it me back, with the excuse that they had expected another children’s story. About this time I became a member of the “ Society of Authors.” I now brought out through a magazine my previously despised novel. Isold the serial rights for £20, and at the end of the year I accepted £25 for the copy- right. It was published at once in book form. Iwas then advised to try short stories for the magazines. I got one accepted, and was well paid. I sent a second—it was returned because the maga- zine had stopped. I sent the story to another new magazine, and was offered £2. I objected, and the story was returned with an increase in the offer to £10. I accepted it. This is about two years ago, and since then my record has been one of unbroken failure. As I honestly believe that my last two years’ work is not inferior, I do not know where the fault lies. FLevr-pE-Lys. A Se VI.—Printine ABROAD. In “Notes and News” last month it is stated that “more than any other class, writers should be interested in helping all those who work to obtain fair wages, because the circulation of their  THE work depends on the general prosperity, not the enrichment of a few;’’ and, further, that “ we must remember that sending work out of the country means so much lowering of the general prosperity.” The general prosperity is best obtained by having things at the lowest possible cost, putting them within the reach of the greatest number, and that can be done only by making the cost of production as low as possible, so as to enable the means of the poorest to buy the greatest number of things. This is enriching the many. Tf, to bring this about, certain work has to be sent out of the country to be done, the prosperity of the country is advanced thereby, for then the article in question is placed within the reach of a still poorer class than if it had been produced in the home country at an artificial, because unnaturally high, rate of wage. The workers in the home country who are thrown out of employment thereby, and thus become a burden on the community, cause but an indirect and temporary lowering of the general prosperity. They, and if not they, their descen- dants, find other means of livelihood; meantime the general benefit of the nation is enhanced by the price of goods being lowered ; the more they are lowered, the greater the general benefit, for this lowering usually rouses activity in many new and hitherto unseen directions. Had the interests only of those who were thrown out of work by an alteration in the means of production being always considered, no im- provements would ever have taken place. The interest of the many would always have been sacrificed to that of the few, and no gain in general prosperity could have been made. HH. He VII.—A Hanpsooxk ror AUTHORS. Tam very glad that somebody has dreamed of a “ Handbook for Authors.”’ It is all very well to write or type a MS., but the great question is— where is the market for it? It is true all editors are not alike—some are exceedingly considerate, and seem to remember the time when they themselves were contributors. I desire to mention the editor of the People’s Friend (Dundee) and the editor of the Young Man as especially considerate to those who send them MSS. In the new “handbook” let the author tell exactly what “rate”? each editor is willing to give for accepted papers; how long each editor usually keeps MSS.; what each paper or maga- zine wayts and what it does not want. And, above all, let clear notice be made if the payment is monthly, quarterly, or yearly.. I think most AUTHOR. 443 sensible editors will weleome such a handbook quite asmuchas «8 Stormy. VIIIL—A Recent ExpPerreNce OF THE GENUS Eprror. The editorial chair of a certain periodical, which your humble servant has for some years fed with the poor munitions of his literary armoury, is now filled bya stranger. ‘This gentle- man, in the usual course of business, was pro- vided with a specimen of the writer’s poor abilities in the shape of a printed (not type-written) original article on a military topic, in which the genius of the French language lends itself most admirably to the technique of composition. Now your correspondent is well aware that any tirade which bristles with foreign terms and idioms suggests, ipso facto, a scant acquaintance with the mother tongue; but this position is hardly tenable in the case of an essay of some 8000 words or more, which contains but from seven or eight borrowings from foreign idioms. This, how- ever, is one of the “rocks of offence,” which, in the face of the fact that the article is submittec for prompt use by reason of its being a “ subject of the hour,’ the editor quotes as a reason for delay in publishing. A further ground of objection is suggested in the use of participial subordinate sentences, which as most of your readers will allow, obviates verbiage in the form of relative clauses, and con- stitutes a marked feature in most of the Latin tongues. The third objection to the immediate use of an’ article — originally submitted on conditional terms—is that it is too plain spoken as to certain acknowledged and existent errors in the military autonomy. As no single ungraceful or dis- courteous term is used, one is at a loss to under- stand why innuendoes are to be substituted for the open criticism of that abstraction called a “system.” Meanwhile the “ modifications” pro- posed are awaited by your correspondent with some curiosity, not unmixed with disquietude. The last, but by no means the least, lapsus calami (as this candid if captious critic will have it to be) is the alternative uses of “I” and “we fs within the limits of the same article. Now, on this, as on other points, the writer appeals to the Author for an opinion as to the accepted laws and regulations on this disputed (?) question. Is it or is it not the case that many writers of prose consistently perpetrate this asserted error on the following grounds? When an assertion is pre- sumed to carry with it the general assent of the reading world or public, for which the essay is written, it is considered permissible to use the pronoun plural “ we,” whereas whensoever the 444 writer will hazard his own opinions the more dogmatic “I” is used to back his theory and to differentiate between personal opinion and accepted facts. It remains only to add that it is, to say the least of it, a curious anomaly that in face of so much adverse criticism the said editor asks for more in the shape of “copy” from his poor con- tributor, who now begs some member of your society to “ break a lance” in his favour, or at least to guide him into right paths. F.C. 0. J. IX.—Tue Rieut or APPEARANCE. A practice exists which seems to me to call for the consideration of the Society of Authors as the protectors of literary property. It has been often said that a writer is paid in two ways, by money and by reputation. Now, there is a large and increasing number of periodicals which accept, and in some few cases even pay for, a very much larger number of contributions than they can possibly use. These are generally stored in the offices until a periodical clearance is made of them. In some cases they find their way back to the authors, but as often as not are sent to the paper mills. It seems to me that this is a wrong that calls for a remedy, and I submit that an opportunity should be taken to raise and to decide the point whether the author of a signed contribution is not entitled to call for publication within a reasonable limit, or to place his MS. elsewhere. It is an outrage to argue that a money payment dis- charges the obligation. x specs “AT THE SIGN OF THE AUTHOR'S HEAD.” Sa R. T. F. UTTLEY has written a duodecimo volume entitled “How to become a Solicitor; or, Hints to Articled Clerks.” In addition to other information, the book has an appendix of examination questions set duing 1893. In last number of the Author (p. 413) Major Seton Churchill’s name appeared as Major Seton Carr, The announcement was of a book on Betting and Gambling. “The Law anl Lawyers of Pickwick,’ being the (revised) Jecture on the subject recently delivered by Mr. Frank Lockwood, Q.C., M.P., is in preparation, and will shortly be issued by the Roxburghe Press, 3, Victoria-street, West- THE AUTHOR. minster, and 32, Charing-cross, S.W. Mr. Lockwood has sketched an original “ Buzfuz” for the frontispiece. Mr. Stephenson, the author of ‘ Mrs. Severn,” a successful temperance story, has written a second story, “Helena Hadley,” which is to be published in the autumn. A new edition of Mr. Mackenzie Bell’s mono- graph on Charles Whitehead, with extracts from his work, is about to appear. Prefixed to it is an appreciation of Whitehead by Mr. Hall Caine. The Rev. J. J. Halcombe has reprinted from the Guardian his letter on ‘The Gospel Problem: Fourfold not Synoptic.” “The Dead Hand,” a tale of old Manchester, by Mrs. G. Linneus Banks, is continued in the Manchester Monthly. A new work by Mr. J. E. Gore, F.R.AS., entitled “The Worlds of Space,” a series of popular articles on astronomical subjects, has just been published by Messrs. A. D. Innes and Co., Bedford-street, Strand. Miss Eleanor Holmes’s last novel, ‘‘ The Price of a Pearl,” has been issued in a popular edition in America by Messrs. Harper, and forms the March number of what is known as the Franklin- square Library. Mr. Arthur Paterson has written a story called “The Daughter of the Nez Pere¢s.” It is strictly founded on fact. The chief incidents are taken from records by officers in the American army, who were engaged in active service against the Nez Percés Indians in 1879. The heroine has been brought up in the east. She rejoins her people to reclaim them from barbarism; but at an unfortunate moment, the nation being at war with the American Government, The interest of the story lies in the troubles of the Indians and the position of the girl among them, with the addition of her own romance. Attention is also drawn to the character of her father, Chief Joseph—well known to all students of Indian history—and his brother chiefs, who, with all the faults of their race and training, were made of stuff any nation might be proud to call its own. The publishers are Messrs. Bentley and Sons. The latest volume in “ The Independent Novel Series” is called “Theories: Studies from a Modern Woman,” by “A.N.T.A.P.” Some writers split their stories up into books, and the books into chapters, as, for example, “A Tale of Two Cities, in three books,” each book having its chapters numbered afresh. As this would be unnecessary in. shorter works, the author. of  THE AUTHOR. “Theories” splits the work up into studies, with the titles—(1) “Courtship and Marriage ;” (2) “ Socialism and Society ;” (3) “The Theories Falter ;” and (4) ‘In Ruins.” Mrs. Leith Adams’s new novel, “ Colour-Serjeant No. 1 Company,” will be published immediately by Messrs. Jarrold and Sons. The work has already appeared in AJl the Year Round. The Scotsman has described it as ‘‘ 2 masterpiece of human pathos and clever portraiture.” Mr. W. P. James’s “ Romantic Professions ”’ is a collection of essays republished from magazines. Besides the first essay, which gives the title to the work, there are seven others: (2) “‘ The Nemesis of Sentimentalism,” (3) ‘‘ Romance and Youth,” (4) “On the Naming of Novels,” (5) ‘‘ Names in Novels,” (6) “Fhe Historical Novel,” (7) *‘ The Poet as Historian,” (8) “The Great Work.” The third paper, “Romance and Youth,” has been made the subject of wide comment with refer- ence to the child-marriages brought to light by Dr. Furnival in his researches into the marriage register of the time of Queen Eliza- beth. Readers of fiction will recall that the child marriage, for political reasons in the time of James IT., has been used with great success by John and Katharine Saunders in their novel, “ The Lion in the Path.” “Dave’s Sweetheart,” by Mary Gaunt, is the author’s first novel, though she has fre- quently contributed to periodical literature. The scene of the story is laid in Australia, not in the cities, but in the country of northern Victoria, and the chief characters are miners, police, and the family who kept the “ Lucky Digger Hotel.’ There are references to the existence of Chinamen and natives; in fact, a whole crowd of men, among whom for miles around there are but two women, the wife of the keeper of the “ Lucky Digger” and his daughter by a previous marriage, who is grown up, and is the heroine of the story. The author is at least at home in describing the peculiarities of the rough life of the miners, their relation with the police, and with one another. We hope that the author next time will give us something of the brighter side of life. It is published in 2 vols. by Edward Arnold. Mr. J. BE. Muddock has written a story called “The Star of Fortune,’ which will shortly be issued. The scenes are principally laid in India during the great Mutiny. The author was in India during the Mutiny years, and had many exciting experiences, which he has utilised to advantage in the present work. The publishers are Messrs. Chapman and Hall. The same author’s successful story, “For God and the 445 Czar,” published by George Newnes Linited, has been translated into Hebrew, and is now appearing serially in a Jewish paper called Hazophe which is printed in London by Meczyk, Latner, and Co. Dick Donovan, the well-known writer of detec- tive stories, commences a new serial in the Million this month. The title is ‘ Eugéne Vidocq,” and it deals with the thrilling career of the celebrated French adventurer who subse- quently distinguished himself as a detective. The Rev. Dr. Lansdell has brought out in two volumes an account of his journeys in Chinese Central Asia as a pioneer for missionary work. Dr. Lansdell was away two years and seven months, and seems to be well satisfied with the result of his travels. His work shows that he is able to point out in what places in Central Asia Church of England missionaries are wanted, and where they may hope for real conversions. In addition to acquiring this knowledge, as he was visiting countries unknown to science, he made an extensive collection of the different fauna. The author of “ Mark Tillotson” is at present in Bohemia, where he is travelling with an artist, Mr. Henry Whateley, in connection with his forthcoming volume on Bohemia, to be published in “The Pen and Pencil Series” of the Religious Tract Society. He has also penetrated to the mountain prison of “the great forgotten English- man” at Gutstein, a description of which will appear in his volume upon that fifteenth century hero. The poem entitled ‘Woman the Messiah,” now running in the Modern Review, is by Ellis Ethelmar, the author of ‘“‘ Woman Free.” It is pleasant to congratulate Mr. Percy White on his novel, “ Mr. Bailey-Martin” (Hememann). The pen of the satirist is here at work, and the pictures of late nineteenth century snobbism are as amusing as they are clever. Mrs. Alec Tweedie’s book, “A Winter Jaunt to Norway” (Bliss, Sands, and Foster), which appeared in February last, is now in a second edition, It contains personal accounts of Ibsen, Bjérnson, Nansen, and Brandes. News may be heard in May or June of Dr. Nansen and his expedition, if he left letters at the New Siberian Islands last autumn, as he at one time contem- plated doing. Mrs. Tweedie’s book is very fully illustrated, and contairs a portrait of the authoress. The following notes are taken from the Dial of Chicago: The hundredth anniversary of Bryant’s birth- day will be celebrated Nov. 3, at Great Bar- 446 rington, Mass., where the poet was married, and lived for several years. The following Southey autograph, recently sold in London, is contributed to “ Poet-lore” by Mr. W. G. Kingsland : ; Mr. Southey, writer of autographs, in consequence of the great and unsolicited employment which he has obtained in that line of business, begs leave to lay before his friends and the public the following scale of charges :— Le ed. A Signature... 0-3 4 Ditto in extra penmanship, ‘with date and time of place Ke o0 6 8 Ditto with a motto or text of ‘Scripture a SO 19 aw Ditto with an extract from the writer’s poetry . ei oe ee Ditto with the poetry unpublished | I 11 6 Ditto with the poetry composed for the occasion... 3 3.0 Ditto being sentimental, ‘and ‘nob ‘exceeding six lines : We ee B50 Ditto being humorous ane Nase aa eee Ditto being complimentary ... . 1010 0 N.B.—All warranted original. Spec OBITUARY. I—Dr. Poout, THE LIBRARIAN. HE Dial, of Chicago, gives an account of the life and work of the late Dr. Poole, the librarian, who was a constant contributor to that journal. The first number contained a review from his pen. He was best known in this country as the compiler of the ‘“ Index of Perio- dical Literature.” Dr. Poole had been assistant librarian in Boston from 1850 to 1869, and chief librarian of the Cincinnati Public Library till 1893, when he undertook the librarianship of the Chicago Public Library. Since 1887 he had been engaged in organising the Newbery Reference Library of Chicago. Of his aims, so far as his profession was concerned, the Dial writes : Librarianship, in this country, has during the past twenty years become one of the learned professions; that it has become so is due in very great measure to the efforts of Dr. Poole. To secure for his fellow workers the recognition accorded to the clergyman, the lawyer, and the physician ; to substitute the trained bibliographer for the mere custodian of books; to establish professional schools of librarianship ; to make the public familiar with the principles of rational library architecture ; to facilitate access tc collections of books, and to enlarge their usefulness by library helps prepared by the co-operation of bibliographers—these were, briefly stated, the aims towards whose accomplishment he devoted, for a full half-century, an exceptionally active and industrious life. In which connection it is interesting to note that he represented America at the first Inter- national Conference of Librarians, held in London THE AUTHOR. in 1877. Of his methods as a librarian we read that they were characterised by sagacious practicality and clear common sense. He mistrusted the elaborate scientific systems now in vogue with our younger bibliographers; systems which are excellent for the uses of the librarian, but sadly perplexing to most of the people for whom libraries are collected. His methods of classification and catalogue making were to a certain extent empirical, and not a little is to be said on behalf of empiricism in such matters. He never lost sight of the fundamental principle that books are meant to be used ; that their chief end is not attained when they are catalogued and shelved. He wanted the public to use the books under his charge, and encouraged such use in many ways. Dr. Poole’s historical work was chiefly con- nected with the early settlement of the Puritans, and, being himself one of their descendants, he stoutly defended his ancestors against the mis- representations under which they have suffered. Only last month he had an article in the Dial in their defence. The following is the account of “ Poole’s Index to Periodical Literature,” which is a worthy monument to the memory of the distinguished man of letters. The author began this important work as a student, when he was acting as librarian of a college society. Its first edition was printed in 1848, making an octavo of 154 pages. In 1853 it reappeared in an octavo of more than three times the thickness of the earlier volume. In 1882 (the author having meanwhile secured the co-operation of a number of his fellow librarians) it made its third and final appearance, again multiplied threefold as to the number of pages, and much more than that as to the quantity of matter. Two supplements have since been published, with the co-operation of Mr. W. I. Fletcher, bringing it down to 1892. IIT.—Mr. Wittiam Torrens M’CuLiace TORRENS. The death occurred yesterday, at his residence in Bryanston-square, of Mr. Wiliam Torrens M’Cullagh Torrens, who was the victim of a street accident on Tuesday last, from the effects of which he died. Mr. Torrens was the eldest son of Mr. James M’Cullagh, of Delville, county Dublin. He was born in October, 1813, and was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, where he graduated B.A. in 1834 and LL.B. in840. He became a member of Lincoln’s-inn, and practised at the Common Law Bar. He was appointed a Commissioner of the Poor Law Inquiry in Ireland in 1835, private secretary to Lord Taunton (then Mr. Labouchere) in 1846, and represented Dundalk from 1847 till July, 1852, when he was an unsuccessful candidate for Yarmouth, for which he was returned at the general election in March, 1857. He was returned for the old borough of Finsbury i in July, 1865, and sat for the borough in ‘four successive Parliaments. In 1863 he assumed, for family  Hu etd reasons, the name of Torrens, which was his mother’s name before her marriage. He was a prominent member of the independent Liberal party, who secured by their support Mr. Disraeli’s proposal of household suffrage for towns, and in committee on the Bill he proposed and carried the lodger franchise. In the following year he brought in the Artisans’ Dwellings Bill, which passed both houses. In 1869 he obtained the adoption for London of the system of board- ing out children by Poor Law guardians ; and in 1870 an Act to amend the laws regarding extradition was passed in accordance with the recommendation of a committee for which Mr. Torrens had moved two years before. The School Board for London was suggested and proposed to Parliament by him as an amendment to Mr. Forster’s Elementary Education Bill, and he was himself elected a member of the School Board for Finsbury. When purchase in the army was abolished, he carried an address to the Crown against sending soldiers under age to serve in hot climates. Mr. Torrens was the author of “‘ Lectures onthe Study of History”; “The Life of R. L. Shiel”; “The Life and Times of Sir James Graham”; “The Industrial History of Free Natives’; “Our Empire in Asia: How We Came by It”; ‘“ Memoirs of Viscount Melbourne”’ ; “The Reform of Procedure in Parliament”; and “The Life of Lord Wellesley.” In 1885 he brought in and carried an Act limiting the charge for water rates in London to the amount from time to time of the public assessment. To him also is due the enactment removing the principal prisons from London in order to provide sites for workmen’s dwellings and public gardens. The work upon which he had been more or less engaged for twenty years, and which had engaged his unremitting attention during the past seven years, “The History of the Cabinets,” is just through the press, and will be issued next month. Mr. Torrens was in good health at the time of the accident which caused his death, and only last Saturday he appeared in public at the annual dinner of the London Association of Correctors of the Press, one of whose members had been his right hand in literary work for some years past. Owing to his defective sight he had previously been the victim of two similar accidents. Three years ago he was knocked down by a cab in Piccadilly, and was for some time in a dangerous condition.— Times, April 27. es THE AUTHOR. 447 NEW BOOKS AND NEW EDITIONS. Theology. Arnoup’s Braue Reapers. By M. T. Yates. Book I. Simple Bible Stories. Book I. Old Testament Stories. Book III. New Testament Stories. Edward Arnold. rod. each. Hartn, Ricwarp. Lay Religion, being some Outspoken Letters to a Lady on the Present Religious Situation, E. W. Allen. 2s. 6d. Herrorp, Rey. Brooks, D.D. Courage and Cheer. Sermons. Philip Green. 5s. Hicks, Epwarp. The Eucharist. From a Layman’s Point of View. Is. Hunter, Rev. 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Mourke’s TacticAL PRopuEMs FRom 1858 To 1882. Edited by the Prussian General Staff (Department for Military History), with twenty-seven plans, nine sketch maps, and two sketches. Authorised trans- lation by Karl von Donat. W. H. Allen and Co. 28s. Narat AstroLtogy. By G. Wilde and J. Dodson. To With map. Contemporary Science Series: Man Illustrated. Walter Scott, Limited. which is appended “The Soul and the Stars.” By A. G. Trent. Halifax: The Occult Book Company. Owzn, J. A. AND Bouncer, Prorussor G. The Country Month by Month. April: Bliss, Sands, and Foster. Prnnine, W. Henry. Field Geology. With a section on Paleontology, by A. J. Jukes-Browne. Second edition, revised and enlarged, with illustrations and coloured plate. Balliére, Tindall, and Cox. 7s. 6d. Scort, Duxinrie.p H. An Introduction to Structural Botany. Adam and Charles Black. 3s. 6d. THE AUTHOR. Wats, Henry. Persian Ceramic Art. The Godman Collection; with examples from other collections. The XIUIth Century Lustred Tiles. With illustra- tions by the author. Edition limited to 200 copies. £5 5s. (to subscribers). Subscriptions received by R. H. Porter, 18, Princes-street, Cavendish-sqnvare, W. Law. Cuatmers, His Honour Jupar. The Sale of Goods Act, 1893, including the Factors Acts, 1889 and 1890. William Clowes and Sons. Ditton, Joun F. Laws and Jurisprudence of England and America. 16s. Macmillan and Co. « Dopp, J. THroporE. The Parish Councils Act Explained. Horace Cox. Euuis, ARTHUR L. The Trustee Act, 1893. Fifth edition. 6s. Stevens and Sons Limited. Fowkg, V. DE S., AND HENDERSON, EpwaRp B. Partner- ship between Solicitors. A Collection of Precedents, with remarks and notes. With an Appendix on Soli- citors’ Accounts. By James Fitzpatrick. Sweet and Maxwell Limited. JeL¥, E. A. The Corrupt and Illegal Practices Prevention Act, 1883, with introduction and notes. Sweet and Maxwell. Kayr’s Law RELATING TO SHIPMASTERS AND SEAMEN, edited. by the Hon. John William. Mansfield and George William Duncan. Stevens and Haynes. 36s. Lester, H. F. Lessons in our Laws. Part II. Law Courts and Local Rule, &c. Cassell and Co. Limited. 1s. 6d. Mayrnn’s TREATISE ON DAMAGES, by John D. Mayne and Lumley Smith. Fifth edition. Stevens and Haynes. 28s. ParisH COUNCILLOR’S GUIDE TO THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT Act, 1894. By H. C. Richards, W. H. C. Payne, J.P. H. Soper. Jordan and Sons. RIcKARDS AND SAUNDERS’s Locus STANDI REPORTS. Vol. I., Part. III. Cases decided during 1893 by the Court of Referees on Private Bills in Parliament. By A. G. Rickards and R. C. Saunders. Butterworth and Co. Witson, Siz BR. Knyvet: An Introduction to the Study of Anglo - Muhammadan Law. Calcutta: Thacker, Spink, and Co.; W. Thacker and Co. Educational. Apams, Proressorn Henry. Building Construction: Key to Examinations of Science and Art Depart- ment (Subject III.). Chapman and Hall Limited. 4s. CassELL’s New TECHNICAL Cassell and Co. Limited. 53s. Marsu, Winutam, AND SrEELx, Roserr, Flores Historiarom. A First Latin Reader. With a pre- face by the Rev. Dr. Poole. Rivington, Percival, and Co. Rowe, Exzanor. Hints on Wood Carving, Recreative Classes and Modelling for Beginners. With a preface by J. H. Pollen. Fourth edition. R. Sutton and Co. Is. Sommrvittn, A. A., AND Byrnz, L. S. R. Primary German Exercises. Rivington, Percival, and Co. 28. Epvucator. Vol. II. 3 ar Pia nd feng ADVERTISEMENTS. 451 TY PH-WRITING. | ITERARY, Commercial, Legal, Medical, Dramatic, and all other MSS. COPIED, 1d. 100 words. Mimeograph Copies at Low Rates.—W. J. List, 64, Lorrimore-street, Walworth, S.E. POETRY AND THE DRAMA. SONGS GRAVE AND GAY. By F. B. DOVETON, Author of ‘* Snatches of Song,” ‘‘ Sketches in Prose and Verse,” ‘* Maggie in Mythica,” &ce. In cloth lettered, gilt edges, 5s. LYRICS. By Dr. J. A. GOODCHILD. Cloth lettered, price 5s. TALES IN VERSE. By Dr. J. A. GOODCHILD. Cloth lettered, price 5s. SONGS OF THE CASCADES. Feap. Svo., cloth boards, 6s. THE FAIREST OF THE ANGELS, and Other Verse. By MARY COLBORNE-VEEL. Fcap. 8yo., cloth boards, 3s. 6d. THE WANDERER IN THE LAND OF CYBI, and other a — By CLIFFORD BROOKS. Fcap. 8vo., cloth oards, 3s. 6d. POEMS. By LEWIS BROCKMAN. boards, 5s. By ERL VIKING. Crown 8vo., cloth London ; Horace Cox, Windsor House, Bream’s-buildings, E.O. ONLY 500 COPIES PRINTED. Now Ready, royal 8vo., with Maps and Plates, price ONE GUINEA. Man-Hunting in the Desert, BEING A NARRATIVE OF THE PALMER SEARCH EXPEDITION, 1ss2, 1883, Conducted by Sir Charles Warren. Dapt ALERED FE. HAYNES (ROYAL ENGINEERS). WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY WALTER BESANT. “The story of the vigorous efforts made, against terrible odds, to find the missing Professor and his companions is clearly and ably set forth. Then comes the finding of the ghastly remains and the patiently relentless following up of clues in tracing out the various Arabs implicated in the murder, The adventurous part of the book is as interesting as a tale by Stevenson; nor is what might be termed the personal part less absorbing.” —Puhlishers’ Circular. London : HorAcE Cox, Windsor House, Bream’s-buildings, E.C. BOOKS PUBLISHED BY HORACE COX. NOW READY, SUPER-ROYAL 8vo., PRICE 20s., POST FREE. CROCKFORD’S CLERICAL DIRECTORY 1894. BEING A STATISTICAL BOOK OF REFERENCE For facts relating to the Clergy in England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland and the Colonies; with a fuller Index relating to Parishes and Benefices than any ever yet given to the public. CRocKFORD’s CLERICAL DIRECTORY is more than a Directory; it con- tains concise Biographical details of all the ministersand dignitaries of the Church of England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, and the Colonies. A new feature to this Edition is ‘‘A List of the Parishes of each Diocese in England and Wales arranged in Rural Deaneries.” TWENTY - SIXTH ISSUE. London: Horace Cox, Windsor House, Bream’s-buildings, E.C. Crown 8vo., bevelled boards, gilt edges, price 5s. PRINCIPLES OF CHESS THEORY AND PRACTICE. BY JA NMEReS MAB ON. CONTENTS. 1.—Elements of Chess. 2.—General Principles. 3.—Combination. 4.—Exposition of Master Play Complete. Price One Shilling; by post, 1s. 33d. THE QUEEN ALMANAC, AND LADY’S CALENDAR FOR 1894. Among its Contents will be found A CHROMO-LITHOGRAPH PLATE OF IMITATION LIMOGES ENAMEL EN GRISAILLE. A SUPPLEMENT OF WINTER COMFORTS IN KNITTING AND CROCHET. Pocket Size, price 6d.; by post, 63d. THE LAWS OF GOLF, As Adopted by the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews. Special Rules for Medal Play. Etiquette of Golf. Winners of the Golfing Championship. Winners and Runners-up for the Amateur Championship. Fully Illustrated, in crown 8vo., price 5s. 6d., by post, 5s. 10d. THE FOURTH EDITION OF A SY stem FIGURE SKATING. Being the Theory and Practice of the Art as Developed in England, with a Glance at its Origin and History. By T. MAXWELL WITHAM (Member of the Skating Club). WINDSOR HOUSE, BREHEAM’S BUILIDINGS, H.C.  452 ADVERTISEMENTS. MESDAMES BRETT & BOWSER, SELBORNE CHAMBERS, BELL YARD, TEMPLE BAR. ‘Authors’ MSS. carefully and expeditiously copied, from 1s. per 1000 words. Extra carbon copies half price. Refer- ences kindly permitted to Augustine Birrell, Esq., M.P. THE AUTHOR'S HAIRLESS PAPER-PAD. (Tur Leapennatt Press Lrp., H.C.) err Contains hairless paper, over which the pen slips with perfect freedom. Siwpence each: 58. per dozen, ruled or plain. TYPEWRITING. SCIENTIFIC, LITERARY, AND MEDICAL MSS. CAREFULLY AND PROMPTLY COPIED BY RAYNE & CO., 40, NORFOLK STREET, STRAND, W.C. HigHest REFERENCES. TRANSLATIONS. PRIVATE Room FoR DICTATION. SeaRcHes Maps. TYPEWRITING BY CLERGYMAN’S DAUGHTER. MISS E. M. SIKES, 13, Wolverton-gardens, Hammersmith, W. Authors’ MSS., &c., carefully and promptly copied, 1s. per 1000 words. Reduction forlong MSS. Duplicate copy half price. Type- written Circulars, Notices, &c., by special copying process. Terms on application. References kindly permitted to authors. SHORTHAND WRITER, TY PIstT, ESIRES SECRETARIAL WORK. Own machines (Remington, Yost). Special Reports taken. TRANSLATOR FRENCH, GERMAN. “TL...” 28, Canterbury - terrace, Maida Vale, W. HE FLEET STREET TYPEWRITERS, 115, Furer-street, E.C.—LowEst CHARGES. Highest speed. Every kind of Typewriting Work done. Pricr List. 115, FLEET-sTREET, LONDON. ANOBIUM ERODITUM, Tur DrvourRING BooK-wormM, Turns up its nose (and its toes) at STICKPHAST PASTE. BRS. Gite, TYPE-WRITING OFFICE, 35, LUDGATE HILL, E.C. (ESTABLISHED 1883.) Authors’ MSS. carefully copied from 1s. per 1000 words. &c., 1s. 8d. per 1000 words. rate of 4d. and 8d. per 1000 words. 2s. 6d. per hour. Reference kindly permitted to Walter Besant, Esq.; also to Messrs. A. P. Watt and Son, Literary Agents, 2, Paternoster- square, E.C. Miss PATTEN, TYPIST, 44, Oakley Street Flats, Chelsea, S.W. Authors’ MSS. carefully transcribed. References kindly permitted to George Augustus Sala, Esq., Justin Huntly McCarthy, Esq., and many other well-known Authors. HWire- Proof Safe for MSS. Particulars on application. Telegraphic address: ‘‘ PATZEN, LONDON.” MISS L. M. DAVIDSON’S TYPEWRITING OFFICE. 87 & 39, ESSEX STREET, STRAND, W.C. SHORTHAND AND TRANSLATIONS. Specialists for French, German, and Italian. Scientific, and. Medical MSS. LITERARY PRODUCTIONS OF EVERY DESCRIPTION - AREFULLY REVISED, CORRECTED, or RE- WRITTEN by the Author of “The Queen’s English up to Date.” Facilities for publication. Typewriting 1s. per 1000 words. Address SECRETARY, Literary Office, 342, Strand, W.C. AUTHORS ADVISED AS TO THE PRODUCTION OF WORKS In any Department of Literature, and Estimates for Printing and Publishing sent free. Special attention devoted to Privately Printed and Subscription Works.— Cuas. J. CuarK, Publisher of the Illustrated Archzologist, and to several Learned Societies, 4, Lincoln’s-inn-fields, W.C. THE AUTHORS’ BUREAU LIMITED. A Literary Syndicate and Press Agency. ‘‘A Medium of Communi- cation between Authors, Editors, and Publishers.” Advises upon, revises, and negotiates MSS. Consultations (by appointment only) free.—Address the SECRETARY, 3, Victoria-street, Westminster. PRINTING AND PUBLISHING. TO AUTHORS. Special attention given to the above. Terms moderate. Estimates free. ACCOUNTS VERIFIED BY CHARTERED ACCOUNTANT. Address MaNnaGER, Roxburghe Press, 3, Victoria-street, Westminster. OUT OF PRINT BOOKS SUPPLIED. THE MOST EXPERT BOOK-FINDER EXTANT. Purase STaTE WANTS. 2000 BOOKS WANTED, 5s. to £5 each given. LISTS FREE. Plays, Extra copies (carbon) supplied at the Type-writing from dictation Legal, Literary, Printed and Published by Horace Cox, Windsor House, Bream’s-buildings, London, E.C. BAKER’S GREAT BOOKSHOP, BIRMINGHAM. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Author, Vol. 04 Issue 12 (May 1894) Subject The topic of the resource <em>The Author</em>, Vol. 04 Issue 12 (May 1894) Type The nature or genre of the resource Publication Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1894-05-01-The-Author-4-12 publications The Author https://historysoa.com/files/original/5/265/1894-06-01-The-Author-5-1.pdf 2f6435581aeb2d669d6a4a4a489ff124 PDF Text Text �������������������������������� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Author Subject The topic of the resource <em>The Author</em> Description An account of the resource A digitised run of the Society of Authors' monthly periodical, <em>The Author</em>, 1890<span>–</span>1914, made available together for the first time.<br /><br />Currently users can browse issues and <a href="https://historysoa.com/items/browse?search=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Index&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;tags=&amp;exhibit=&amp;date_search_term=&amp;submit_search=Search+For+Items&amp;sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CTitle">indices</a> (not available for all volumes). Full text search for all issues, and other additional search functionality, will be added in 2022. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1890–1914 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context The-Author-Issues Publication Date The date of an event (in YYYY, YYYY-MM or YYYY-MM-DD format) 1894-06-01 Volume 5 Issue 1 Pages Page range in volume 1–32 Ngram Date Version of the date in YYYYMMDD format for use by the Ngram plugin 18940601 Ngram Text Version of the text with no HTML formatting for use by the Ngram plugin C be El u t b or, (The Organ of the Incorporated Society of Authors. Monthly.) CONDUCTED BY WALTER BESAN. T. VoI. V.-No. 1.] JUNE 1, 1894. [PRICE SIXPENCE. Por the Opinions earpressed in papers that are signed or initialled the Authors alone are responsible. None of the papers or para- graphs must be taken as eaſpressing the collective opinions of the committee unless they are officially signed by G. Herbert Thring, Sec. 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. WARNINGS AND ADWICE, I , T is not generally understood that the author, as the vendor, has the absolute right of drafting the agreement upon whatever terms the transaction is to be carried out. Authors are strongly advised to exercise that right. In every form of business, this among others, the right of drawing the agreement rests with him who sells, leases, or has the control of the property. 2. SERIAL RIGHTS.—In selling Serial Rights remember that you may be selling the Serial Right for all time; that is, the Right to continue the production in papers. If you object to this, insert a clause to that effect. 3. STAMP 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 which serves for one, is forwarded without the stamp. The author may be assured that the other party to the agree- ment seldom neglects this simple precaution. The Society, to save trouble, undertakes to get all the agreements of members stamped for them at no ea pense to themselves eacept the cost of the stamp. 4. ASCERTAIN WHAT A PROPOSED AGREEMENT GIVES To BOTH SIDES BEFORE SIGNING IT.-Remember that an arrangement as to a joint venture in any other kind of busi- ness whatever would be instantly refused should either party WOL. W. business men. refuse to show the books or to let it be known what share he reserved for himself. 5. LITERARY AGENTS.—Be very careful. You cannot be too careful as to the person whom yow appoint as your agent. Remember that you place your property almost un- reservedly in his hands. Your only safety is in consulting the Society, or some friend who has had personal experience of the agent. Do not trust advertisements alone. 6. CoST OF PRODUCTION.——Never sign any agreement of which the alleged cost of production forms an integral part, until you have proved the figures. 7. CHOICE OF PUBLISHERS.—Never enter into any cor- respondence with publishers, especially with those who ad- vertise for MSS., who are not recommended by experienced friends or by this Society. 8. FUTURE WORK.—Never, on any account whatever, bind yourself down for future work to anyone. 9. PERSONAL RISK.—Never accept any pecuniary risk or responsibility whatever without advice. Io. REJECTED MSS.—Never, when a MS. has been re- fused by respectable houses, pay others, whatever promises they may put forward, for the production of the work. II. AMERICAN RIGHTS.—Never sign away American rights. Keep them by special clause. Refuse to sign any agreement containing a clause which reserves them for the publisher, unless for a substantial consideration. I2. CESSION OF COPYRIGHT.-Never sign any paper, either agreement or receipt, which gives away copyright, without advice. - 13. ADVERTISEMENTS. —- Keep some control over the advertisements, if they affect your returns, by a clause in the agreement. I4. 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 Be yourself a business man. Society’s Offices :- 4, PORTUGAL STREET, LINCOLN's INN FIELDs. *~ * ~ * e- HOW TO USE THE SOCIETY. I. VERY member has a right to ask for and to receive advice upon his agreements, his choice of a pub- lisher, or any dispute arising in the conduct of his business or the administration of his property. If the advice sought is such as can be given best by a solicitor, the member has a right to an opinion from the Society’s solicitors. If the case is such that Counsel’s opinion is desirable, the Com- mittee will obtain for him Counsel’s opinion. All this without any cost to the member. B 2  ## p. 2 (#16) ############################################### 2 THE AUTHOR. 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 is in order to ascertain what has been the nature of your agree- ments, and the results to author and publisher respectively so far. The Secretary will always be glad to have any agreements, new or old, for inspection and note. The infor- mation thus obtained may prove invaluable. 4. If the examination of your previous business trans- actions by the Secretary proves unfavourable, you should take advice as to a change of publishers. 5. Before signing any agreement whatever, send the pro- posed document to the Society for examination. 6. The Society is acquainted with the methods, and—in the case of fraudulent houses—the tricks of every publish- ing firm in the country. 7. Remember always that in belonging to the Society you are fighting the battles of other writers, even if you are reaping no benefit to yourself, and that you are advancing the best interests of literature in promoting the indepen- dence of the writer. 8. Send to the Editor of the Author notes of everything important to literature that you may hear or meet with. *-- ~ *-* a- - - THE AUTHORS’ SYNDICATE, 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. *- - --> NOTICES. 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 booking fee is charged to cover postage and porterage. 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 Director by appointment, and that, when possible, at least four days’ notice should be given. 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. 8. The Syndicate undertakes arrangements for lectures by some of the leading members of the Society; that it has a “Transfer Department” for the sale and purchase of journals and periodicals; and that a “Register of Wants' and Wanted ” has been opened. Members anxious to obtain 39 48. HE Editor of the Awthor begs to remind members of the Society that, although the paper is sent to them free of charge, the cost of producing it would be a very heavy charge on the resources of the Society if a great many members did not forward to the Secretary the modest 6s. 6d. subscription for the year. The Editor is always glad to receive short papers and communications on all subjects connected with literature from members and others. Nothing can do more good to the Society than to make the Awthor complete, attractive, and interesting. Will those who are willing to aid in this work send their names and the special subjects on which they are willing to write P Communications for the Author should reach the Editor not later than the 21st of each month. All persons engaged in literary work of any kind, whether members of the Society or not, are invited to communicate to the Editor any points connected with their work which it would be advisable in the general interest to publish. Members and others who wish their MSS. read are requested not to send them to the Office without previously communicating with the Secretary. The utmost practicable despatch is aimed at, and MSS. are read in the order in which they are received. It must also be distinctly under- stood that the Society does not, under any circumstances, undertake the publication of MSS. The Authors’ Club is now open in its new premises, at 3, Whitehall-court, Charing Cross. Address the Secretary for information, rules of admission, &c. Will members take the trouble to ascertain whether they have paid their subscriptions for the year P. If they will do this, and remit the amount, if still unpaid, or a banker's order, it will greatly assist the Secretary, and save him the trouble of sending out a reminder. Members are most earnestly entreated to attend to the warning numbered (8). It is a most foolish and may be a most disastrous thing to enter into an agreement binding for a term of years. Let them ask themselves if they would give a solicitor the collection of their rents for five years to come, whatever his conduct, whether he was honest or dishonest ? Of course they would not. Why then hesitate for a moment when they are asked to sign them- selves into literary bondage for three or five years P Those who possess the “Cost of Production ” are requested to note that the cost of binding has advanced 15 per cent. This means, for those who do not like the trouble of “doing sums,” the addition of three shillings in the pound on this head. In other words, if the cost of binding is set down in our book at eight pounds, to this must now be added twenty-four shillings more, so that it now stands at 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  ## p. 3 (#17) ############################################### THE AUTHOR. 3. 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. *~ * → g- -* THE AUTHOR, N the commencement of the fifth volume of the Author, it seems desirable that we should repeat the purpose for which the paper was founded and for which it exists. The fore words in the first number contain a state- ment of that purpose, which has always been kept steadily to the front. The Author is founded to be the organ of literary men and women of all kinds—the one paper which will fully review, discuss, and ventilate all questions con- nected with the profession of literature in all its branches. It will be the medium by which the Committee of our Society will inform its members generally of their doings, and it will become a public record of transactions conducted in the interests of literature, which have hitherto been secret, lost, and hidden for the want of such an organ. The chief aim of the Society—this has been advanced again and again—is to promote the recognition of the fact, hitherto most imperfectly understood, that literary property is as real a thing as property in every other kind of busi- mess: that it should be safeguarded in the same manner, and regarded with the same jealousy. Hitherto the mere existence of literary property even in the face of such patent facts as the enrichment of publishers, has been carefully concealed and even denied. Risks of publishing, costs of publishing, have been dangled before the eyes of authors, so that they should regard the subject as one of extreme peril and pure speculation. One can never even now read a leading article about publishing without being solemnly assured that the trade is one in which frightful risks are constantly run, and that the success of any book is pure speculation. - Now, as a matter of fact, there is very little speculation indeed in publishing, and there are very, very few publishers —only the leading houses—who ever run any risks at all, either by buying books or by bringing out books at a risk. Risks are run when a house starts a magazine, or when it embarks on illustrated editions of an expensive kind, or when educational books are published. The ordinary risk run in the production of books is, as a rule, next to nothing. For, first, the author is seldom paid except by results; next, the author, when a house consents to “take the risk,” is, for the most part, one who commands a certain sale. With the smaller houses books about which there is the slightest risk are always paid for by the authors in advance, either wholly or in part. And very, very seldom indeed, do the ill-advised authors who advance their money ever see it back again. . Again, as to the actual cost of production. By carefully keeping this a profound secret, interested persons have succeeded in establishing a kind of taboo, as of some holy, sacred thing which must not be so much as touched. We have, however, thoroughly investigated the whole question, and are now in a position to throw complete light upon the cost of producing any kind of book that can be named, in any type and in any form. This is a very important step. Its importance cannot be over-estimated. It enables the awthor, for the very first time in the history of literature, to know what it is he is asked to concede to the publisher, and what it is he reserves for himself. . We have also done more : we have collected together a vast amount of information as to publishers' agreements: especially as to what, in reality, is the meaning of the clauses contained in them ; we have ascertained what it is they ask the author to surrender and for what consideration. And we have acquired a knowledge of various frauds, made possible by the terms of these agreements, in the different methods of publishing. This knowledge is so beneficial to the author that its existence ought to be widely spread and made known to every person who is engaged in the production of literature of any kind. Again, the Society is constantly engaged in answering questions connected with every branch of literature and its practice. Many of these questions are answered by letter over and over again, taking up a great deal of the Secretary’s time. They would be answered much more effectively in a journal. It follows from these clauses that we may have a good deal to say about the seamy side of the publishing trade. It must, however, be borne in mind very carefully that the Society has not, and never has had, any quarrel with honourable publishers. It has always asked for one thing only—just and homest treatment, fair and open agreements, and honourable observance of those agreements. In further illustration of this programme let it be remembered that the Society, in its very first public utterance, and ever since, has always pointed out and repeated over and over again the fact that the literary and the commercial value of a book need not necessarily bear any relation to each other ; in other words, that the literary value of a book is not to be measured by its commercial success, and that the commercial success of a book is no gauge of its literary value. This, it would seem, is a self evident proposition, and would not need to be repeated but for the misrepresentations of those who wish to attack the Society and its organ. Let us therefore repeat one or two of the passages in which this distinction was clearly and unmistakably laid down. The same thing has been repeated over and over again : I. Literature, in all times, has had two sides—the artistic and the commercial kind. The singer expects to be paid, the poet is rejoiced at solid recognition of his genius. What is more, the artistic work of the highest genius in no way suffers from a careful attention to its material interests. Does anyone in his senses pretend that the work of Byron, Scott, Dickens, Thackeray, George Eliot, Wilkie Collins, Charles Reade, lost anything in Art because these writers were good and careful men of business P - II. Let us not confuse these two sides of the literary pro- fession. They are equally important, because unless the latter is looked after, the artist perishes. Both must be guarded jealously, the one because Literature is Art, and the other because the artist must be a free man—not the slave of the man who has the money, nor a hack, nor one who drives his pen all day long for a daily pittance, nor a man continually fretted by a sense of wrong and injustice, real or fancied.  ## p. 4 (#18) ############################################### 4. THE AUTHOR. When, therefore, we insist continually upon the necessity of safe-guarding literary property, of understanding what is meant by an agreement before we sign it, we are working in the highest and best interests of literature. III. Consider again. In no other branch of Art is a voice ever raised against those who fight for its material interests. The sculptor, the actor, the singer, the musician, the painter —all alike are understood to be working honestly at their art, even though at the same time they are watching care- fully over their material interests. No one accuses Meisson- nier of bad workmanship, because every one of his pictures is worth a pyramid of gold. Yet, directly a serious attempt is made to put these interests on a proper basis as regards letters, there is raised at once an outcry about degrading Art, taking all the joy out of Art, destroying the nobility of Art, and the rest of it. We mix up these two sides of literature. It is absurd to suppose that George Eliot was thinking of her commercial value when she wrote “Romola..” Yet she thought very much of it afterwards. That is the way of it. The true artist thinks about nothing but his work while he is engaged upon it. The man who is not an artist cannot understand how he can ever think about the business side of his work at all. Yet he always can, and does, as soon as he is satisfied that there is a business side to his work. -s:crºcº- Three or four accusations are, from time to time, brought against the Society or the Author or both. I. We are charged with saying that all pub- lishers are dishonest. When this accusation was last made, in the Athenæum, the publisher who advanced it was challenged to produce his autho- rity. He found a statement in one of the pamphlets published by the Society to the effect that “fraud and corruption were widespread.” That was perfectly true; it was more true ten years ago than it is now, thanks to the action of the Society. “Widespread,” however, is very different from universal. Over and over again it has been repeated that the Society has no quarrel with honourable houses. Those, there- fore, who endeavour to distort a plain statement, proved to the hilt by our exposures, into a universal charge clearly betray themselves. One never hears a respectable solicitor trying to distort the perfectly true statement that his profession contains a great number of black sheep into a charge that all solicitors are black sheep. 2. The next charge is, that we say that pub- lishers take no risks. We say no such thing. Over and over again we have said that in dealing with authors publishers take as few risks as they possibly can. In other branches of business, as when a publisher puts forth a new magazine, an encyclopædia, a dictionary of biography, a new atlas, he may incur very great risks. Since we, as authors, are not generally proprietors or venturers in this kind of property, we need not inquire into the nature of the risks thus incurred. But, in the production of books, the risk in- curred very rarely exists at all. In any case it is the difference between the cost of production and the number of copies subscribed at first, a mini- mum of which may be approximately known. If by risk the publisher means chance of great gains, then we are talking of different things. 3. The third charge is that of sordidness in looking after literary property at all. This is answered by the passages already quoted. 4. The fourth charge is that we measure literary value by commercial success. We have just shown how the contrary has been clearly laid down in the Author. Other charges will doubtless be invented and brought against us, but, so far, the repetition of one or other of these four is the only weapon which has been found by the gentry who object to the light of day. - Perhaps the policy of the committee during the Society’s existence may be fairly stated as this: The present conditions which belong to the acquisition and the administration of literary property are chaotic. Even with the best houses, no one, not the greatest historian, the greatest man of science, knows when he sends a MS. to a publisher on what terms he should confide to him the administration of his property. Nor does he know what terms the publisher will propose. Nor has he hitherto known what any terms mean. It is, on the other hand, highly desirable that he should know what terms may mean, and that he should know as much as possible about the reality and the extent of literary property, and particularly that of his own kind of literary property. The committee therefore have acquired and published, partly in pamphlets and partly in their organ, the Author, a tolerably complete explana- tion of these points: I. The cost of printing, binding, and advertis- ing various kinds of books. 2. The meaning of the “published price ’’ to the publisher or manager of a literary property. 3. Some of the various pitfalls and traps laid to catch the ignorant and the unwary author. - As regards the first point, one or two publishers have alleged that our estimates were too low. They were silenced by the offer to get their print- ing done on those terms. On the second point nothing has been disputed, for the simple reason that the figures given in the Society’s papers were actually lower than the truth. As to the pitfalls and traps, experience shows that it is necessary to examine jealously every agreement offered to an author, not always, be it understood, to detect a way open to fraud, but generally to detect some  ## p. 5 (#19) ############################################### THE AUTHOR. 5 clause by which the author, through ignorance, is tempted to surrender rights and to give up an unfair proportion of his property. In other words, the man of business is always tempted to use his superior knowledge for his own benefit. We do our best to place the author on the same level as regards the facts of the case. To throw a flood of light upon every point con- nected with the management of literary property is, and has always been, the settled policy of the committee. The next step, that of arriving at a modus vivendi recognised as fair by both sides will be taken, it is hoped, before long, and when the ersons chiefly concerned, viz., the producers, shall have thoroughly learned the facts revealed by this light. *= a -º LITERARY PROPERTY. I.—CANADIAN COPYRIGHT. HE question of Canadian Copyright has in the past few weeks again been brought into publicity, owing, in the first instance, to a rumour that the Canadians were once more pushing forward their claims. The question is naturally one of great importance to the English author on account of the great interests in- volved. As regards the present state of Canadian Copy- right, any member of the Society who is interested in the subject is referred to the November number of the Author, 1890, containing a very useful paper written by W. Oliver Hodges, honorary secretary of the Society's Copyright Committee, and to an opinion in the January number 1893, given at the request of the Society by J. Rolt, 3, New-square, barrister. With regard to the steps at present being taken, it will be as well to put forward a short statement. As soon as the rumour of the Canadian move had been substantially verified, the secretary of the Society, at the request of the chairman, wrote to the Colonial Office, and in due course received a reply, which was as follows: Downing-street, May 18, 1894. SIR,-Lord Ripon desires me to acquaint you that the Society is in error in supposing that there is any new Bill on copyright in Canada now before Her Majesty's Government. His Lordship presumes your letter refers to a clause in the Tariff Bill of the Canadian Parliament which is intended to remove the duty on foreign reprints of British copyright works. - I am to enclose a copy of the clause in question, which it is understood is not intended to come into operation until the end of the next session of the Dominion Parliament. In the meantime Lord Ripon has invited the attention of the Government of Canada to the effect which the second section of the Colonial Laws Walidity Act, 1865, may have upon this clause in the Tariff Bill. I am to add that a communication on the general question of copyright in Canada has been received, and will be sent to the Society when printed for any remarks they may have to offer.—I am, sir, &c. The following is the clause referred to : Books and Papers.-British copyright works, reprints of, six cents per pound, and in addition thereto 12% per cent. ad valorem until March 27, 1895, and thereafter six cents per pound. The importance, however, of the letter lies in the last paragraph. At about the same date the Secretary of the Society received a letter from the London Chamber of Commerce stating that a meeting of the copyright interests was going to be held, and requesting that the Society would appoint delegates to attend. At once a meeting of the committee was called, and Mr. Thring, the Secretary of the Society, together with Mr. W. Oliver Hodges, Hon. Secretary of the Society's Copyright Committee, and Mr. Emery, of Messrs. Field, Roscoe, and Co., the Society's solicitors, was appointed to attend. On Wednesday, May 23, the delegates met at the London Chamber of Commerce, where various copyright interests were represented, namely, the musical publisher, the photographer, the Copyright Asso- ciation, and the Society of Authors. Mr. Daldy, the Honorary Secretary of the Copyright Associa- tion, was voted into the chair, and, after a few preliminary remarks, he read through a series of letters written by himself to the Colonial Secretary and the replies from the Colonial Office. Mr. Thring, the Secretary of the Society, then read the letter he had received from the Colonial Office, which was dated later than Mr. Daldy's last letter from the same source, and which contained infor- mation with regard to the steps the Canadian Government were taking, which was not included in Mr. Daldy's letters. Then followed a discus- sion upon what was the fittest course to take, and it was finally decided to appoint a committee to hold as it were a watching brief upon the Anglo- Canadian copyright question. The following resolutions were then agreed to, placed before the meeting, and unanimously carried :— I. Proposed by Mr. Ashdown, and seconded by Mr. Thring (Secretary of the Society of Authors) : That a special committee representing all copyright interests be appointed to watch the question of Anglo- Canadian copyright, and to take such steps to protect that property as may to them seem best. 2. Proposed by Mr. Thring (Secretary of the Society of Authors), and seconded by Mr. Mendlesohn : That the said committee consist of two representatives of each of the undermentioned bodies and interests : The  ## p. 6 (#20) ############################################### 6 THE AUTHOR. Copyright Association, the Society of Authors, musical interests, fine art interests, photographic interests, dramatic publishers and authors, with power to add to their numbers from their own or other bodies as they think fit. The next step for the Society to take will be, of course, to elect delegates to attend upon the com- mittee. This committee, when formed, will care- fully go into whatever papers may be laid before them by the Secretary of State for the Colonies, and will consider the advisability of sending a deputation to the Marquis of Ripon on the matter. Further information will be conveyed to the members of the Society through the Author, as the question and the steps taken are proceeded with. II.--THE WORKING OF THE COPYRIGHT IAw. I. Mr. George Haven Putnam's thoughtful article on “Results of the Copyright Law,” in the January Forum, was an excellent summing up of the situation as developed since the passage of the Copyright Act of March 4, 1891. To my mind, his opinion that, in spite of the law’s defects, “it would be unwise at this time to make any effort to secure amendments * is the correct one. At the same time, the fact that a petition has been brought into the German Parliament calling for the abrogation of the copyright agree- ment between the United States and Germany, and that this petition has been approved by the committee having it in charge, gives a serious turn to the copyright situation. Mr. Putnam, in his article, noted that “it is almost impossible for a French or German author to arrange to issue his book in this country (either in the original or in a translation) simultaneously with the publication abroad. The re-setting in the Original language, for such limited sale as could be looked for here, would be unduly expensive, while time is required for the preparation of a satisfactory translation.” The great trouble, Mr. Putnam tells me, is that to secure copyright in a work in a foreign language, it must be re-set here in the original language. The copyright of a translation protects that translation only, and if the book is not also published in the original, anyone is at liberty to issue a new translation. This state of affairs was brought about by the eagerness of the typographical unions to grasp every advantage. The French Society of Authors made this discovery some time ago, and now that Germany threatens to take the matter up, the result of the immense amount of labour per- formed by our copyright leagues is somewhat dis- couraging. After all, I presume that our copy- right relations with Great Britain are the chief issue at stake, and these are progressing in a fairly Satisfactory manner at present. It is curious to observe how closely the success of books by new English authors is watched by the American reprinters. Of course, the successful English author's second book at once finds an authorised publisher in the United States, and is copy- righted; but the way every new English success is pirated in this country shows plainly the need of a time clause in the Copyright Act as long as the printing clause remains. - Another vexatious copyright question has been raised in a recent interview with Mr. Spofford, Librarian of Congress. I have not the slightest doubt that ninety in a hundred of those interested will be immensely surprised to learn from that interview that in the United States the name or title of a book is not protected by copyright. “The law is, said Mr. Spofford, “that the sub- stance, the literary contents, of a book or publica- tion may be protected by copyright, but not the name—not the title.” The filing of title-pages of books in this country, which is required by law, is not, then, for purposes of protection, but for identification merely. This seems to be a great injustice, and I asked Mr. Putnam if a change in this respéct were not needed when the Copyright Act is next amended. Mr. Putnam assented, and gave me some interesting information as to the present condition of English copyright law on this point, and as to certain proposed changes. In England, Mr. Putnam said, the law as to book titles goes as far in the contrary direction as does ours, in that it permits anyone to copyright all the titles he can think of with or without any real intention to use them for actual books. This copyright in a title or titles lasts for the full English term of forty-two years, or seven years after the copyrighter's death. In many cases, authors of books have had to pay such copy- righters to relinquish titles on which they unluckily had stumbled. Mr. Putnam thinks that authors should be at liberty to copyright the titles of their proposed books, but that such copy- right should be completed by the publication of the book within a reasonable period (six months or a year), and that failing of this the copyright should become void. Also he thinks that copy- right in a title should lapse if the book which it represents is out of print for a long period. The proposed new English law, introduced by Lord Monkswell in the present Parliament, and still pending, covers these points very fully. Copy- right in a title must be perfected by publication of the book within six months, and is lost in the case of books which remain out of print over two years. - II. The copyright questions touched upon in my last letter have brought me further information  ## p. 7 (#21) ############################################### THE AUTHOR. . 7 as to the working of the Act of 1891. A sufficient time has now passed to enable publishers generally to understand what methods of procedure to follow in securing themselves and their authors here and abroad. Single stories, poems, and articles in English periodicals, which have not been “placed ” in the United States, are now sent over in advance to this country, put in type, and issued in pamphlet form on the day of the periodical's publication in England, thus securing copyright here for the same matter when subse- quently issued in book form. It is becoming more and more dangerous to reprint such articles from English magazines, especially if the authors are distinguished. All this has, of course, become the A B C of the trade among publishers, but it will be in the nature of information to many of the writing guild. Such copyrighted matter as that just mentioned is published here in three different ways: first, by the American branch of the English house; second, by an American pub- lishing house, which is the agent of the English firm; third, by the private agent of the English publisher. In any case protection is legally secured. So thoroughly do the English houses under- stand this question, and in so many cases have they established branch firms here for the publi- cation of their own books, that a leading Boston author was tempted to remark to the head of a large American publishing house that the chief effect of the International Copyright Act seemed to be to enable English publishing firms to establish branch houses here, manufacture dupli- cate plates, and flood the market with English books. This is only partially true, however, as most English publishers still prefer to issue their books through American houses, who manufac- ture the plates for both sides of the ocean. As to American authors, they no longer have to compete with five-cent. editions of current books by leading English authors, but issue their works in even competition with the latter. In view of the working of the Act, there may be a modicum of wisdom in requiring plates to be manufactured in this country, as otherwise we might be swamped by cheap English sheets in a way to shut off American authors and publishers from fair competition. These are the views of a protectionist, however, and I understand that those interested in copyright reform insist that protection and free trade ought not to enter into the question. International copyright is now secured between the United States and Great Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, Denmark, and Italy. The American Copyright League, so its secretary tells me, is now working for copyright WOL. W. with Greece, Norway, and Sweden, Spain, and Austria. Russia is considered hopeless on account of the press censorship. Austria, I believe, objects to the printing clause. Oddly enough, the printing clause is not considered a grave objection by the Spanish authorities, but they do object seriously to the requirement that American editions of Spanish books be registered at Washington and the fee paid before copyright can be secured. In most international copyright agreements between European countries, regis- tration in the author's country is all that is necessary for protection in other countries. Our late Minister to Spain, the Hon. E. Burd Grubb, was unable to overcome this objection on the part of the Spanish authorities. It has been suggested that a certificate of copyright from the United States Consul at Madrid, or from the Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs, could be made to serve at Washington by a special Act of Congress. The benefit would accrue chiefly to Spanish authors, so that Spanish hindrance seems absurd. — ARTHUR STEDMAN in the Chicago Dial. III.-FoED v. SMITH. (Before MR. JUSTICE MATHEw and a Special Jury.) This was an action (May 30) by Mr. Thomas Murray Ford, a dramatic author and journalist, against Mr. Valentine Smith, a theatrical manager and actor, arising out of the produc- tion of an English version of Adam's opera. “Si j’étais Roi.” The plaintiff's case, as stated by counsel, was that in December, 1888, he was asked by the defendant to translate and prepare an English version of “Si j’étais Roi.” No remuneration was fixed for the work, as the plaintiff said he could not tell how long it would take, but it was agreed that a reasonable price should be paid. The original libretto was by MM. Dennery and Brésil, and this was handed to the plaintiff by the defendant. Dr. Storer and Miss Harte- Potts assisted him, and, when finished, the English lyrics were written into a full score of the opera, by Dr. Storer. The work occupied two months, and was of a difficult nature, as first a translation had to be made of the French verse, and then English lyrics fitted to the music. When the words were completed they were sent to the defendant, who sent plaintiff a sum of £5 some time afterwards in reply to an application for payment. Plaintiff, however, wrote back and said that such a sum was quite insufficient. He, however, heard no more for four years, when he heard that defendant was performing an opera C  ## p. 8 (#22) ############################################### 8 THE AUTHOR. entitled “King for a Day,” which he suspected was his work. He accordingly procured a book of the words, which were identical with his version, and found that the defendant had registered both the opera and the book. The defendant's case was that he had only asked defendant to “write up ’’ a music score; that the version the defendant used was written up and adapted by him and Dr. Storer from what he remembered of the American version; that he had never used anything that plaintiff had written; and that he was unaware the plaintiff had prepared any version at all. Evidence was given on both sides in support of these statements. Mr. Justice MATHEw, in summing up, said the questions for the jury were--(1) Was the plain- tiff employed to do the work? If so, he was entitled to be paid for doing it. (2) Was the manuscript sold to the defendant P If it was, he was entitled to register it. (3) Was the version the defendant used substantially the one prepared by the plaintiff P and (4) Had the plaintiff, in fact, accepted the £5 in full payment or was he entitled to anything more ? The learned Judge then proceeded to review and criticise the evi- dence in detail. The jury immediately found a verdict for the plaintiff, damages 3850. ON ROYALTIES. INCE a great many of our members have S joined during the last four years—in 1890 the number of members was 4oo, at the present moment, May, 1894, it is nearly 1300– the facts and figures published in the early numbers of the Author are practically inaccessible to the younger members. But some of these are of the highest importance. Also, some of them require revision in consequence of slight changes. We purpose, therefore, to reproduce them. Per- haps the most important of all are those which relate to royalties. Nothing is more chaotic than the royalty system; but, since it is, for many reasons, the plan generally preferred by both authors and publishers, it is one that must be thoroughly understood. The figures given in the Author (Vol. I., p. 39, and Vol. III., p. 7) have been carefully revised. I. Cost of Production: As before, an ordinary six-shilling book is taken as an example. It may be a book of essays, a biography, a novel. Since a large circulation is contemplated, the figures will, in general, be found more useful for the novelist than for the essayist. But the latter will do well to consider the results on a single edition only. We take a very common form : it is one used for the greater number of six-shilling novels. The type is called Small Pica : there are twenty-nine lines in the page, and there are about 250 or 26o words to the page ; there are seventeen sheets, or 272 pages. The following is tendered as an approximate cost; that is to say, we could our- selves get the work done at these figures. It must be understood that a book of greater length will cost more; if, for instance, there are twenty-four sheets instead of seventeen, the cost of production would be increased, and the figures modified throughout. Illustrations would also increase the cost. I. A first edition of IOOO copies costs about £92 2. A first edition of 3000 copies costs g - about £180 3. A second edition of IOOO copies costs about £52 4. A second edition of 3000 copies costs about £135 In other words, in a first edition of S. d. ... IOOO copies, each copy costs about... I Io; 3OOO 25 5 x 2 3 » . . . I 2; , In a second edition of s. d. IOOO copies, each copy costs about... I o 3OOO 5 y 55 35 32 - - O The above is approximately the cost of produc- tion. The publisher now has IOOO copies in his hands—what does he get for them P. We reckoned in our last published figures 3s.6d. for an average price. We have since learned, on closer inquiry, that this is too low an average. There are slight variations with different firms, and sometimes special terms may be made. Thus, there are four or five firms who “subscribe’” their six-shilling books, i.e., issue them to the trade, on a first subscription at 4s., counting 13 as 12, and with 5 per cent. discount at the quarterly settlement. This is just over 3s. 6d. But a first subscrip- tion generally means a very small proportion of the whole afterwards taken in the case of a suc- cessful book. Other firms subscribe their 6s. books at 4s. 2d.; 25 as 24; or 13 as I 2 ; and 5 per cent. On the quarterly settlement. Thus we have, at 25 as 24, the price at 3s. 9%d., say 3s. 9%d. nd at 13 as 12 the price at 3s. 7+}d., or very nearly 3s. 8d. There are other variations. Some firms give a large discount for an order of so much. - - Stated generally, the average price to the trade 4. IO;  ## p. 9 (#23) ############################################### THE AUTHOR. - 9 of a 6s. book is 3s. 8d., and in all calculations as regards royalties this price may be taken as the basis of calculation. g - Thus with an edition of - IOOO copies the difference between return and cost is ... ... ... ... 3OOO copies the difference between return and cost is ... ... 2 5 Thus with a second edition of IOOO copies the difference between return and cost is ... ... ... ... 2 8 3OOO copies the difference between return and cost is ... ... ... ... 2 9% We can thus get an idea of what the royalty system means when an edition is completely exhausted. I. On the sale of an edition of IOOO only : - . Per cent. On a royalty of......... IO I5 2O 25 s. d. I 9 # # * smºs Publisher ........................ 360 ... 345 ... 330 ... 31.5 Author ........................... 383O ... 3845 ... 36O ... 3875 2. On the sale of a first edition of 30OO : Per cent. IO I5 2O 25 3O Publisher...... £280 ... 3240 ... 3190 ... 31.45 ... 38 IOO Author......... £90 ... 3135 ... 3180 ... 3225 ... 3270 3. On the sale of a second edition of IOOO : Per cent. IO I5 2O 25 3O Publisher............ £IOO ... 385 ... 370 ... 355 ... 3840 Author............... 483O ... 345 ... 386O ... 375 ... 3890 4. On the sale of a second edition of 3000: Per cent. IO I5 2O 25 30 Publisher...... £325 ... 3280 ... 3235 ... 3190 ... 31.45 Author......... £90 ... 3135 ... 3180 ... 3225 ... 3270 These figures show that for a half-profit system, supposing a book to be successful, a royalty of about 22% per cent. on such a work, of such a length, without illustrations, means half profits to author and to publisher. But it may be objected, very few books indeed attain to such a circulation as is here presented. As a matter of fact, many more books attain to wide circulation than we suspect. We are too much accustomed to think of novels alone as successful books. There are, however, educa- tional, religious, scientific, historical, biographical books which obtain very great success. We do not hear much about them ; of the novel we hear a great deal. Let us next, then, reserving this important fact, speak of books which cannot expect a large circulation. A philosophical treatise, for instance; a book of essays by a writer who is not popular; a book of poems by a poet not yet popular; can hardly expect a large WOL. W. sale. Indeed, in some cases, the writer is fortunate in getting published at all; and there are many cases in which a publisher has produced a book by which he cannot hope to do more than recoup his expenditure. Let us return to a book, of which a single edition of IOOO copies represents the whole. If it is a volume of essays it is generally longer than the example quoted. Suppose it contains twenty sheets. The cost of production, not counting moulding, would be about £1oo. This cost is covered with a sale of 550. If, however, it is saddled with a royalty of 15 per cent. to the author, the book is not covered until a sale of 723 copies. Now, the publisher may see his way to dispose of something like this number, but not of many more. Where, then, is his own share in the return ? It is manifestly impossible, with a sale so limited, to give so large a royalty. This consideration seems to introduce the deferred royalty; and, indeed, if the accounts are honestly presented, on an agreed understanding as to the proportion or share, a deferred royalty would seem the fairest. Thus with our figures a royalty would begin after 550 copies were sold. What should be the amount of the royalty P Clearly, the sale of every copy in the edition of Iooo, except the presentation copies, after 550 are gone, is so much profit. Therefore a royalty of 50 per cent. is only the old-fashioned half profit plan honestly carried out. Unfortunately the deferred royalty has been —and is—the easiest and the most common way of conveying the whole of the property into the publisher's hands. For instance, a case occurred some time ago in which such a book as we are considering was to be charged with a royalty of a shilling a copy after I 600 copies had been sold. Now, the book was of such a nature that its sale would probably never reach, or only just reach, I 600 copies. Suppose, however, an edition of 2000 copies were produced and all were sold. The cost of the book would be about 3130; the returns, at 3s. 8d. a copy, would be about £350. The author would receive Is. On 4OO copies, i.e., 32O ; the publisher would receive over £2OO. The figures are only approximate, but they are not far wrong. How does such an agreement as this strike the reader for equity ? Again, a very distinguished writer sought the advice of the Society sofme time ago on the following proposal. He was to give a certain firm a book—a little book which would cost a trifling sum to produce, and would be absolutely certain of success from the name alone of the writer. The firm proposed that a royalty of one-sixth should be given to the writer, to begin after 2000 copies had been sold / There • C 2  ## p. 10 (#24) ############################################## IO THE AUTHOR. is no need of figures in this case in order to show the beauty of the arrangement. A third case. It was concerning a three- volume novel. The author accepted terms which promised large returns after the sale of 350 copies. He never got anything. He found out afterwards that the publisher, guessing that there would be no demand for the book over and above 350 copies, had not only named that number as the starting point for the royalty, but had also printed that number and no more, and had then distributed the type. He gave away about twenty copies and the libraries took the rest, and he made the little profit of £150 or so on the trans- action. How does this strike the reader for loyalty and honour? Under these circumstances a proposal of a deferred royalty must be regarded with great suspicion. This paper does not advance any opinion as to the royalty which should be regarded as fair. It gives the facts, approximately, as regards cost of production and returns. Readers must remember that, though it is always neces- sary to consider the case of a great success, it does not by any means follow that their own books are going to be greatly successful. They must also remember that to recoup the cost of production alone is not exactly satisfactory to the publisher. These considerations belong to the application of the figures given above. *— — —” P- - -e TWO AFTER DINNER SPEECHES, N responding to the toast of the “Trade,” proposed by the Lord Mayor at the book- sellers' trade dinner, held on April 14, Mr. John Murray said: “As regards that section of the trade with which I am personally connected, I will say that we publishers get a great deal of abuse, but up to the present we have not perished under that abuse. I believe there are certain people writing against us frequently. I believe there is a periodical devoted more or less to our shortcomings. But you know an author would not be an author if he were not a man of brilliant imagination. Well, gentlemen, when I think of what has passed, I am reminded ºf a little inci- dent which may have come within your know- ledge. There was an American gentleman—one of those whose tendencies lead them to come to other nations and teach other people their busi- ness—who came to Scotland and addressed some tenants against the landlord, and, feeling he had the sympathies of his audience, he asked if any- one would like to ask him a question. An old farmer arose and said, ‘Well, Mr. George, I think you are an owner of land yourself?’ ‘No,' was the reply. “Never interested in one?’ said the farmer. “No ; I am neither agent or landlord, I have never had anything to do with land or landlords.” “No ; I thought so,” said the farmer and sat down. Now this is the way to treat our critics, and I offer them a hint not offered before. There were plans which in the long run would require the sanction of the courts to be enforced. I make a better sugges- tion: I say find me a man to write down in legal phrase, ‘Good feeling, mutual confidence, and friendship.' I say find me a man prepared in a right minded spirit to enter into an agreement honourably conceived, and I will show you the man who will draw up an agreement which will not require the courts to enforce it. That is the basis on which such a business should be made.” - It is fair to suppose that Mr. Murray directed these remarks against this paper—in fact, lest the audience should think that some other paper was intended, Mr. Macmillan afterwards explained that it was the Author. If so, one has to point out that the Author has never, at any time, or in any place, abused publishers. The Society of which it is the organ has pointed out most clearly and distinctly that it has not the slightest quarrel with honourable publishers. The Society has investigated and has exposed, partly in this paper, certain practices which make publishing in certain hands a mean and a dishonest trade. If Mr. Murray “has found certain persons writing against us,” I think he may fairly be called upon to explain more clearly what he TT168,1].S. - Next he relates a parable, by which he seems to imply that the Author tries to teach publishers their business. The Author does nothing of the kind; it does, however, try to teach authors their business. With this object in view it publishes the facts as to the actual cost of production, the trade allowances, the methods of advertising, the extent of copyright, the law of copyright, the meaning of royalties—all the points, in short, necessary to teach the author what the various clauses of an agreement may mean. Does Mr. Murray object to this kind of light? Finally, Mr. Murray offers to do the very thing which the Society most ardently desires and has always in view. I know not whether he was present at a meeting held in December, 1892, at which the chairman, Sir Frederick Pollock, stated plainly that it was incredible that honourable men could not meet and recognise some method or methods of publishing as fair and acceptable to both sides. That statement still stands unanswered—what is  ## p. 11 (#25) ############################################## THE AUTHOR. I I In the way ? Frankly, the chief obstacles are the men who, being the leaders of the publishing trade, assume, at such meetings as the Book- sellers' dinner, that exposures—exposures which must be made—of over-reaching or sharping by the baser sort—are meant as attacks upon them- selves. If Mr. Murray will turn to page 9 of this number he will find there, as illustration, three agreements, not fraudulent, but sharp, recently offered to authors. One would ask him if they are such agreements as he approves. One would further ask him if he does not approve of the exposure and explanation of such agree- ments. I will show Mr. Murray, if he cares to See them, one or two other curious little agree- ments and accounts. And I will tell him, if he wishes, in confidence, the names of the firms concerned. The Committee, one is quite sure, will gladly consider any agreement which Mr. Murray may communicate in the very spirit which he desires. But, one would ask, how can there be any agree- ment which can be outside, and independent of, the law P Are publishers unique among mankind in being, as a body and individually, beyond reproach P Does Mr. Murray really believe this P For myself, I have always thought it a great misfortune for literature that such a publisher as Mr. John Murray does not welcome the Society with open arms. I have often said this privately. I now say it publicly. For—consider—if we tell a solicitor of standing that there are many black sheep in his profession; if we expose the tricks and sharpings of these black sheep, does that Solicitor get up in public and complain that certain people are always abusing “us?” Our experience of the methods of publishing is wide, and, in fact, unique. It is nothing less than a knowledge of the methods pursued by every pub- lishing house in London. And of certain houses —I must not say in this place which they are or how many they are—I declare that I cannot Conceive it possible that a single sentence in the Author (not counting correspondence) should be able to offend or irritate any member of any one of these firms. At the same dinner, Mr. Frederick Macmillan also spoke at greater length about the Author. He is reported to have said: “The relations between publishers and authors have always been satisfac- tory, and I believe the contrary opinion is chiefly due to the Author, which I believe has hitherto been thoroughly misunderstood. When this periodical first made its appearance before the world, and put before us preposterous statements based on elaborately collected information, varied by vague but offensive charges of dishonesty, there were many respectable persons who had passed their whole lives producing books who were much surprised, and some went so far as to be annoyed. I gave it some consideration, and tried to find what this periodical was. . In fact, if it is once established that the Author is a comic periodical, no doubt its circulation will very much increase. This is a digression merely suggested by Mr. Murray's reference to the Author.” I cannot agree that the relations of author and publisher are, or ever have been, satisfactory, for the simple reason that they are absolutely undefined, and that an author has to go and ask a publisher what terms he proposes. This is simple fact, and not an opinion at all. It is a fact in no way due to the Author, but is known and lamented among all authors whose work has any commercial value. As for the “preposterous statements,” one would like to know in detail, and with reference to page and volume, what these are. “Vague, but offensive charges of dis- honesty.” What are these ? Our charges of dishonesty are not vague, but perfectly clear and precise. For instance, he who makes a false return of accounts to his partner—how should he be described P. In general terms, what would the world call such a man? This is not vague. Will Mr. Macmillan explain how such a charge is Offensive P Or, since we cannot assume that he could be offended by such a charge as this, what and where are the “offensive ’’ charges? There are other practices which have also been quite clearly defined, and will be so again. As for the facts published, they chiefly consist of the facts as to the cost of production. Does Mr. Macmillan refer to these ? Does he object to this kind of light? One cannot assume that it is possible. In that case, what are the offend- ing statements P The part of Mr. Macmillan's speech which was directed personally against myself, I have taken out ; it does not concern our readers. He con- cludes with the soothing reflection that the Author is a comic paper. It is astonishing how much consolation has been obtained by persons who, for this or that reason, are angry with a paper by the consideration that, after all, it is only a comic paper. Since that is so, let us laugh and go on our way. There are many more little jokes coming along which will, we hope, preserve the comicality of our columns. Meanwhile, I repeat, what are those preposterous statements which have made Mr. Frederick Macmillan so very angry with the Author? EDITOR.  ## p. 12 (#26) ############################################## I 2 THE AUTHOIR. BOOK TALK, HE report in the newspaper London, of April 19, dealing with the metropolitan and suburban free libraries has received much attention from those interested in the free library movement, because statistics are there given which tend to show that the working of the Free Libraries Acts is not as successful as had been expected. To begin with, there are some parishes which will not adopt the Acts at all, and, whatever may have been their original reasons, it would be short-sighted and impolitic not to ask whether these statistics supplied in the article “What Londoners Read,” furnish these parishes with any new arguments for con- tinuing in the same course. The article states that the “free library move- ment in London seems to have come to a dead stop. It was late in starting, and only made satisfactory progress for a short period. Recently there have been discouraging defeats. It looks as if all the energy and enthusiasm thrown into the movement in 1887 and 1889 had been exhausted. . . .” Only half the people have yet the benefit of these valuable educational institutions. What is read in these libraries P Turning to the statistics themselves, there is only one thing to be said—readers of fiction are the class who have been able to find their wants most easily satisfied. Fiction in all the libraries has always the highest percentage. The writer of the article, who seems to think that people ought not to read novels, adds a special warning to show that the “conclusion that the public libraries are mainly used for the dissemination of fiction is erroneous,” for, and these are the three chief reasons: (1) Libraries possess more novels than other works quite as much because they are cheap as that they are often asked for. (2) Novels take a much shorter time to read than serious works. (3) Many novels borrowed and recorded in the per- centages are not read at all. And then follow three other minor reasons. The writer then goes on to make a comparison between the free library novel reader and the subscriber to Mudie, Smith, and the Grosvenor. Nothing, however, can be gained for the free library movement by such a course. If the free library readers have their weaknesses, they are not excused because the patrons of Mudie and Smith have theirs. In the next column the writer shows us what he considers the special weakness of the free library, for he gives us the names of the six most popular novelists. By a process of exhaustion it seems as though we could always find one of these libraries in which one or more of the novelists, popular elsewhere, received but little attention ; but we ning through them all. should find one name—Mrs. Henry Wood—run- If we proceed in the same way with particular novels, there is but one novel which seems to be read everywhere— Chelsea, Holborn, Bermondsey, Clerkenwell—they must have “East Lynne.” Saint Martin’s-in-the- Fields requires eight copies. “It is the demand for ‘East Lynne' which gives Mrs. Wood the first position. “East Lynne’ being the favourite, it is perhaps, after all, a fair comparison to say that the free library is to one class of people what Mudie and Smith are to another. How very unwise then it is to pit the masses against the classes in this matter of reading, when really their tastes overlap. The outcome of this clearly is that, judged as an educational institution, the education furnished by the free library is chiefly conveyed through the modern novel; a form of text-book which teaches history, manners, customs, religion, morals, taste, and a great many things besides. It must, of course, be very trying to the autho- rities of public libraries to see so many works, which would well deserve a place on their shelves, published at prices far beyond the reach of the free library resources. We have before us a small volume, “The Life of Fra Paolo Sarpi,” by the Rev. Alexander Robertson, which is enjoying a large sale, and which seems to us to be suitable in every way for our free libraries. It is the history of a very great man which is here brought into a small compass without losing sight of either the material facts of his life, or, what is the essence of biography the spirit with which he went about his own and his country’s affairs. It is not usual to find a manual of history and biography which can be recommended as a guide and a stimulus to our own people in their attempt to be perfectly clear minded on the two most difficult political ideas of our time—pro- gress and patriotism. It is just possible that those who have hitherto been content to take their knowledge of Fra Paolo Sarpi from Miss Campbell’s life will be disappointed with Mr. Robertson's monograph, because, except in the last chapter, he does not appear to give any very fresh information. The chief reason for recommending the book just Inow is that it brings out most clearly how English sympathies have hitherto been entirely on the side of true freedom, both in action and in thought, whenever the sup- port of England has been sought by States struggling against religious tyranny. If there are any who are inclined to question the support given by England to the formation of the Italian kingdom—a united Italy, catholic, patriotic, and anti-papal, will not fail to note how easily the struggle could be misrepresented by the misuse of our current political terms or Tories and Liberals.  ## p. 13 (#27) ############################################## THE AUTHOR. I 3 It is almost impossible not to consider this volume as a political manual intended to show the triumph of the Liberals (using the word in a foreign sense) or constitutional party over the clerical party, the upholders of the absolute authority of the ruler of the then existing Papal States. Such an opposition of parties may seem strange to us who are, perhaps, accustomed to consider constitutionalism more as the property of Tories, or, let us say, Conservatives, than Liberals. Nevertheless, there is one reflection to be made, if we in England have not hitherto had a clerical party there are good reasons for believing that such a party may spring up and declare itself in the near future; and it will be interesting to see how the name Liberal, as we now use it, will have to be extended to include many who at the present time would style themselves Conserva- tives. It is from this consideration — the possibility of a clerical party arising in England —that Mr. Robertson's book will derive another element of popularity. He leaves us in no doubt whatever as to the vitality of the struggle. When we consider the varied literary and scien- tific achievements of our day, there is always a danger of overlooking the importance of pro- portion in time, especially in things political. For instance, we have here a conflict between liberty and tyranny which has been waged since the time of Dante. If we are considering the history of Man from Abraham to Darwin that is not a very long time, but if we are thinking only, as is here the case, of the development of con- stitutionalism, it is impossible not to contrast the quick growth of our free political institutions in England, after we had substituted the Sovereign for the Pope, with their growth in those countries which had still to reckon with the papal claims. To recognise that a constitution is a growth and not the creation of a minister—even a Sarpi–is the political lesson of this biography. It is shown that to be free to develop is the simple requirement of a constitutional commonwealth like the Venetian, or a constitutional monarchy like the kingdom of Italy. Mr. Robertson has written a most interesting book. As it is not our duty here to do more than find reasons for recommending its purchase to private buyers, and justifying the same by public ones, we may draw attention to the heads of the chapters showing the method adopted. We have three chapters dealing with Sarpi, as scholar, professor, and then provincial of the Servite Order of Friars. Chapter 4 describes him as scientist and philosopher, in which his position with regard to the discovery of the circulation of the blood and the amount of Harvey’s indebted- mess to him are noted. We observe that Mr. Robertson appears to take a somewhat different view of that question than Miss Campbell does. Up to this point Sarpi is shown rather as making preparation for the duties which afterwards devolved upon him; while the three following chapters are devoted to the noble and successful struggle of his political life. He is described as theological counsellor, as martyr, and as states- man-author. The last chapter, “In tomb and on pedestal,” tells how Sarpi's enemies tried to revenge themselves even on his remains, and gives their attempts—which were very successful—to prevent the statue decreed by the Senate and Doge On Feb. 7, 1623, being set up. This was not dome till 1892. Mr. Robertson writes: “In recognition of the fact that Fra Paolo embodied the spirit not only of the old republic of Venice, but also of the new kingdom of Italy, the day chosen for the unveiling of the statue was the auspicious one, Sept. 20.” The volume has a photograph from a picture of Sarpi, and another of the statue; there is also a fac-simile letter in Sarpi’s handwriting. * * * a- - -º CALIFORNIAN NOTES. HE following notes on two or three Cali- fornian writers, furnished by a Californian, may serve to infroduce them to the readers of the Author. The first is on Mrs. Margaret Collier Graham, whose stories in the Atlantic Monthly and in the Century magazine have attracted some attention during the past eighteen months. She is a California woman, having her home at Pasadena, in Southern California. Mrs. Graham first made her appearance in literature twelve years ago with a story which appeared in the California Magazine, a publication which after- wards became merged in the new series of the Overland. This story, “Jamie,” attracted much attention at the time, and was followed only by one or two fugitive efforts, after which the writer dropped into obscurity. The real cause for this suspension of literary effort was the prolonged illness of her husband, who died three years ago. The twelve years that intervened between Mrs. Graham's earlier and later work were filled with work and sorrow and love. But meanwhile the writer was unconsciously preparing for strong and purposeful effort in letters. This is why she seems to have sprung full fledged into literature. Her stories show the subtle discernment of cha- racter, and the happy sense of humour peculiar to Miss Mary E. Wilkins, whom she resembles without imitation. As Miss Wilkins belongs to the east, so Mrs. Graham belongs to the west. Where Miss Wilkins introduces us to the New  ## p. 14 (#28) ############################################## I4. THE AUTHOR. England sewing circle, Mrs. Graham tells us of the outdoor life of the Far West. While Miss Wilkins shows us the homely furrows ploughed on the stony hillsides of the Granite Hills, Mrs. Graham pictures the freshly upturned virgin soil, full of latent possibilities, bathed in sunshine. The pathos of life is in her tales, yet what most captivates us is their humour. She has a fine touch, and the little she has published has been talked about, thought about, and dis- cussed, like the work of few writers during these last two years. Yet one who knows her well, ventures the prediction that these exquisite pictures of western life that she has given the reading public, will seem but child's play when compared to the strong and serious work of which she is capable, and which she will yet accomplish. Another writer, as yet not popular with English readers, is Mr. Cromwell Galpin, a newspaper man of Los Angeles. chiefly by his contributions to the child-literature of the day. He has now nearly completed a novel whose scenes deal with the ancient life of the Pueblo Indians, of which he has made a special study. The subject is a unique one, and the novel is certain to have a literary and historical value. Mr. Galpin is the writer who conceived the very original undertaking of publishing a folk- lore tale of several thousand words, which should Tead pleasantly and with euphony, without the employment of a single word that was not of pure Saxon origin. This feat he accomplished successfully, and the result was published in Wideawake two years ago. The Overland Monthly, California's best known literary publication, and from which Bret Harte sprang from obscurity to fame, has lately changed hands, becoming the property of Mr. Rounseville Wildman, a consular representative and writer of some repute, who takes the editorial chair. It is understood that Mr. W. W. Foote, a San Francisco criminal lawyer of repute, will have a voice in the management, and will become a regular contributor to the magazine. *— - —” TO A DISCOURTEOUS BEAUTY. (From CoRNEILLE.) Although my features, fair marquise, A trifle weatherworn have grown, The day will come, remember please, When you’ll find furrows on your own Naught upon earth, however bright, Can brave the scathing touch of Time; My wreath, now wan with winter's blight, Had once, like yours, its April prime ! He has hitherto been known The same just stars in yonder blue, Life's course for both of us decree ; My past I gaze upon in you, Your future you behold in me ! Yet charms I own which, sooth to speak, When yours have perished, shall endure, Against the worst that Time can wreak, Proudly, impregnably secure : Tricked in mere beauty’s transient gloss, My charms in chill disdain you hold; Yet, when all yours are worthless dross Mine still shall gleam intrinsic gold ! They could preserve those lustrous eyes, Or bid their light extinguised be ; They could award you Helen's guise, Or hand you down as Hecate | Ay, with posterity, who'll lend Some slight regard to what I’ve writ, Your boasted beauty will depend On just what I may say of it ! Lay this to heart, then, fair marquise— When next with “hauteur’ superfine You’d fain some hapless oldster freeze, Choose one whose pen's less sharp than mine ! WILLIAM TOYNBEE. *-- ~ 2–? r—- * ~s NOTES AND NEWS. HE Report of the Dinner of the 31st ult. will appear in the July number. “Les éditeurs catholiques Letouzey et Ané com- paraissent aujourd'hui devant la cour d’assises de la Seine, présidee par M. Potier, sous l'accusa- tion de faux en écritures de commerce au préjudice de M. Léo Taxil. L'expertise aurait 6tabli que M. Léo Taxil avait été frustré, de la part de ses éditeurs, a propos du tirage de ses publications, d'une somme dépassant 38,000 fr. M* Pouillet et Georges Maillard assistent MM, Letouzey et Ané. M. l'avocat-général Van Cassel soutient l’accu- sation. - - - L'affaire a 6té renvoyée.”—Siècle, May 30. We are called upon to thank certain Americans for a graceful act. They have quite privately and secretly collected a sum of money. With this they have caused to be made a marble bust of Keats, which is to be placed in Hampstead church. Mr. Gosse was informed of the plan as soon as the bust was completed, and was permitted to communicate it to the Times of May 25. The bust has arrived. It was brought over by Mr. Day, the projector of the gift. I suppose we ought, long ago, to have put up such a monument to the poet; certainly no poet lives more surely and more lovingly in our hearts than Keats; yet, on  ## p. 15 (#29) ############################################## THE AUTHOR. I5 the whole, it seems a good thing that we have left this offering to the Americans. We read in it a claim, or, if you please, an acknowledgment, that everything good and great written in our common language belongs to all who speak that language. We recognised this truth when we put up the monuments to Lowell and to Long- fellow in Westminster Abbey. I wish we could do more. We might present a statue of Haw- thorne to the pretty little town of Concord. We might put up a bust of Washington Irving in the City Hall of New York. We might give a statue of Oliver Wendell Holmes to the great hall of Harvard. Let us consider the subject. Mean- time we must welcome our American friends. The Weekly Sun has discovered a poet in a coal mine. That is to say, he has been in a coal mine, but ill-health keeps him in the light of day. He is quite young, about twenty-two years of age; his education has been slender; he is very poor. The Weekly Sun has published one of his poems, called “Life at Play.” The following stanzas, which seem to me graceful, simple, and promising, are taken from this poem :— The field-flowers rise from out their beds Of undulating green, And shyly lift their pretty heads To look upon the scene. All things are gay ! For earth has doffed her garb uncouth, And beauty crowns and kisses youth, And Life's at play. The breeze blows gaily o'er the land, And whispers in the trees, And tosses with a playful hand The corn to tumbling seas. All things are gay ! A thousand waves in concert run, And glare and glitter in the sun, While Life’s at play. The world looks young, as golden gleams Of sunshine wreathe her brow ; And Nature’s wealth of fruitage teems, And Age seems younger now. All things are gay ! The living rules the dead again, The dreams of youth pulsate the brain, While Life’s at play. An attempt is being made to raise a small fund for this young poet. It is to cultivate his know- ledge. The editor of the Weekly Sun, Tudor- street, E.C., is willing to receive contributions. Will the readers of this paper, who should, above all others, love poetry and poets, respond to the appeal? The man may be another Burns— another Keats. I read in the Westminster Gazette that there will shortly be issued a History of the Riving- tons from the year 1711. There have been VOI,. W. published from time to time several books on the history of publishers and booksellers, but never, so far as I know, any complete history of any one house. We want in such a record, not only an account of the books published, and the general success, enterprise, and glorification of the firm, but also a history of its relations with authors. In the year 1711, for instance, and for a hundred years afterwards, the men who lived by literature were a miserably poor and, for the most part, a despised race; they were called Grub-street poets, publishers’ hacks, starveling authors, and other agreeable names; the luckless tribe were game for everybody, and especially for their more successful brethren. Will the historian of the Rivington House tell us something of the actual conditions under which literature was then produced ? What, for instance, was the extent of the market for English books? Was there any export to America P. Were the poor scribes paid for their work in anything like a fair proportion to its marketable value P When Oliver Goldsmith got 2960 for the “Vicar of Wakefield,” what did the purchaser make out of it? When Pope received the sum of £9000 for his translation of Homer, what did his publishers make P When was the practice of buying a work outright changed to that of a profit sharing agreement P When and by whom was a royalty system introduced? What losses show the existence of the risks that were certainly encountered in the last century? I have in my possession a bundle of accounts showing how publishers associated for the pro- duction of one book, each taking a proportion of the expense of production. I believe that, until quite recently, the practice was common. Then one would like printers’ accounts of the last century; others of fifty years ago, and others of to-day, showing the changes in that respect. And there should be an account of dealings with the country bookseller. In this way the history of the Publishing House of Rivington might become a most important contribution to the history of the commercial side of literature. The proposals for a collected edition of Steven- son's works are before me. They have been issued by several publishers in varying forms, and it has hitherto been rather difficult to put together a complete collection. Arrangements have been made with all his publishers, and the result has been a general consent to the issue of a uniform edition. Mr. Sidney Colvin will super- intend the edition; Mr. W. Hole, R.S.A., will provide an etched portrait ; Messrs. Constable, of Edinburgh, will print the work—their name is a guarantee that the printing will be the best D  ## p. 16 (#30) ############################################## I6 THE AUTHOR. possible.; and Messrs. Chatto and Windus will distribute the books when they are ready. The edition is limited to 1035 copies, of which thirty- five will be reserved for presentation copies; the remainder will be offered to the public in twenty volumes, at 12s. 6d. each. Of the thousand, 300 have been subscribed for America and the colo- nies. It is evident that the desire of the editors is to produce an edition which will become scarce and costly from the very commencement. Any bookseller will receive an order. I shall be very much surprised if there are any left within a week of this date. The Ossianic problem is to be reopened. It is like the “Man with the Iron Mask,” or the “Letters of Junius,” always waiting to be re- opened and discussed over again. The world should be thankful to Mr. Macpherson for pro- viding one more subject for the discussion of every successive generation. This time it is Mr. Bailey Saunders who revives the dispute, with a life of Macpherson in which to set it. “An Oxford Graduate” sends his literary experience. He says that he has for many years attempted to obtain entrance into the magazines, but with very discouraging results. The best magazines always return his MSS. ; he some- times succeeds in the second-rate papers. But he says: “However bad my work may be, it is at least as good as one-half of the average articles published even in first-class magazines. There is the sting ; this the bitterness one cannot get over.” Here lies, as the Oxford Graduate puts it, the true bitterness of failure, that the writer who cannot get in is unable to discern in what respects his work is worse than that accepted. It is not enough to say that MSS. offered by unknown writers are returned unread. A vast number of writers, from Boz downwards, have begun by offering their unknown work. Nor is it enough to say that editors do not read what is offered them. Editors may sometimes make mistakes; they may not always have the time to read all the MSS. sent to them; but it is a certain fact that editors, as a rule, do read contributions sent in to them, and do try to get good work. Otherwise they would not be editors, but mechanical clerks. There seems no reply possible to the “Oxford Graduate,” except the suggestion that long-con- tinued and almost unbroken failure must mean something—it may be in the form or the style— which militates against his success. § A correspondent asks the following question: “Could the Society give any indication to young writers as to the character of publishing houses, so as to avoid the great waste of time in sending work & priori unlikely to suit them P’’ The Society cannot possibly do this. It can advise, and daily does advise, authors in all branches of literature what houses are likely to consider their work, and what houses are likely to treat them fairly if they are inclined to accept their work. So that, if the writer confines himself to these houses, and is careful not to sign agree- ments without advice, he is at all events kept out of harm. But our correspondent means more than this. He is of opinion that publishers have certain leanings in this direction or that. This is not generally the case. Those publishers who publish novels will publish novels of any kind, provided they are not contra bonos mores and are likely to be in demand. And the same may be stated of every kind of book, except technical works, e.g., a general publisher should not be asked to produce new books on Arabic Philology, or on Medicine, or on Law, or on Cuneiform Inscriptions. But history, poetry, fiction, voyages, travels, and belles lettres generally of all kinds fall into the work undertaken by any publisher. The Society has to deplore the death of Mr. Edmund Yates. He had been a member of our council since the formation of the Society. He always took a deep interest in the welfare of the Society. At the outset, when our future was uncertain and extremely dark, the adhesion of every single man or woman of letters was important, and especially of such a man as Edmund Yates, novelist, journalist, and editor. His literary career, which practically ended with- the success of the World, was wide and varied. He was editor, One after another, of half a dozen magazines; he wrote many admirable novels, some of which still keep their place, and will continue to live a great deal longer than the space generally allotted even to successful novels. And he was a man of most kindly heart. With him has gone one of the few links remaining to connect the men of the Nineties with the men of the Fifties. Edmund Yates was from his birth associated with literary and dramatic folk. He was a personal friend of men much older than himself—Dickens, Albert Smith, Frank Smedley, Anthony Trollope. He began to write very early, and some of his novels still retain their hold upon the public. To the younger generation he is known chiefly as the editor of the World, which he himself founded in 1874. When one considers that the World is always regarded as a “personal ‘’ paper; that he was almost considered as the sole writer of it, though his staff was large, and included many writers of the very first order, it is wonderful that he made so few enemies. There are papers,  ## p. 17 (#31) ############################################## THE AUTHOR. 17 for instance, whose editors make more enemies in a single year than Yates made in twenty years. The crowd of mourners—representing all kinds of people — which filled the Savoy Chapel at his funeral, and the grief that was marked on every face, proclaimed the loss that his death has caused. It was perhaps in kindness of heart that he once opened the pages of the World to a couple of men who were trying an experiment in collaboration. That was in 1876, and the turning point in that experiment proved to be that appearance in the World. I have always regarded this event in my little literary history not so much a stroke of good fortune as a personal favour bestowed, out of sheer kindness, upon my collaborateur, whom he knew slightly, and upon myself, whom he did not then know at all. — Another loss to letters is the death of Henry Morley. No two men could be more opposite than Edmund Yates and Henry Morley. The former an artist of the true artistic temperament; the latter a worker, always at work—learning, writing, teaching, transcribing, editing, inditing, histories of literature. We want such men as Henry Morley; they are most useful in their generation. Literature is like an army always on review. First and foremost are the fighting men; they are represented by the authors them- selves, the poets, dramatists, novelists, essayists, historians; then there are the critics, who repre- sent the bystanders and lookers on ; then the commissariat, represented by the publishers — some of the soldiers complain that the uniform of the commissariat is much finer than their own, and that their mess is much superior to the regimental mess; then there are the men like Henry Morley, who are represented by the clerks and keepers of the regimental records. Henry Morley was not one of the regiment, a fighting man, an original writer; nor was he a critic ; his work was to keep the records of the regiment, and he kept them very well. As a professor, and as the Warden of University Hall, he was widely and deservedly popular. Yet a third. Dr. Richard Morris is dead. With the single exception of Professor Skeat, no man living or dead has ever done so much for the study of our own old literature. It was fortunate for us, as well as the Early English Text Society, that his services were available, as well as those of Professor Skeat, during the early years of its existence. Very few societies have been able to command the work—gratuitous work, I believe—of such eminent scholars and patient workers as those two contributors, who simply created the success of the Society. The book of the month is Mr. Conway's Hima- layan Exploration. There has been universal agreement in all the papers on that point. One thing, at least, may be said concerning critics. When they all agree that a book is good the verdict may be accepted without a question. WALTER BESANT. *—— — —” -*. FEUILLETON, A PIOUS FRAUD. - Y the railway system irreverently known as the “Flying Watkin,” two gentlemen, with whom we are about to become acquainted, were travelling down into Kent. One was a man in the prime of life; a well-made fellow, with a pleasantly obtrusive waistcoat, and an evidence of comfortable prosperity about him. He had a merry eye, with attachments of white crow's-feet, as though he had been for a long time past smiling and laughing in a strong sunlight. And yet in spite of all this lurking mirth there was something hard about his face. His mouth was scornful, and there was something of the cynic apparent in spite of his look of bonhomie. His companion—or rather his fellow traveller, for they were not acquainted—was a much younger man, not more than twenty-five; rather above the middle height, and with a fine pair of intelligent eyes in his head. He was not good looking, but yet he was undeniably attractive. How, it would be perhaps impossible to explain. Grim determi- nation was his chief characteristic, tempered with a quiet air of disgust and weariness. These two travellers had the compartment to themselves, for it was a midday train, and almost empty. The younger traveller had exhausted his paper before they had travelled many miles, and then, with a muttered curse at the line in general, he rose, put his hat in the rack, and taking down down from that altitude something rolled in brown paper, began to undo the string. “I wonder what is wrong now,” he said under his breath, as he opened a small note inclosed in the parcel. He read the note and laughed, while his vis-à-vis looked at him in some amazement. It was not a pleasant laugh by any means, and it was not good to hear. Next he unrolled the document contained in the brown paper roll, and, as the elder traveller saw at a glance, it was a type-written play. He turned over certain leaves, removing certain marks as he did so, and laughing each time—if possible more unpleasantly than before. He soon, however, resumed his accus- tomed looked of weariness, and, leaning back in his corner, proceeded to read again. But by this  ## p. 18 (#32) ############################################## 18 THE AUTHOR. time he had excited the interest of the elder man, who, putting on his glasses, read the name of the play on the cover. He became uneasy, and rather excited—why he did not quite know. At length he could contain himself no longer. “Allow me, sir, to congratulate you on the name of your play.” The younger man looked up curiously and suddenly. The elder continued, “Hope you don't think me rude, but I’ve been watching you ever since you undid your roll. I watched your disgust, I heard your laugh. I am well acquainted with that sort of thing. I’m a playwright myself. My card.” The young man took the pasteboard smilingly. Looked at it. His face immediately became serious. He was so astonished that he was momen- tarily incapable of any other remark than “Oh.” For he read “Herod Wingiffle,” and knew then that he was sitting opposite to perhaps the leading playwright of the day “It’s rather a formidable name I’ll allow,” said Wingiffle apologetically. “It is, indeed,” said the young man, “I haven’t a card with me, but my name is Herbert Grant.” “Thank you,” said the other simply. “Yes, it is rather startling, but I didn’t christen myself or I’d have managed differently.” “Oh, I wasn’t meaning that way,” said Grant, laughing; “I was rather surprised at finding a man in such a position as yours”—Wingiffle inclined his head—“taking any notice of a new hand.” “Inoticed the title of your play, and whether it is a good name for that play or not of course I can’t say, but it's an attractive title anyway.” “You are very good.” “Not at all. I suppose you have had it returned P’’ “Yes—that’s it.” “They don’t like it?” “So they say here,” putting hand on note, “but I used certain marks which have not been disturbed at all !” “You mean ?” queried Wingiffle. “That it can’t have been read at all. have changed the wrappers, and that is all “Ah, there are a lot of funny little ways con- nected with theatrical management. Er—How old are you, and when did you begin to write for the stage?” He asked these two questions very abruptly. “I’m twenty-five, and I began to scribble when I was nineteen.” “Oh,” said Wingiffle, rather heartlessly, as Grant thought. Wingiffle continued musingly, “I began at seventeen, and my first produc- tion happened when I was thirty-five.” They 122 It was Grant's turn to say “Oh,” and he said. it with considerable fervour. “I don't want to discourage you,” Wingiffle was going on when Grant laughed—that hard hopeless laugh of his. “Ah! I see,” said the sympathetic playwright, “you have had a good deal of it; perhaps I had better say no more.” “Oh, please do,” said Grant, stopping his laugh suddenly. “I have had a good deal of discouragement, and I have been robbed, but you are the first playwright I have ever met, and— and—please go on.” Wingiffle smiled at the ingenuous young man. “Robbed, eh?” he queried. “Aye, robbed. I sent a play—not this one— up to a certain manager, say in the late spring. I got it back in August with an intimation that it was unsuitable, as “women did not do such things.’” “You had made use of the eternal woman question?” asked Wingiffle. “I had and I hadn’t. I had used woman— oh, well then—as she never was yet used. But that wasn’t to say that she won’t be so used Some day. Can you, can any man, get up and declare that there is anything a woman will not do P” - “You mustn't put me on my oath,” said Wingiffle, laughing. “Anyhow,” continued Grant, smiling in spite of his indignation. “Anyhow I got my play back in August. In the following January was produced—at this very theatre—a play by a crack author—Ishan’t mention names—dealing broadly with my subject, with the difference that it placed women in an absolutely impossible light. And I know for a fact that this play was not commenced until the late autumn after the return of my MS.” “Possible,” said Wingiffle. “It isn't always the playwright's fault. Managers, you see, are un- doubtedly inundated with MSS.; those belonging to unknown authors are perhaps scamped through. There are details, say, in a play by a new hand that are not liked while the main idea is approved. Then, instead of writing to the luckless author, saying, “I like your play, will you make certain alterations, and so forth,’ the fellow calmly returns your screed while he gives out an order to a dramatist, whose work he knows is generally approved, for a play to be written round an idea and some scenes. Your idea and your scenes. It is the greatest fluke for a novice to gain a footing. Be his work ever so good, someone is sure to object to something. His dialogue, his characterisation, his dramatic action, his Scenes, his curtains—all can be attacked. If he’s  ## p. 19 (#33) ############################################## THE AUTHOR. I9 right in one, A. says he's wrong in another, while B. reverses A.’s verdict. I candidly tell you that I got my first footing by fluke; the story is too long to tell now. I’ve been snubbed just as you have been ; but I beat you in one particular ”— and he laughed heartily—“I have actually been criticised before production—the production was delayed at the last moment, but the criticism came out ; and so did the recompense—out of the rascal's pocket.” Here both passengers laughed in concert until Wingiffle spoke again, for Grant was altogether too fascinated to utter a syllable. Wingiffle continued, - “But all this talk of myself isn’t touching you much. I don’t know how you’ll take it—you may be suspicious, I couldn't express surprise at it—but if you like, as a practical, accepted play- Wright, I’ll read your play and see if I can give you any hints that might be useful.” Grant thanked his new-found friend very much for his kindness. Wingiffle took no notice at all of this except by a bow. He said, “Written much P” “A good deal,” Grant replied, “but it all comes back to me; but I know—(here he looked dreamily out of the window)—I shall get a hear- ing some day.” His companion gazed at him critically ; he seemed interested in the young man. “I believe you will,” he said rather impres- sively. “I couldn't tell you why I say so or why I believe it, but—I believe you will.” “Really, this is very encouraging,” said Grant, brightening up, “and I think I shall try again, after all.” “Of course you'll try again—you weren't going to give up P” “For a time I was. You see, I do a little hack work for a paper or two, and I was going to devote myself more to that. I manage to scrape together enough to live upon down in the village, but I want to be doing something better. Still, I must go back to it for a time.” “Give me your play,” said Wingiffle. Grant rolled it up and handed it over. It gave him a little pang to see his cherished play coldly set aside with newspapers and gloves, but Wºme chatted so kindly that he soon forgot that. Even a railway journey by the S.E.R. must come to an end at some time or other, and in due course Grant got down at his station. Wingiffle had to go some seven miles further, where he had taken a cottage for the summer. “Then I'll write you and let you know all about your play. Mind, I shall criticise it, I promise you, just as it seems to me, a practical dramatist. Good-bye, good-bye ’’ and the cheery fellow drew in his head after waving adieu to his late companion, on whom his ex- hilaration and heartiness had acted like cham- pagne. You may be quite sure that Grant passed a very pleasant evening with the remembrance of Wingiffle's comforting words for company. Of course he couldn’t sleep when at last he went to bed, thinking it a wonderful thing that he should have awakened sympathy in a man at the top of his profession ; and equally of course, when he awoke next morning he was disposed to take a rather gloomy view of his prospects, just by way of reaction. At eleven in the morning Mr. Wingiffle sur- prised him by a visit. - “Mr. Grant,” he said, “I was distinctly patro- nising to you last night.” This was a bold statement which could bear more than one interpretation, so Grant looked uncomfortable and said nothing. “Yes, I was,” said Wingiffle as though Grant had denied it, “and I have come to apologise for it.” “I assure you there is nothing to apologise for.” “My dear young fellow,” said the dramatist rising, “allow me to shake hands again.” Grant rose. “I patronise you ! Ha!, ha. It's laugh- able. Your play is a masterpiece.” “Good heavens,” ejaculated Grant, pale as a ghost. “Yes, a masterpiece. It's well conceived, interesting, absolutely novel in treatment and design, and—in short, my dear fellow, allow me to congratulate you on a most striking performance. I—well—I can't tell you much now, I’m feeling almost excited but—are you doing anything parti- cular to-day ?” Grant said he was not. “Then it will be a real pleasure to my wife and self if you will drive back with me to lunch —you'll come won't you?” - “I’ll come with pleasure,” then he laughed, this time pleasantly. “You must excuse me,” he added, “if I seem at all wandering in my replies, but I—this is rather a shock. It would be mock modesty on my part to pretend that I didn’t think it a real good play. I know it is. . But I didn’t know it was a masterpiece.” “You go and change your clothes,” said Win- giffle, “at once, and come along.” Away went the young man. He trod on no floor—he encountered no stairs. It was all cloudland to him, and as for his bedroom that was fairyland, and his change of clothes wishing- garments. He wasn't long you may be sure, and soon he was seated beside Wingiffle bowling along towards the latter's cottage.  ## p. 20 (#34) ############################################## 2O THE AUTHOR. “And now then,” said Wingiffle, after lunch, as they sat out under the trees, “will you put yourself further into my power? Ha, ha!” he exclaimed, in melodramatic fashion, “but I must dissemble or I shall frighten my prey,” and the odd creature took two or three long strides of the sort favoured by stage conspirators, while his wife and his visitor laughed at his antics. “Seriously now,” and he sat down again, “this is what I want. Will you let me have that play run out again in type ; will you put a new title to it, and will you let my name appear as the author of it?” - “If it's any use—-” Grant was beginning. “Any use ! Look here. Only my name, it is still your play, but my name appears. I will take it again to Magnus Maximus. He hasn’t seen anything but the title, and probably not that. I know it is just the play for him, and I know it will be the play of the year. I can make a better bargain, too, with him than you could ; and, upon the whole, I think we shall make Magnus Maximus look rather insignificant.” “I don’t know what to say to you, or how to thank you - “Don’t try it then—don't try it. Wait until it is launched, and then we’ll see what we shall see. You will place yourself unreservedly in my hands P” - “I will.” “T'is well; ha, ha!” About a month later Wingriffle looked in upon Grant again. He was in a great state of excite- ment. - “Taken P” cried Grant. “Taken; I should just think so,” almost shouted the other. - And then Grant, forgetful of all dignity, began to perform one of the wildest dances ever seen upon this globe. His landlady, looking out of window on hearing the turmoil, withdrew shud- dering at the prospect of having a madman for a lodger. “In with you,” cried Grant. “Now tell us all about it.” “Well, you know,” said his hardly less excited friend, “I dressed the part so to speak—culti- wated a haggard look—and then rushed him with blood-shot eyes—as though I had been up all night superintending something stupendous.” “Good heavens, my dear chap,” said old Maximus, “here sit down here, sit down—here drink this,” and so on. “Oh, I played well, Herbert’” (by this time, of course, they were on front-name terms). “I laid my hand on the play. Read that. I said, read that ; if it doesn’t stagger you—if it doesn't bring you a fortune— never produce another play that I bring you. With that I walked straight out, leaving him staring after me in amazement.”. Grant laughed heartily at his description. “It won't hurt him,” continued Wingiffle, “and it's only a pious fraud. Maximus is not a bad fellow in his way, but he—well, he should attend to business better.” “But after all this?” queried Grant. “Why, he sends round to me same afternoon, is coming to supper with me that night. Never had anything like it, and so on. Well, the long and the short of it is that the play is accepted, that I have stipulated that it shall be produced friend’s within three months, and that I’ve made such terms that I can only whisper them. Now, no thanks— you're to wait, you remember that. Wait until the production Maximus likes the name—he likes his part—though I’m glad you haven’t put all the fat into one part—and he likes himself generally, for he knows, and I know, that he is going to produce a success.” - # # *: #: $: The long-expected night arrived at last. A typical first-night house had gathered to witness Herod Wingiffle's latest masterpiece. Herod himself was there in front (everyone said how calm and cool he looked, and how unusual, &c., and everyone was very much surprised), with his wife and a young friend, Mr. Herbert Grant, who for some reason was looking rather wild-eyed and pale. - * “Your friend unwell ?” whispered a critic to Herod. - “No, oh no!” Herod whispered back, “sympa- thetic, intensely sympathetic.” The critic replied by raising his eyebrows to express his surprise, and just then the curtain went up. - “Keep cool,” said Herod to his young friend, and Mrs. Wingiffle added a few soothing phrases. It soon became apparent that it was a singularly interesting play. At the end of the first act people turned to congratulate Herod, but he had mysteriously disappeared, though he returned to his seat as the curtain rose on Act II. The same thing occurred at the end of each act, and at the close there was a perfect hurricane of applause. After obeying the laws of precedent governing similar proceedings, the manager stepped before the curtain, when the author was called, with a puzzled look on his face, and a slip of paper in his hand. As soon as he could speak he said: “Ladies and gentlemen.—I have just received this note from Mr. Herod Wingiffle.  ## p. 21 (#35) ############################################## THE AUTHOI?. 2 I “‘Dear Maximus, I have imposed upon you piously, and with the consent of the real author of this play. I did not write it. You haven’t hurt yourself, and you have done an act of justice. I may say that the author is in front.—Yours, FIEROD.’ “Does anyone know what this means ?” asked the manager of the astonished house. “Is the author in the house P” he added. And then there was a short pause. Everyone looking at everyone else. “Get up and speak,” whispered Mrs. Wingiffle, and Herbert rose. They were seated rather to the right in the last row but one of the stalls. “I am the author,” he said, and his voice, though he did not speak loudly, rang through the house. A thousand eyes were instantly bent upon him. He continued rather mercilessly, “I sent this play up to Mr. Maximus myself more than six months ago. It was returned to me by him as being unsuited to his theatre. How he knew that then it is not for me to say, for certain marks I had placed between the leaves were undis- turbed when the play was returned to me. It had not been read at all. Only the title of the play has been altered since. Luckily I met Mr. Wingiffle. He offered to read my play. He said that he liked it and would play a pious fraud upon Mr. Maximus (some people laughed here, but seeing the sternness on the young man's face they looked grave again). He took it for me to him as his own piece, and that very day it was accepted. I have only to apologise to you all for making you so long a speech.” And he bowed to the house and sat down, while cheer after cheer rose to the roof. The manager had disappeared. R. S. *-* -º ar- ~~ S0-SO-SOCIOLOGY. 167. ISEASE is a medium between weaken- |) ing cause and wasting effect. - I68. When mystery becomes a luxury, misery seems a necessity. I69. It is far easier to love the unlikely than to like the unlovely. 170. Ignorance of ignorance is bad; indiffer- ence, worse; insolence, worst. I71. Civilisation is a concord of cohesion, co- operation, and culture. 172. Were the human always the humane, Man would have no despairs. - 173. The present is more miraculous than the past, but less mysterious. I74. The blend or the breed is of more avail than the brand: - - 175. Education gives Man a greater chance: evolution, a higher choice. 176. From the common conflict of options emerges the consensus of opinions. - 177. The value of machinery depends on whether it ministers or masters. I78. Gratitude is an education as well as an expediency expedience. - 179. Discipline ceases to be a duty when it becomes a tyranny. * 18O. Love will always out, but few can always recognise it. * 181. Only the wisest can ever find the best in the worst. 182. Love and contempt, though ever least akin, seem often most alike. º, 183. Spite is one of the commonest simulators of sincerity. 184. Folly is the favourite child of ignorance and of Vanity. 185. Gift without grace is like knowledge without wisdom. -- 186. Truth is oftener a talent than an accom- plishment. 187. Lies complicate existence: love simpli- fies life. 188. Man makes myths, myths make mysteries, mysteries make miseries. - 189. Energy may sink with the sun, but fancy rises with the moon. . I90. The least sound too often makes the most sound. 191. Not all the godliest die young; not all the best miss fortune. I92. It is easier to convert taste than to con- trol tendency. - - 193. We wish more than we can, but will more than we may. I94. Love's shams appeal to self; its spirit to soul. I95. Men may know their own minds more than their own motives. - I96. Capacity far oftener fails than oppor- tunity. I97. Misfortunes have consolations than compensations. I98. Self-love has no scientific frontiers. 199. Man, of both sexes, is God’s best and Worst practical providence to Man. 2OO. History is the great-grandmother of prophecy. oftener PHINLAY GLENELG.  ## p. 22 (#36) ############################################## a. - THE AUTHOR. “LIFE IN LITERATURE AND LANGUAGE." “TT is the office and function of the imagina- tion to renew life in lights and sounds and (motions that are outworn and familiar. It calls the soul back once more under the dead ribs of nature, and makes the meanest bush burn again, as it did to Moses, with the visible presence of God. And it works the same miracle for language. The word it has touched retains the warmth of life for ever. We talk about the age of superstition and fable as if they were passed away, as if no ghost could walk in the pure white light of science, yet the microscope that can dis- tinguish between the disks that float in the blood of man and ox is helpless, a mere dead eyeball, before this mystery of Being, this wonder of Life, the sympathy which puts us in relation with all nature, before that mighty circulation of Deity in which stars and systems are but as the blood- disks in our own veins. And so long as wonder lasts, so long will imagination find thread for her loom, and sit like the Lady of Shalott weaving that magical web in which ‘the shows of things are accommodated to the desires of the mind.” It is precisely before this phenomenon of life in literature and language that criticism is forced to stop short. That it is there we know, but what it is we cannot precisely tell. It flits before us like the bird in the old story. When we think to grasp it, we already hear it singing just beyond It is the imagination which enables the poet to give away his own consciousness in dramatic poetry to his characters, in narrative to his language, so that they react upon us with the same original force as if they had life in them- selves.”—Low ELL in the Century. *- as as-º CORRESPONDENCE, I.—A STRANGE CorncIDENCE. ^{ONTRIBUTORS to the Author sometimes point out strange coincidences in relation to subjects treated by several persons. The French proverb, Les esprits forts se rencontrent, sums up the matter with French precision. Here is another curious instance. . . In the year 1891 I was travelling rather out of the beaten track upon the eastern frontier of Germany, and I heard of a curious religious pro- cession. Never before had I seen anything of the kind, and only the local guide mentioned it. Naturally it struck me that it would make a good subject for an illustrated magazine article. So when I returned I set to work. Early in 1892 my MS. and drawing trotted about in the usual manner, and I received the usual polite letters from the editors of many first-class magazines— I never trouble the second and third-class folk. Then I threw the MS. into a drawer, where it rested for some nine months. I Ought to say that I first made a wash drawing, from which to make another in pen and ink, to accompany the MS. in its walks about town; strictly speaking, I ought to say in its globe-trottings, for it crossed the ocean, and likewise the so-called silver streak. * . In the spring of ’93 I brought out my MS. again, and towards the anniversary of the fête day described therein, I sent it on its way once more, when alas! after many days and many voyages, the MS. returned without the drawing, which is quite “lost in the post,” although my name and address were written upon the back— showing the carelessness of the returned letter department of the Post-office. Oris a drawing not of sufficient value to be worth returning P Possibly, in the eyes of officials. Well, this year I made another pen and ink drawing from my original wash one, with the same result—refusal. Only here is the gist of the business; not only was my matter stale instead of new, as I thought, but in the words of the editor : “So far from the matter being ‘untouchei you will find it all described and illustrated in of May, 1893. More- over, the sketch you send me is actually copied from the illustration we then published l’” This was rather strong ! * . I represented to the editor that my work had been done in 1891-2, and that I did not relish being accused of purloining other people's work. Here is the half-hearted apology: “I had not the least idea of making any accusation against you” (observe above “actually copied,” and the “!” at end of sentence), “what at Once occurred to me was that your sketch was made from the same photo- graph which we reproduced—a photograph which I suppose is sold in the shops l’ But note, that beyond the two illustrations representing a pro- cession, a crowd, and the same street, they differ much in detail. However, that is not the ques- tion. Why I relate this little history is simply to show that les esprits forts se rencontrent, even in matters which have lain dormant for many years, and even with a short interval between the results of les esprits. In my case, my fortunate rival forestalled me (in print) a year after my work was completed; which shows that the spirit which wafted me to in 1891, and whispered to me to write an article thereon, like- wise spoke to another scribe in 1893 after the same manner. Mean little spirit, why not have let me earn the reward of my labours ? M. S. A.  ## p. 23 (#37) ############################################## THE AUTHOR. 23 II.-ConsoDATORY. Will you allow me to say a few words in answer to “Experto Crede?” I have a very large experience of penny papers, and I have met from their editors and proprietors the greatest kindness, consideration, and courtesy coupled with fair prices and prompt payments. We cannot all be famous, and if long prices for a single story do not fall to our lot, modest cheques are not to be despised. I have for many years earned a very comfort- able income by my pen solely from penny papers. I never expect to be famous, or even to see my name on a three-volume novel, but I sell my tales as fast as I can write them. Unlike the more distinguished folks who publish on the royalty system, I know exactly what they will bring in, I have no anxiety and no suspense, and I do not possess a single rejected manuscript, so that I have no cause to grumble. I fancy the con- tributors who write to you and complain of failure, either expect to succeed in too great a hurry, or else write their stories and then expect them taken by the first paper they think of, instead of deciding on the paper first and adapting the story to its style. Their plan is a kind of putting the cart before the horse arrangement, which must ail. - f Girls tell me their tales are much better than many they see in print, but they can’t get on because they have “no introductions.” I don’t like to reply they are not impartial critics, but I can and do assure them that introductions are useless. My testimony is just that of an average woman worker, for I have had no advantages to help me on, I never had an introduction to editor or publisher, and I don’t even (after years of literary work), possess a single “famous.” acquaintance. - C. O. III.-GRAMMATICAL. Which is correct after not and no, or or nor 2 In some extra good writers, whom one might be tempted to consider authorities, you find nor; in others as good, or. . It did not rain nor blow. It did not blow or pain. There was no rain nor wind. There was mo wind or rain. Which are correct of the above ex, mples? Neither Murray nor Mason answers the question. I used to put or until I began to think about the matter. Then it occurred to me that, as it is right to put nor after neither (an abbreviation of not either), upon the same principle it must be right to put nor after no and not (either being implied). But the other day a more knowing person than myself, when criticising a careful writer's work, said: “He makes just the mistake that so many authors—including even so fine a writer as Marion Crawford—make; he invariably puts nor after not and no, which, whether or not absolutely incorrect, is hideous,”—or something to this effect. I agree with him that or sounds better, but if nor is incorrect after not, it must have been created simply to suit the convenience of neither, and as a means of breaking the rule against two negatives, where they would naturally destroy one another. Nor sounds better than or after neither, but why should it be more correct after neither than after not either ? . . However, apart from right and wrong, eupho- nious, or non-euphonious effects, there are so many uses for the word or, that a person who does not understand the English language might be puzzled by the use of it in lieu of nor. For instance, “He is not pious, or pleasant,” might be taken to signify “He is not pious, by which I mean pleasant.” Still, of course, the thing could be differently expressed without the use of nor; and I do not feel at all sure that the word nor ought to exist. - A MEMBER OF THE SocIETY OF AUTHORs. IV.-REMAINDERs. I am obliged for your note in response to Iſl11162. You did not say whether you considered that at the present time authors were satisfied with the ordinary way of disposing of their remainders. I wrote under the assumption that they were not, and would perhaps have discussed the matter under the auspices of your Society. At present a large number of provincial book- sellers have no inducement whatever to purchase the works of numerous authors. The publisher takes little or no risk, and wants little or no trouble. If a bookseller buys from a publisher any but those books in most demand there is no possible means of getting a profit, and every chance of making a loss. If publishers will not come to the rescue, why not the authors them- selves through their business agency the Authors’ Society P It ought to be to the author's interests to see that every bookseller is put into a fair way of making a profit if he cares to push the sale of the book. But as no attempt has been made in this direction, I assume that that is impossible, and that when a book does not go under ordinary circumstances at once that it must be sold as a remainder.  ## p. 24 (#38) ############################################## 24 THE AUTHOR. Then could not the loss be lessened on re- mainders ? Why could not you or your repre- sentatives create a central agency, invite book- sellers to take up authors’ works on sale or return terms, and issue a general catalogue P E. B. W.—ExPERIENCES OF A LITERARY BEGINNER. I have had many painful experiences of the MS. that goes a begging ; yet, strange to say, they do not belong to the period when I was a beginner with the pen. The very first article which I submitted to a strange editor was accepted and printed, and the same success attended my second venture, and so on till in the course of time I had contributed quite a respectable series. But I am speaking now of nearly a quarter of a century ago, when journalistic lotteries were unknown, when the prize-giving periodical was quite in its infancy, and when the sole end and aim of an editor was not to sell the paper by the tens of thousands, so as to put money into the purse of the proprietor. And I am also speak- ing of a time when there existed one of the most generous, discriminating, impartial, and pains- taking of editors who ever lived, and one, moreover, who was always ready to encourage young authors, and help them to success if he found any good in their youthful essays. The name of that editor was Charles Dickens, and the journal which I had the honour of con- tributing to was then called All the Year Round. After Dickens' regrettable death I continued to contribute to his popular periodical, and to a few others which, like his, did not refuse a manuscript simply because they were overstocked with litera- ture of all kinds, or because the article offered happened to be too long, too discursive, or too something else. But, unfortunately for myself, some of those journals came to grief, or were unable to pay the same fees as before, owing, perhaps, to the increased competition which the “new journalism,” as it is called, gave rise to. Then my troubles as an outside contributor began in earnest, for I was tempted to try my “luck” with the new papers which now com- pletely flooded the market, and in doing so I learnt what it was to send an MS. “the round.” Out often or a dozen articles which I “submitted to the consideration” of various editors only one was accepted and used, and that one had cost me so much trouble in reconstructing, or re-writing to suit the requirements of the different journals to which it was sent on approval, that the fee eventually received scarcely repaid me for the time and labour bestowed upon it, to say nothing of the time and labour bestowed upon the other nine or eleven articles which I had written and submitted before this last one was accepted. So, as I am wholly dependent upon my work for the bread and cheese of existence, I have been reluctantly obliged to abandon my literary labours, which began under such promising auspices, and to turn my attention to something far less congenial, but rather more profitable. ExPERTO CREDE. WI.-MoRE ExPERIENCEs. My first work was on the past, present, and future of a cause in which circumstances caused me to be deeply interested. I submitted the MS. to the committee of a society to which I purposed to give the profits, if any, of publication. Reply from chairman (lord-lieutenant of his county): “Committee feel honoured by being associated with such a production, and propose to be respon- sible for the cost.” This I declined. A large edition was sold, and a useful amount was paid to the society in about twelve months. This success led to my writing a larger work. It was published on the “mutual profit” system. Whole edition disposed of ; but small profit to the author, notwithstanding most flattering notices of the book. One popular author wrote to me, “I hope your inkstand will never be dry.” Then a magazine, edited by a well-known Cambridge man, came under my notice. I wrote a short tale with a purpose, which, being appre- ciated, was followed by a series, and when the editor retired, he thanked me warmly for what he was pleased to call my “valuable aid.” I next proposed to write a series of articles on various subjects, to a then popular shilling maga- zine. Reply was: “Being already acquainted with your former works (reviewed in our magazine), any contributions from your pen will be valued.” A small work on religious subjects was brought out by one of the oldest leading publishers in London, on his responsibility, and is still recom- mended in a leading journal to inquirers. My next venture was a one-volume novel (pub- lished on the “mutual profit” system). Well re- viewed in first-class journals; but financially a failure. I then competed with several authors, whos names were known to the public, for leading serial in a magazine, established over a quarter of a century. I was successful, and, of course, received the usual remuneration. I may mention, en passant, that I have received 32 for quite a short article. I continued to write for the above magazine, and my articles were favourably noticed. Meanwhile I wrote a pamphlet on a subject of  ## p. 25 (#39) ############################################## THE AUTHOR. 25 public interest and importance ; took the opinion of an eminent man; sent the MS. to a publisher, who was manifestly anxious to secure the publi- cation; and it was issued quickly. The price, at the publisher's suggestion, was fixed at one shilling. In an incredibly short time, a friend said to me that he wanted a copy, and could not get one as they were all sold. I at once wrote to the publisher. He replied that he wished my information was correct. That, expecting a large sale, he had kept the type set for five weeks, and had then broken it up, as the pamphlet was not selling. I called upon him when I went to London, but could get no intelligible statement from him. I had paid him a fixed amount for publishing and advertising. Yet he intimated that if I had the unsold copies he must charge extra for advertising. So he kept all but two dozen, which I had, and the matter ended. I ought to have taken advice, but being afraid of law proceedings, I weakly, as I now think, gave up the whole affair. Some years after I showed the pamphlet to a man in London, who has some knowledge of the ways of the world as well as of letters. He read it, approved and praised it, and gave his verdict in few words, “That pamphlet was suppressed; there is too much truth in it.” w Since then I have been a constant writer for a leading journal, and my articles have been criti- cised at home and abroad. Of one recent work 2000 copies were disposed; and now my last work, which I venture to think is not inferior to what I have previously written, and which has been so highly praised, is in one sense a failure. By no means so complete a failure as the suppressed pamphlet was—and in this case no suspicion can attach to the publisher —yet I cannot understand why this novel should fail to be a complete success. I wrote it with a definite purpose, and some reviewers consider that I have fully accomplished that purpose. One ends his critique with “ Unlike most novels, this is a book to be re-read—in fact, it ought to have an index, there is so much for reference, as well as of so much besides.” Another critic says: “We have looked in vain for a single sentence that could justify these discussions being printed.” Since that was written a New York publisher has written about taking 250 or 500 copies if a cheap edition is published, as he says that they (the firm) consider it “a remarkable and inte- resting book,” and that the purpose of it is of as much value in America as in England. M. M. “AT THE SIGN OF THE AUTHOR'S HEAD." R. C. H. COOK (John Bickerdyke) has published (Constable and Co.) a small volume called “Thames Rights and Thames Wrongs, a Disclosure; with Notes Explanatory and Critical on the Thames Bill of I894.” He says, by way of preface, that he is not writing as a lawyer for lawyers, but for the merry crowd who take their pleasure On the river, and his desire is that the facts dis- closed will startle the public out of its apathy, and bring about that legislation which is urgently needed. “The Plays of Sir Richard Steele” forms the new volume in the Mermaid Series (Fisher Unwin). It is edited, with a critical introduction and notes, by Mr. G. A. Aitken, who in 1889 published a life of Steele. “Doctor Quodlibet, a Study in Ethics" (Leadenhall Press), is a new story by the author of the “Chronicles of Westerley.” In a note the author reminds his readers that “Bishop Quodlibet’’ was a subordinate character in the above-named novel, and that now he has ventured to give him a small book all to himself. - “The Ghosts of the Guardroom,” a story by Annabel Grey, forms the first volume of the Annabel Grey Library (G, Stoneham). According to the author's preface, “the story deals with military life, of the struggles and trials of an English lad, a young recruit; it is, moreover, true.” Miss Mary Colborne-Weel has published a volume of verse entitled “The Fairest of the Angels” (Horace Cox). As the title implies, some of the poems are religious, of which there are one or two—“Jael,” for instance—which seem to us to be more successful than the one the author has chosen as a title. “The Local Government Act, 1894,” has just appeared, with introduction, notes, and index, by J. M. Lely and W. F. Craies, Barristers-at- law. The publishers are Sweet and Maxwell, 3, Chancery-lane; Stevens and Sons, I 19, Chan- cery-lane. Is. 6d. Also “The Sale of Goods Act, 1893,” with introduction, notes, and index. By the same authors, and the same publishers. - The “Goethe-Jahrbuch" for 1894 will contain an account, by Dr. Suphan, of “Napoleon's Unterhaltungen mit Goethe und Wieland und F. von Müller's Memoire darüber für Talleyrand.”  ## p. 26 (#40) ############################################## 26 THE AUTHOR. Messrs. G. P. Putnam's Sons announce “In Varying Moods,” by Miss Beatrice Harraden; “Red Cap and Blue Jacket,” a tale of the French Revolution,” by Mr. Robert Dunn ; and an “Autonym * series of stories by well-known writers. Mr. J. J. Haldane Burgess, M.A., the author of “Rasmie's Büddie”—a second edition of which was lately issued by Mr. Gardner, Paisley and London, and to which the Scotsman alluded as “a book which is likely to make a name for its author”—has just finished a romance of the Norse time, dealing with the Viking occupation of the Shetlands in the days of Harold Fair- Hair. A new novel, in 2 vols., by Mrs. Deith-Adams (Mrs. R. S. De Courcy Laffan) will shortly be published by Messrs. Jarrold and Sons. It is entitled “Colour-Sergeant, No. 1 Company,” and the scene is laid in the South of Ireland. The story of Soho-square and its associations has been taken in hand by Mr. George Clinch. This old aristocratic quarter is full of interesting associations with celebrities of the past. Collec- tions have been made of drawings, prints, pamphlets, and books bearing upon the quarter. Many of these, including the collection of the late Dr. Rimbault, have been placed in the hands of the author, who wishes us to state that he will grate- fully receive and acknowledge any information or suggestions from residents in the district or others. The work will be a volume of small quarto, and will be limited to a small number of copies. The fifth edition of “Marcella " (in three volumes) is announced. The cheap edition of “David Grieve" is also ready. Mrs. Steel's new novel “The Potter's Thumb,” 3 vols., is now ready. The publishers are Heine- mann and Co. The same publishers have the three novels of “Sarah Grand.” A new work by Ruskin, called “Verona and other Lectures,” will be issued early in June. The publisher, of course, is Mr. George Allen. The book will contain five lectures, delivered between the years 1870 and 1883. It will be illustrated by a frontispiece and eleven photogravure plates from drawings by the author. The Athenæum (May 26) notes the formation of a “Transatlantic Publishing Company,” which will publish a magazine intended principally for the purpose of copyrighting in America short stories written by our people. We shall be glad to hear more about this company. Without doubt there is great need of such a medium. Fuller inquiries shall be made at once into the proposed Company and the magazine. A new and cheaper edition of “The Way of Transgressors,” by E. Rentoul Esler, will be issued shortly. (Sampson Low and Co.) Baron Tauchnitz has secured the Continental rights of this author's Willage Idylls, “The Way they Loved at Grimpat.” After three editions of “A Superfluous Woman,” in three volume form, the publishers, Messrs. Heinemann and Co., have produced the book in a cheap Colonial series, and it will be shortly produced in England in a cheap form also. The New York Critic announces the formation of a Walt Whitman Society, which is about to be incorporated. Its aims are threefold: The consolidation within a single organisation of all persons who are interested in the life and work of Walt Whitman; the establishment of centres in different parts of the world, which shall bring together the lovers and admirers of Whitman, and which, by the maintenance of correspond- ence and the exchange of views, shall tend to close fraternal relations among the members of the society; and the publication, from time to time, of Whitman literature and of such essays and other papers as may be deemed valuable in elucidation of Whitman’s philosophy of life, or in exposition of his poetry and principles. The following announcements are also made by the same paper:— “The Phantoms of the Footbridge" is the title of a volume of short stories by Charles Egbert Craddock, to be published by the Harpers. Messrs. D. C. Heath and Co. are publish- ing a “History of the United States,” by Mr. Allen C. Thomas, Professor of History in Haverford College. The aim of this work is to give the main facts of the history of the United States clearly, accurately, and impartially. In the belief that the importance of the events which have occurred since the adoption of the Constitution is becoming more and more recog- Inised, much the greater part of the book is devoted to the era beginning with 1789. The earlier period, however, is treated with sufficient fulness to show clearly the origins of the people and their institutions. Throughout special atten- tion is given to the political, social, and economic development of the nation.  ## p. 27 (#41) ############################################## THE AUTHOR. 27 Messrs. Longmans, Green, and Co. have become the owners of Colonel T. W. Higginson’s histories and miscellaneous works, by purchase from Messrs. Lee and Shepard. Mr. John Jacob Astor is about to make his first venture in literature with a story of the year 2000, entitled “A Journey in Other Worlds: a Romance of the Future.” * - - -º sº- * - WHAT THE PAPERS SAY, I. —LITERARY STANDARDs. 4 & S there such a quality in a literary pro- duction as absolute merit P” inquires W. J. L. “If so, is there a man or woman in the country of the capacity to judge it by that standard P I am moved to ask these questions by my own experience and lºy the history of literary productions which have wandered through a veri- table wilderness of editorial hands before reaching the promised land of publication. It is hardly necessary to recount the early trials of these martyrs since made glorious. As to my own work, which is journalistic rather than purely literary, I have had such queer experiences that I am beginning to lose faith in what has been called literary judgment. I have repeatedly had editors refuse my matter, only at a later date to reprint it from other papers; I have had articles refused once and accepted later; I have had one magazine refuse an article and one of higher class accept it at double the price; I have known editors correct the metre or rhyme of famous poems I may have had occasion to quote or to parody in places; I have known a newspaper of recognised literary standing refuse a poem at 5 dollars which a periodical accepted at 15 dollars; I have had good things rejected with promptness and despatch, and those of less merit accepted. And so on through a complexity of moods and measures. I don’t understand it, do you ? Is it due to the fact that publishers of literature—is it literature if not published?—are governed, not by the genuine merit of the article, but by the tastes and demands of their readers, or by a consideration of the interests of the business office P If you can throw a little light on this subject you will benefit a good many people who do not hesitate to damn the literary judg- ment of publishers with whom they have had experience.” - - The simple answer to the foregoing would be that no one is infallible. An editor is just as likely to make mistakes as any other man. Don’t you hear people say every day that, if they had only known, they would have bought certain land which had been offered to them for a few dollars and is now worth thousands P. The wise man is he who has foresight. The editor who can discover a Kipling in the callow efforts of a novice is such a one as is not often met. You oftener meet the man with foresight in matters of real estate transactions for a very simple reason: taste is never a factor in the sale of building lots. What is one editor's meat is another's poison. The editor of this magazine may have a weakness for dialect stories, while the editor of that maga- zine despises them. He may print those of a certain author because he has discovered that they have a market value, but he never would think of accepting them on their merits. Editors, I fancy, are governed by a great many things. The “genuine merit of an article” is an impor- tant factor in its favour, and “the tastes and demands of their readers” is another. How the “promulgation of the interests of the business office ’’ can be made to enter into the question at all I do not sce, beyond the matter of making a periodical that will sell. An editor who made a magazine that no one would buy would certainly be a very strange man, and one unfitted for his position. No journal can be published at a loss unless it is published by philanthropists, and even they would soon tire of the fun, for there is nothing that can swallow up umoney like an unsuccessful periodical. w As for literary judgment, who shall be the judge? A novel of which the Athenæum said that it was one of the best of 1893, the Critic declared not to have been worth publishing. The reviewers of the book were both unquestionably persons of intelligence, and yet what one pro- nounced a work of unusual merit the other pronounced unmitigated trash. The question is largely one of taste, and with posterity alone remains the decision as to what has come to stay.—New York Critic. II.-MR. TRAILL ON LITERATURE AND - Journ ALISM. Mr. H. D. Traill delivered, on Saturday after- noon, his second and concluding Royal Institution lecture on the relations between literature and journalism. The critics of journalism, he said, were prone to exaggerate its influence in respect of the undoubted over production in these days of literary matter. Of the existence of such over production there could, unfortunately, be no doubt. There never were so many people anxious to rush into print; never was the literary craft so invaded by amateurs. One  ## p. 28 (#42) ############################################## 28 THE AUTHOR. reason, perhaps, was the excessive cheapness of the material. Pen, ink, and paper were never dear commodities, and compared with the canvas, paint, marble, and studio of the artist were infini- tesimal items. Moreover, failure or incapacity was not so glaring with the literary amateur as in the case of painting, sculpture, or music. Popular education had more, however, to do with this tendency than any other cause. The State had renounced Dogberry’s maxim that to read and write come by nature and might be charged with going too far in the other direction —that people can be taught to write what others will care to read. A day might come on which we should all be so busy writing as to have no time for reading at all, and we might be reduced to the condition of the islanders who tried to get a living by taking in each other's washing. Exaggerated, however, as is the share attributed to journalism in this result, it had to be admitted that the flood of novels poured forth day by day was partly due to the daily journals. But the circulating libraries were more to blame than the newspapers, and any or no quality was good enough to find a place in the periodical box of books. The journalist, however, did perform a useful function in guiding the taste of the public, and he could not be accused of neglecting his duty in this respect. On the whole it may be said that this duty is performed honestly and capably. The verdict of the reviewer in the daily press was usually conscientious and generally correct. As to the merits of signed and unsigned articles much might be said on both sides. But anonymity was too firmly established in this country to be disturbed, and, in his opinion, pos- sessed the balance of advantage. If the journalist on the whole encouraged good literary work, it was to be feared that he did not do enough to discourage the bad. The publishers knew their public, and that it is a book's fortune to be talked about on account of its eccentricity or glaring impropriety or suggestiveness. The best remedy would be to leave bad books alone. This might be done if we were living in Utopia, but was hardly possible in the world in which we live. In Utopia the publisher would approach the critic as a petitioner approaches a judge, and the book would be noticed or disregarded in strict accor- dance with its merits. But, as things are, news- papers are not carried on merely from the love of letters or a desire to increase knowledge. They were, above all things, commercial enterprises, and the proprietors could not afford to disregard the advertisements of the publisher. Thus a kind of professional morality was established on the basis of the relative value of the notice to the publisher and of the advertisement to the owner of the newspaper. Another charge brought against the daily journals was that they were corruptors of the English language. The term “newspaper English" had become a byword. Thus jour- malists were promoted to a kind of sinister dignity as the debasers of their mother tongue—they became sinners on an heroic scale. Was this charge true P To a limited extent undoubtedly a verdict of “Guilty” must be recorded. The daily papers were not wells of English pure and undefiled. There was apt to be a lack of simplicity and directness, a tendency to circumlocution and verbosity, a wrong use of words and phrases. But it was easy to over- estimate the extent of the wrong done. The number of phrases so misemployed was after all not great; “transpire’ for “happen’; the mis- application of such terms as Frankenstein, “ comity of nations,” “benefit of clergy,” “Caudine Forks,” “ horns of a dilemma,” “cui bono,” and a few others would exhaust the list of habitual offences. Nor was the charge of corrup- tion of style based on a much larger foundation. It should be remembered that the daily paper was written against time, with no leisure for revision. The leisurely critic after breakfast, with his feet on the fender, complained of “newspaper slip- shods.” It would be more fair to use the term “in slippers” than slipshod. In any case, the style of the newspaper was a good deal better than that of the great majority of its readers. Another question is whether journalism ever makes real contributions to literature. Are its leading articles, its reviews, and its essays ever themselves really literature ?' It is not true to say that what is really good literature is always written slowly and at leisure, and it is equally wide of the mark to suppose that all the work of a newspaper is hastily performed. A substantial part of what appears in the daily prints is done under most favourable conditions. Days may be occupied over the review of a book, though it too often consists of little more than a summary of the contents. At other times so much time is taken up in the composition of the critique that none is left for the perusal of the book. The newspaper essay or article bears considerable resemblance to the sermon, though the one is composed five or six times as often as the other. Sermons, as we know, form a real part, some- times excellent, of literature. Then it was an open secret that the obituary notice is often composed at leisure, with many opportu- nities of revision. Indeed, it was a jour- nalistic superstition that the composition of a biography and the recovery of an illustrious patient were frequently connected as cause and effect. Even the political leader might now and  ## p. 29 (#43) ############################################## THE AUTHOR. 29 º again rise to the dignity of literature, notwith- standing the disparaging observations of Carlyle. Speed is not always the enemy of excellence. It may tend to animation, and animation may pro- duce eloquence. Unfortunately, the form of the newspaper was against it. The column seems interminable, and the writer may be haunted with the consciousness that his leaders during a short period might reach from Charing-cross to Ludgate-hill. The fate, too, of the newspaper was more rapid and humiliating than that of the printed book, however vapid the latter might be. The virtuoso with the hand-barrow at the back door came all too soon for the ephemeral pro- ductions of the journalist. To-day is—to-morrow is for the dust-heap. Journalism unquestionably might be useful to literature—it might waken the interest and hold the attention of the reader and direct him to what is more abiding than itself. The journalist might have a good deal to say in defence against all the charges that are brought against him. He might say that he regarded literature as his instructress, his playmate, his guide, his venerated mother; but he might also complain that she did not discharge all the duties of a mother, but disclaimed all responsibility for his maintenance, and failed to supply him with the material necessities of existence, and that in his hour of need it was journalism which took him in and became his foster-mother, and that therefore, whilst holding literature in respect and affection, he could not disregard the charity which had taken compassion on him in his destitution.—Times, April 30. **. NEW BOOKS AND NEW EDITIONS, Theology. BARRETT, REv. GEORGE S. Family Worship. Second edition. Jarrold and Sons. 2s. 6d. BENNETT, REv. W. H. The Expositor's Bible: The Book of Chronicles. Hodder and Stoughton. 7s.6d. Book of NEEDs OF THE HOLY ORTHoDox CHURCH, done into English by G. V. Shann. Nutt. 5s. BUTLER, REv. DR. Meditations on the Hundred and Nineteenth Psalm. With a preface by the Bishop of Lincoln. Skeffington. CAMPBELL, PROFESSOR. The Epistles of St. Paul to the Thessalonians, Galatians, and Romans. By the late Professor Jowett. Wol. I. Translation and Com- mentary. Third edition. Wol. II. Essays and Dissertations. Edited by, Murray. 7s. 6d. each vol. CHRISTIE, T. W. The Controversy of Zion, being the miscellaneous works of the late. Edited by T. Williamson. Liverpool : Edward Howell. Simpkin Marshall. EAGER, REv. ALEx, D.D. The Christian Ministry in the New Testament. S.P.C.K. Is. 6d. - FENTON, FERRAR. St. Paul’s Epistles in Modern English. Fourth edition. Digby, Long, and Co. Is. * GEIKIE, DR. The Bible by Modern Light. Vol. IV. Rehoboam to Hezekiah. James Nisbet and Co. 6s. MOULE, REv. H. C. G. The Pledges of His Love : Thoughts on the Holy Communion. Seeley and Co. Timited. STIRLING, REv. CHARLEs. The Protestant Prayer Book. Edited by. Charles J. Thynne. Is. History and Biography. ASTLEY, SIR. JoHN D. Fifty Years of My Life. Hurst and Blackett. CASSELL’s HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Wol. VII. From the illness of the Prince of Wales to the British occupation of Egypt. Cassell and Co. Limited. 98. A History of the Christian T. F. Unwin. 2 vols. CHEETHAM, ARCHDEACON. Church during the First Six Centuries. IOs. 6d. CoRPORATION OF MANCHESTER : AN HISTORICAL RECORD. Manchester: Henry Blacklock. DAVIs, R. HARDING. The Rulers of the Mediterranean. Illustrated. Gay. 6s. DIPLOMATIC REM.INISCENCES OF LORD AU GUSTU's Lorrus, 1862-1879. Second Series. 2 vols. Cassell and Co. Limited. 328. GEAREY, CAROLINE. Louise, and Eugénie. Digby and Long. GEPP, REv. C. G. A Short Memoir of Emily Minet. Edited by. Rivington, Percival. 2s. HARwooD, REv. W. H. Henry Allon, D.D., Pastor and Teacher. Cassell. 6s. - HUNTER, P. HAY. James Inwick, Ploughman and Elder. Oliphant. 3s. 6d. LEE, EDMUND. Dorothy Wordsworth. New and revised edition with portrait. Clarke. 3s. 6d. MEN OF ACHIEVEMENT : STATESMEN, by Noah Brooks; ExPLORERS AND TRAVELLERs, by General A. W. Greely. Sampson Low. PECORDS OF THE TERCENTENARY FESTIVAL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF DUBLIN, JULY, 1892. Dublin : Three Empresses: Josephine, Marie- With portraits. Second edition. Hodges, Longmans. IOS. 6d. SMITH, G. BARNETT. Leaders of Modern Industry. W. H. Allen and Co. 78. 6d. SMYTHIES, CAPT. R. H. R. Historical Records of the 4oth (2nd Somersetshire) Regiment, now Ist Battalion the Prince of Wales’s Volunteers (South Lancashire Regiment). Devonport: A. H. Swiss. SouTHEY, RobHRT. The Life of Nelson. Blackie and Som. Is. 4d. WAKEMAN, HENRY O. Periods of European History. Period W., 1598-1715. Rivington, Percival, and Co. S. - - - - - - - Life of John Bentley. The 2 vols. WOLSELEY, GENERAL WISCOUNT. Churchill, Duke of Marlborough. WYNDHAM, REV. FRANCIs M. The Maid of Orleans: Her Life and Mission. From original documents. Second edition. St. Anselm's Society. -  ## p. 30 (#44) ############################################## 3O THE AUTHOR. Fiction. ALAN ST. AUBYN. In the Face of the World. 2 vols. Chatto. AMYAND, ARTHUR. Only a Drummer Boy. Osgood, M*Ilvaine, and Co. 3s. 6d. ANDREA, PERCY. Stanhope of Chester : a Mystery. Smith, Elder. 68. BARR, AMELIA E. Girls of a Feather. IS. BAYLOR, F. C. Claudia. and Co. 318. 6d. BLACKMORE, R. D. Mary Anerley. New edition. Sampson Low, Marston, and Co. Limited. 2s. 6d. BLIND, MATHILDE. Tarantella. T. F. Unwin. Is. BoIDREwood, Rolf. Macmillan James Henderson. 3 vols. Osgood, M*Ilvaine, A Modern Buccaneer. and Co. 31s. 6d. BRAY, CLAUDE. The Tavistock Library : Sir Joseph’s Heir. Frederick Warne and Co. Is. 6d. CARDELLA, G. The Perfect Way of Honour. 3 vols. Swan Sonnenschein and Co. CAREw, MAUD. Uncle Phil. S.P.C.K. Is. CHRISTIAN, E. B. W. At the Sign of the Wicket. Arrow- Smith. CHRISTIAN, SYDNEY. Sarah ; a Survival. 2 vols. Sampson Low. - CLARK RUSSELL, W. A. Sailor's Sweetheart. New edition. - Sampson Low. 2s. 6d. CRAwFoRD, F. MARION. The Upper Berth. T. F. Unwin. I s. 6d. DANA, R. H. Two Years Before the Mast. Blackie and Son. Is. 4d. DAVIDSON, HUGH. C. Mr. Sadler's Daughters. Chatto. DIxon, ELLA HEPwor'TH. The Story of a Modern Woman. Heinemann. 6s. DoNovAN, DICK. Found and Fettered. Hutchinson and Co. 2s. 6d. DREw, D'ARcy. Henry Standon. 3 vols. Simpkin Marshall. 31.s. 6d. DUNCAN, SARA JEANNETTE. A. Daughter of To-Day. 2 vols. Chatto. DUNN, GEORGE. Red Cap and Blue Jacket. 3 vols. Blackwood. EMERSON, P. H. Welsh Fairy Tales and Other Stories, collected and edited. D. Nutt. Fowler, M. E. Faith. S.P.C.K. is. FRANCIS, M. E. The Story of Dan. Osgood, M*Ilvaine, and Co. 3s. 6d. GERARD, DOROTHEA. The Rich Miss Riddell. Black- wood. GRAY, MAxwell. A Costly Freak. Kegan Paul, Trench, - Trübner, and Co. Limited. 6s. GROSSMITH, GEORGE AND WEEDON. The Diary of a Nobody. Arrowsmith. 18. HARCOURT, ALFRED. For Love and Liberty 2 vols. Chapman. 21s. HARRADEN, BEATRICE. 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Smith, Elder. WAS IT WISE TO CHANGE P By the author of “A Hard Case,” &c. Cassell. Is. - WEYMAN, STANLEY. Under the Red Robe. 2 vols. Methuen. 2 I S. - WHITBY, BEATRICE. Mary Fenwick's Daughter. 3 vols. Hurst. -- WILKINs, W., AND WIv1AN, HERBERT. The Green Bay Tree. 3 vols. Hutchinson. WooDLEY, W. The Design of Buildings. Crosby Lock- wood. General Literature. ADDISON, Jose.P.H. Essays and Tales. Cassell. 6d. AMPHLETT, F. H. The Lower and Mid Thames : Where and how to fish it. Sampson Low. Is.  ## p. 31 (#45) ############################################## THE AUTHOR. 3 I BADMINToN LIBRARY: YACHTING. By Lord Brassey, G. L. Watson, Sir G. Leach, L. Herreshoff, and other writers. Edited by the Duke of Beaufort, assisted by A. E. T. Watson. 2 vols. Longmans. Ios. 6d. each BAEDEKER, KARL. Northern France. Second Edition. Leipsic : Karl Baedeker. Dulau. 7s. BAINEs, A. The Popular Handbook of Finance. I8. BANCROFT, HERBERT Howe. The Book of the Fair. Part XIV. Chicago : the Bancroft Company. I dollar. BARCLAY, Rob ERT. The Silver Question and the Gold Question. Fourth Edition. Effingham Wilson; Man- chester: Cornish. 2s. 6d. Saxon. BELL, R. S. W. The Businesses of a Busy Man. Leaden- hall Press. 3s. 6d. BLIss, F. Jon Es. A Mound of Many Cities. Published for the Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund. A. P. Watt and Son. Bow Es, RobHRT. A Catalogue of Books printed at or relating to the University of Cambridge from 1521 to 1893. With Bibliographical and Biographical Notes. Cambridge: Macmillan and Bowes. Ios. 6d. BRASSEY, T. A. The Naval Annual for 1894. Edited by. Portsmouth : J. Griffin ; Simpkin, Marshall. BROOKE, STOPFORD A. Tennyson : His Art and Relation to Modern Life. Isbister and Co. Limited. 7s. 6d. BUCKINGHAM, DUCHESs of. Glimpses of Four Continents: Letters written during a Tour in Australia, New Zea- land, and North America in 1893. With portraits and illustrations. Murray. 9s. - CoNSTABLE, H. S. 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PHIN, JOHN. Common Sense Currency. New York: The Industrial Publication Company. Root, J. W. Silver up to Date. Philip. 2s. 6d. SELL’s DIRECTORY OF REGISTERED TELEGRAPHIC AD- DRESSES.. First supplemental issue, April 1894. Henry Sell. SHERSTON, CAPT. J. Tactics as applied to Schemes. and Polden. 2s. 6d. SHUTTLEworth, REv. H. C. John Dring Gale Some Aspects of Disestab- lishment. Edited by. Innes. 38. 6d. SKEAT, PROFESSOR. The Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer. Edited by. Vol. II., containing Boethius and Troilus, Oxford: at the Clarendon Press. Henry Frowde. I6s. STONE, J. HARRIs, AND PEASE, J. G. A Practical Ready Reference Guide to Parish Councils and Parish Meetings. Philip. 2s. 6d. TERRELL, GEORGE. The Thames Yachting Almanac for 1894. Edited by. Horace Cox, Is. TwPEDIE, MAJOR-GEN. W. The Arabian Horse. wood. WALTER, RICHARD. Black- Anson's Voyage Round the World. Blackie and Son. 1s. 4d. WATERTON, CHARLEs. Wanderings in South America, &c. Blackie and Son. Is. 4d. WILKINson, SPENCER. The Great Alternative. A Plea for a National Policy. Sonnenschein. WolverTon, LORD. Five Months' Sport in Somali Land. With illustrations from photographs by Col. Paget. Chapman. 78. 6d.  ## p. 32 (#46) ############################################## 32 THE AUTHOR. Poetry and the Drama. AITREN, G. A. The Aldine Edition of the British Poets: Thomas Parnell. Edited, with memoir and notes. George Bell and Sons. - AITKEN, G. A. The Best Plays of the Old Dramatists: Richard Steele. Edited, with an introduction and notes by. T. F. Unwin. CLARK, K. M*COSH. Persephone and Other Sampson Low. CoLBORNE-WEEL, MARY. The Fairest of the Angels, and other verse. Horace Cox. 3s. 6d. DYCE, REv. A.L.Ex. Aldine Edition. The Poetical Works of Mark Akenside and of James Beattie. Each with a memoir by. George Bell. FULLARTON, R. M. Lallan Sangs and German Lyrics. Blackwood. - IBSEN, HENRIK. Brand : a Dramatic Poem. Translated into English verse in the original metres by F. 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Title A name given to the resource The Author, Vol. 05 Issue 01 (June 1894) Subject The topic of the resource <em>The Author</em>, Vol. 05 Issue 01 (June 1894) Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015013732253" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015013732253</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Publication Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1894-06-01-The-Author-5-1 publications The Author https://historysoa.com/files/original/5/266/1894-07-02-The-Author-5-2.pdf dc66703ab12c2304ef0fae78c3069717 PDF Text Text ���������������������������� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Author Subject The topic of the resource <em>The Author</em> Description An account of the resource A digitised run of the Society of Authors' monthly periodical, <em>The Author</em>, 1890<span>–</span>1914, made available together for the first time.<br /><br />Currently users can browse issues and <a href="https://historysoa.com/items/browse?search=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Index&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;tags=&amp;exhibit=&amp;date_search_term=&amp;submit_search=Search+For+Items&amp;sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CTitle">indices</a> (not available for all volumes). Full text search for all issues, and other additional search functionality, will be added in 2022. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1890–1914 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context The-Author-Issues Publication Date The date of an event (in YYYY, YYYY-MM or YYYY-MM-DD format) 1894-07-02 Volume 5 Issue 2 Pages Page range in volume 33–60 Ngram Date Version of the date in YYYYMMDD format for use by the Ngram plugin 18940702 Ngram Text Version of the text with no HTML formatting for use by the Ngram plugin C be El utb or, (The Organ of the Incorporated Society of Authors. Monthly.) CONDUCTED BY WALTER BESAN. T. WoL. W.-No. 2.] JULY 2, 1894. [PRICE SIXPENCE. For the Opinions earpressed in papers that are signed or initialled the Authors alone are Tesponsible. Wome of the papers or para- graphs must be taken as earpressing 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-lame, 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. *~ * ~ * g- - -, WARNINGS AND ADVICE, I. T is not generally understood that the author, as the vendor, has the absolute right of drafting the agreement upon whatever terms the transaction is to be carried out. Authors are strongly advised to exercise that right. In every form of business, this among others, the right of drawing the agreement rests with him who sells, leases, or has the control of the property. 2. SERIAL RIGHTS.—In selling Serial Rights remember that you may be selling the Serial Right for all time; that is, the Right to continue the production in papers. If you object to this, insert a clause to that effect. 3. STAMP YOUR AGREEMENTs. – Readers are most URGENTLY warmed not to neglect stamping their agreements immediately after signature. If this precaution is neglected for two weeks, a fine of £10 must be paid before the agree- ment can be used as a legal document. In almost every case brought to the secretary the agreement, or the letter which serves for one, is forwarded without the stamp. The author may be assured that the other party to the agree- ment seldom neglects this simple precaution. The Society, to save trouble, undertakes to get all the agreements of members stamped for them at no eaſpense to themselves eacept the cost of the stamp. 4. AsCERTAIN WHAT A PROPOSED AGREEMENT GIVES To BOTH SLDES BEFORE SIGNING IT.-Remember that an arrangement as to a joint venture in any other kind of busi- ness whatever would be instantly refused should either party WOL. W. refuse to show the books or to let it be known what share he reserved for himself. r 5. LITERARY 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. - 6. CosT OF PRODUCTION.——Never sign any agreement of which the alleged cost of production forms an integral part, until you have proved the figures. 7. 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I4. 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, LINCOLN's INN FIELDs. *— — —” e= * HOW TO USE THE SOCIETY, I. VERY member has a right to ask for and to receive advice upon his agreements, his choice of a pub- lisher, or any dispute arising in the conduct of his business or the administration of his property. If the advice sought is such as can be given best by a solicitor, the member has a right to an opinion from the Society’s solicitors. If the case is such that Counsel’s opinion is desirable, the Com- mittee will obtain for him Counsel’s opinion. All this without any cost to the member, E 2  ## p. 34 (#48) ############################################## 3+ THE AUTHOR. 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 is in order to ascertain what has been the nature of your agree- ments, and the results to author and publisher respectively so far. The Secretary will always be glad to have any agreements, new or old, for inspection and note. The infor- mation thus obtained may prove invaluable. 4. If the examination of your previous business trans- actions by the Secretary proves unfavourable, you should take advice as to a change of publishers. 5. Before signing any agreement whatever, send the pro- posed document to the Society for examination. 6. The Society is acquainted with the methods, and—in the case of fraudulent houses—the tricks of every publish- ing firm in the country. 7. Remember always that in belonging to the Society you are fighting the battles of other writers, even if you are reaping no benefit to yourself, and that you are advancing the best interests of literature in promoting the indepen- dence of the writer. 8. Send to the Editor of the Author notes of everything important to literature that you may hear or meet with. *- - -º r- - - 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 booking fee is charged to cover postage and porterage. 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 Director by appointment, and that, when possible, at least four days' notice should be given. 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. 8. The Syndicate undertakes arrangements for lectures by some of the leading members of the Society; that it has a “Transfer Department * for the sale and purchase of journals and periodicals; and that a “Register of Wants and Wanted” 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. NOTICES, HE Editor of the Awthor 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 P Communications for the Author should reach the Editor not later than the 21st of each month. All persons engaged in literary work of any kind, whether members of the Society or not, are invited to communicate to the Editor any points connected with their work which it would be advisable in the general interest to publish. Members and others who wish their MSS. read are requested not to send them to the Office without previously communicating with the Secretary. The utmost practicable despatch is aimed at, and MSS. are read in the order in which they are received. It must also be distinctly under- stood that the Society does not, under any circumstances, undertake the publication of MSS. The Authors’ Club is now open in its new premises, at 3, Whitehall-court, Charing Cross. Address the Secretary for information, rules of admission, &c. Will members take the trouble to ascertain whether they have paid their subscriptions for the year P If they will do this, and remit the amount, if still unpaid, or a banker’s order, it will greatly assist the Secretary, and save him the trouble of sending out a reminder. - Members are most earnestly entreated to attend to the warning numbered (8). It is a most foolish and may be a most disastrous thing to enter into an agreement binding for a term of years. Let them ask themselves if they would give a solicitor the collection of their rents for five years to come, whatever his conduct, whether he was honest or dishonest? Of course they would not. Why them hesitate for a moment when they are asked to sign them- selves into literary bondage for three or five years P Those who possess the “Cost of Production ” are requested to note that the cost of binding has advanced 15 per cent. This means, for those who do not like the trouble of “doing sums,” the addition of three shillings in the pound on this head. In other words, if the cost of binding is set down in our book at eight pounds, to this must now be added twenty-four shillings more, so that it now stands at 389 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  ## p. 35 (#49) ############################################## THE AUTHOR. 35 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. *- - - r- > -s LITERARY PROPERTY. I.—A CASE OF SECRET PROFITs. WHE case which was mentioned in the Author for March, 1893 (p. 353), and June, 1894, (p. 14), plain as it may have appeared, has now dragged along for some four years, The French writer, known by the nom de plume of “Léo Taxil,” had some reason or other for suspecting that his publishers were treating him unfairly as to the number of copies of his many books printed and sold, and that they were thus depriving him wholesale of his royalty per copy. He therefore called for an account which, when received in July, 1890, showed him some 438 in debt to the publishing firm. The author, naturally indignant, set in motion a criminal prosecution for “abuse of confidence.” The outcome of this move was that the publishers informed the author that they had unfortunately omitted from the account rendered two whole editions of one of his books, and that there was due to him in consequence 3133. At the same time they admitted that on his other works the number of copies sold had exceeded the figures shown in the account rendered to such an extent that the royalty due to the author was understated by 312O more, making £253 due to him instead of 398 due from him. But expert accountants were then put in by the courts to examine the firm’s books, and the total damage to the author was assessed by them at no less than £152O, for Léo Taxil's books, what- ever may be thought of them, have had a con- siderable circulation. The criminal prosecution therefore went on, though the legal proceedings are somewhat diffi- cult to reconcile. Here, however, is a resumé of the facts as taken from the Journal des Débats, the Gazette des Tribunawa, and the Siècle. To begin with, the correctional tribunal (a criminal court) acquitted the publishers, in Feb., 1892, of “abuse of confidence.” On appeal by the Public Prosecutor (and by the author also on the point of damages) a decision of the court above, in the following April, quashed the previous pro- ceedings as having been in error, because the facts as alleged would, if proved, constitute not mere “abuse of confidence,” but falsification of documents and criminal use of the same. Accordingly, in Feb., 1893, the case was sent down again (in spite of a fresh appeal from the publishers) for retrial in this sense. Eventually the publishers were again indicted for entering in their books, and in their accounts rendered, certain erroneous items, with the effect of depriving M. Léo Taxil of a portion of his “author's rights” to the extent of £152O. In the meanwhile, however, as the Gazette des Tribunaua, reports the case, the publisher had induced the author to desist, paying him £4600 (115,000 francs) as damages. But the court, nevertheless, compelled him to continue to appear in the case as an interested party. The case only came on for trial at the May assizes of this year, when the defence was that the admitted errors in the books were merely clerical, and that, according to a custom of the trade, publishers had a right to print for them- selves twenty copies of a work over and above every 100 copies acknowledged to the author. That is to say, that when an author receives royalty on 5000 copies, 6000 have actually been printed and sold. The Public Prosecutor having admitted that there were “extenuating circumstances” in favour of the accused, a Parisian jury acquitted them, while M. Léo Taxil was, in consequence of this acquittal, cast in the costs. How much these may be we know not, nor are we told what offence he had committed to merit this penalty; but it would be well for English authors who may purpose any professional work in France to make a careful mote of this strange case, and of that alleged secret custom of confiscating one in six of the copies of every edition as publisher's per- quisites. J. O’N. The following is the official report from the Gazette des Tribunawa . L'affaire dont a eu ä connaitre aujourd’hui la Cour d’Assizes mettait en présence, d'une part, M. Léo Taxil et son gendre, M. Joubert, et de l'autre, MM. Letouzey et Ané, editeurs. Il s'agit, non d’un procès de presse, mais d’une affaire de faux, engagée sur la plainte de M. Léo Taxil. C'est l’épilogue des nombreux incidents qui signalèrent les démélés de M. Léo Taxil avec ses éditeurs et dont le début remonte à 1892. Ceux-ci ont successivement publié un grand nombre de volumes et des brochures de M. Léo Taxil. Soupçonnant que ses éditeurs ne lui remettaient pas exactenment les droits d’auteur auxquels il avait droit, M. Léo Taxil, ne pouvant obtenir un relevé de compte exact, déposa une plainte contre eux. Une instruction fut ouverte qui se termina par la com- parution de M.M. Letouzey et Ané et de M. Picquoin, leur imprimeur, devant le Tribunal correctionnel sous la pré- vention d’abus deconfiance et de complicité. Tous trois furent acquittés (W. Gaz. des Trib. du 17 février 1892). Le ministère publie et M. Léo Taxil ayant fait appel, la Cour confirma le jugement de première instance en déclarant que les faits relevés à la charge des prévenus constitue-  ## p. 36 (#50) ############################################## 36 THE A UTHOR. raient, s'ils étaient établis, des faux et non pas le délit d'abus de confiance (V. Gaz. des Trib. du 15 avril 1892), La Cour de Cassation, saisie d'une demande de règlement de juges et d'un pourvoi de MM. Letouzey et Ané, rejeta le pourvoi et renvoya les prévenus devant la Chambre des mises en accusation (V. Gaz. des Trib. du 12 février 1893). Un arrêt de cette chambre ordonna un supplément d'informa- tion à la suit de laquelle, l'imprimeur Picquoin a été écarté de la poursuite et MM. Letouzey et Ané renvoyés devant la Cour d'Assizes. C'est dans ces condition que ceux-ci se présentent aujourd'hui, devant le jury. L'accusation leurs reproche d'avoir porté sur leurs livres et dans leurs règlements de comptes, des chiffres inexacts, de manière à frustrer M. Léo Taxil d'une partie de ses droits d'auteur évaluée dans l'expertise à environ 38,ooo francs. Pour arriver à ce résultat MM. Letouzey et Ané auraient, non seulement indiqué un nombre de volumes inférieur à la réalité, mais aussi omis de mentionner deux éditions entières. Les accusés prétendent pour leur défense que les irrégu- larités constatées sont de simples erreurs de comptabilité ; que, de plus, d'après les usages de librairie, ils avaient le droit de tirer un nombre d'exemplaires supérieur de 2o p. IOO au chiffre officiel. L'expertise conteste l'exactitude de ces explications. • · Au cours de l'instruction MM. Letouzey et Ané ont obtenu de Léo Taxil son désistement, moyennant le paiement d'une somme de I 15,ooo francs, chiffre auquel a été évalué le préjudice éprouvé par celui-ci. M. Léo Taxil n'en a pas moins été assigné comme partie civile, qualité qu'il a prise dès le début de ces contestations. Il est assisté à l'audience par son gendre M. Joubert. Divers témoins sont entendus : M. Rossignol, expert, M. Eugène Moreau, éditeur, qui confirment les fait de l'accusa- tion. M. Picquoin, l'imprimeur primitivement compris dans les poursuites, fait une déposition embarrassée et très peu précise. M. Léo Taxil présente certaines explications et conteste les allégations des accusés. L'audience est levée à six heures et renvoyée à demain pour les réquisitions de M. l'avocat général Van Cassel, et les plaidoiries de M° Pouillet et de M° Georges Maillard, défenseurs des accusée. (Cour d'Assises de la Seine.—Présidence de M. le con- seiller Potier.—Audience du 28 mai.) · L'affaire de faux, suivie contre MM. Letouzey et Ané, éditeurs, sur la plainte de M. Leo Taxil, s'est terminée aujourd'hui devant la Cour d'Assises. M. l'avocat général Van Cassel soutient l'accusation ; il ne s'oppose pas à l'admission de circonstances atténuantes. M° Pouillet et Me Georges Maillard présentent la défense des accusés, qui sont acquittés. La partie civile est condamnée aux dépens. (Cour d'Assises de la Seine.—Présidence de M. le con- seiller Potier.—Audience du 29 mai.)—G. des T. 3o mai, I894. II.—PUBLISHING ON COMMIssIoN. It seems a method so fair and so simple. The author goes to a publisher and says : º Take my book and publish it. I will pay you for your trouble so much per cent. on all the sales.'' What can be fairer ? What, indeed ? Now, the following is an illus- tration of how the plan may work. This is an actual case which occurred yesterday. - First of all, the publisher demands payment in advance of the whole amount which, according to him, the book will cost. For himself, he pays the printer three or six months after the work is done. - If he takes six months'credit, he has the money to use for his own business purposes for this time. It is an addition to his working capital on which he calculates to make something like 2o per cent., but, if it is not to be considered working capital, it is money on which he may get interest at, say, 4 per cent. Next, he sends in an estimate lumping every- thing together, the said estimate being enormously overcharged. He explains that he has only allowed for binding of a certain number, He further notes, casually, that advertising is not included. But he points out that the sale will give the author so much for every hundred volumes sold. The luckless author falls into the trap, pays the money, calculates what he is to receive, and expects the returns. There will be so much profit, he thinks : he cannot lose anything. Alas ! He knows nothing : he actually forgets the adver- tising. There will be a tremendous bill on that account. And he forgets the corrections, and the remaining copies will have to be bound. Then there are the illustrations. Finally, the author, even when the whole edition has gone, will find himself a loser to the tune of a hundred pounds Ol" SO . In the case before us, the cost of production was overcharged by about 83o. The author stood to lose 87O on the most favourable result, viz., the sale of the whole edition. The publisher's profit would stand as follows : Overcharge of production s£3O O O Interest on money advanced (say)... 3 O O @ @ @ • • • • • • • • e Commission on sales .................. 23 O O Overcharge on binding the rest of the edition ........................... 3 O O Overcharge on advertisements reckoned on the same scale ...... 8 O O Illustrations overcharge on same scale ................................ I O O O Overcharge on corrections ............ 5 O O Whole profit ............ 4282 o o The reader will please observe these figures. Remark that, if not one single copy sells, the publisher makes 86o by the job, and the whole by secret profits ! And yet we are accused of " attacking pub- lishers " when we expose these tricks ! How, then, is an author to publish on commis- sion ? He must get advice from the Society on the proper firm to employ. He must then have  ## p. 37 (#51) ############################################## THE AUTHOR. 37 an estimate showing the exact details on every point. This, with the agreement proposed, he must submit to the consideration of the secre- tary. # the publisher refuses to furnish the details, there is but one inference to be drawn. Meantime, let it be distinctly understood, when estimates are sent in, that the Society can get the work done at the prices given in the “Cost of Production,” with the change in the item of bind- ing, as advertised every month in the Author. III.-CANADIAN COPYRIGHT. Since the last article appeared in the Author on Canadian copyright, certain papers have been forwarded to the Society by the Secretary of State for the Colonies. The Society has taken the opinion of counsel on the papers. Mr. William Oliver Hodges, of 3, Paper- buildings, Temple, E.C., barrister, and Mr. G. Herbert Thring, secretary to the Society, have been appointed by the committee as delegates to attend the meetings of the Copyright Committee alluded to in the last number. The first meeting was held on Monday, June 25. A statement of what passed at this meeting will be printed, together with counsel's opinion on the papers on Canadian copyright, in next month's Author. IV.-AMERICAN COPYRIGHT. The Speaker, in recently reviewing an American book, said: “This book is twenty years old in America, and what is stated to be its fifth edition is now brought over here to be sold, having been printed and copyrighted in America by the American publisher, and then again copyrighted by him here, by entry at Stationers' Hall, as the liberal English law allows him to do. By the unfairly unequal American law—drafted and passed so as to be unfairly unequal—it is impossible for a book printed in England to be similarly copyrighted in the United States, for it must be first printed there too. Therefore this book is one of those by which the Yankee cobbler manages to cut a whang out of our leather.” W.—LIBRARIES AND NOVELS. The following circulars were published in the Daily Chronicle of June 30. At the moment of going to press we have not yet received a copy, but it may be supposed that the text is accu- rately printed, and first, Messrs. Mudie's runs as follows:— - - Owing to the constantly increasing number of novels and high-priced books, and to the rapid issue of the cheaper editions, the directors are compelled in the interests of the business to ask publishers to consider the following suggestions:— - - I. That after Dec. 31, 1894, the charge to the library for works of fiction shall not be higher than 4s. per volume, less the discount now given, and with the odd copy as before. | - II. That the publishers shall agree not to issue cheaper editions of novels, and of other books which have been taken for library circulation, within twelve months from the date of publication. The directors have no wish to dictate to the publishers, but, in making these suggestions, they point out the only terms upon which it will be possible in the future to buy books in any quantity for library use. - - The terms of Messrs. Smith and Son’s circular are these :— - For some time past we have noted with concern a great and increasing demand on the part of the subscribers to our library for novels in sets of two and three volumes. To meet their requisitions, we are committed to an expen- diture much out of proportion to the outlay for other kinds of literature. Most of the novels are ephemeral in their interest, and the few with an enduring character are published in cheap editions so soon after the first issue that the market we for- merly had for the disposal of surplus stock in sets is almost lost. You may conceive that this state of matters very seriously reduces the commercial value of the subscription library. We are therefore compelled to consider what means can be taken to improve this branch of our business. As a result of our deliberations, we would submit for your favourable consideration :- - (1) That after Dec. 31 next the price of novels in sets shall not be more than 4.s. per volume, less the discount now given, and with the odd copy as before. You will please observe that the date we name for the alteration of terms is fixed at six months from the end of this current month, in order that your arrangements may not be affected by the suggested alterations. - - (2) In respect of the issue of the cheaper editions, and the loss to us of our market for the sale of the best and earlier editions of novels and other works, through their publication in a cheaper form before we have had an opportunity of selling the surplus stock, we propose that you be so good as to undertake that no work appear in the cheaper form from the original price until twelve months after the date of its first publication. - The libraries, certainly, have a perfect right to name their own price within recognised bounds of fairness for a form of book which only exists for them. The price now proposed is, according to the Chronicle, 4s. a volume, discount and odd volume to remain as they are, i.e., 5 per cent. discount and twenty-five as twenty-four. This means 3s. 8d., within a very tiny fraction, per volume, or I Is. a copy. + The former price was not fixed; it varied with the library and with the house. If we take it at an average of 5s. a volume, with discount and the odd copy we have an average price of a little under I 4s. Let us suppose that there is a difference under the new tariff of 3s. a copy—a loss of 3s. a copy. , - . " - This loss must be met by the author as well as  ## p. 38 (#52) ############################################## 38 THE AUTHOR. the publisher. It can be met by changing the royalty to that extent. The advertised price of 31s. 6d. has, in this case, nothing at all to do with the question, because the circulating libraries alone need be considered. The problem is therefore very simple. Given a reduction of 3s. a copy, how is that reduction to be met by the author P Clearly, by reducing the royalty by half that amount. Thus the reduction being by one-fifth the former price the publisher and the author must each bear the loss of one-tenth. Or the royalty would be thus adjusted: Suppose the author had a royalty of 6s. a copy, i.e., a fraction on the assumed price of one-third. It would now have to be 6s. less one-tenth the former price, i.e., 6s. less one-tenth of 15s., or 6s. less Is. 6d., i.e., 4s. 6d. Bow would this work out P An edition of IOOO copies costs nearly £200, and can be produced for less. It would, under the new tariff, sell for £550. The clear profit is, therefore, 3350. The author's share at 4s. 6d. a copy is 3225. The publisher's share would be £125. The editor will be very glad to receive suggestions and opinions on the above. WI.-AN IMPORTANT CASE. The reserved judgment of the Court of Appeal delivered by Lord Justice Lindley, reversing - the decision of Mr. Justice Stirling in the “Living Pictures” case, involved a point of great importance and interest in the law of copy- right. Herr Hanfstaengl, who is a German Art publisher, brought two actions asking for injunc- tions to restrain the directors of the Empire Palace Company Limited and the proprietors and publishers of the Daily Graphic from infringing his copyright in certain pictures. In the former case he complained that his pictures were repro- duced in the form of tableaua vivants upon the stage of the Empire Theatre, but Mr. Justice Stirling held that the representations of these pictures on the stage by means of living actors were not an infringement of the plaintiff’s copy- right, and that decision was affirmed by the Court of Appeal in February last. In the case of the Daily Graphic, the complaint was that accounts were published in that paper of the represen- tations at the Empire Theatre, which were illus- trated by sketches taken by artists who attended the theatre for that purpose. Although the newspaper illustrations were sketched from the living figures employed in the representations on the stage, the plaintiff contended that they were copies of the designs of his original pictures, and therefore were infringements of his copyright. Mr. Justice Stirling adopted that view, and granted an injunction restraining the proprietors and publishers of the newspaper from printing publishing, selling, or offering for sale, or other wise disposing of, any copies or colourable imitations of the copyright pictures of the plaintiff. From that decision the defendants have successfully appealed, and judgment was directed to be entered for them with costs both of the appeal and of the application in the court below. The plaintiff based his claim for pro- tection on the International Copyright Act of 1886 and the Order in Council thereunder of the 28th Nov. 1887, and on the English Copyright Act of 1862, and it is highly satisfactory that, alike on the consideration of the facts and circum- stances, and of the law as it has been laid down and is applicable to them, the Court of Appeal has unanimously determined that the plaintiff has suffered no wrong which these statutes were intended to redress, and that he is not entitled to the protection which he claimed. Lord Justice Lindley cited and adopted the definition long ago laid down by the late Mr. Justice Bayley of a “copy” as that which so closely resembles the original as to convey the same idea as that created by the original. Both Lord Justice Lopes and Lord Justice Davey, in the brief judgments in which they assented to that of Lord Justice Lindley, quoted with approval this definition; and, tried by that test, it could not be reasonably suggested that the rough sketches in the news- paper of the tableaua vivants at the Empire were copies of the original pictures of the plaintiff, and were calculated to injure his rights or depreciate the value of the original pictures. The learned Lord Justice emphatically declared that neither intentionally nor unintentionally, neither directly nor indirectly, had the artist of the Daily Graphic copied in the correct sense of the term the plain- tiff's pictures so as to infringe his copyright in them. He had not in the slightest degree repro- duced, or attempted to reproduce, the artistic merits and beauties of the original pictures, which indeed, he had never seen. The whole intention of the sketch was to give a rough and ready impression of the representations at the Empire Theatre, and there was no design of making gain by a colourable imitation or reproduction of the plaintiff's pictures. The court founded its decision on broad grounds and on a wide view of the aspects of the case and of the law. “Copy- right law and patent law,” said Lord Justice Lindley, “conferred monopolies on individuals in certain respects, thereby preventing people from doing that which otherwise it would be lawful for  ## p. 39 (#53) ############################################## THE AUTHOR. 39 them to do, and they were designed to insure to those protected the enjoyment of the advantages of their own abilities when these took the form of pictures, designs, inventions, and so forth. So far as they did this, and did this only, they were just and right, but they were not to be made the instruments of oppression and extortion.” This sound principle, will commend itself to every reasonable and fair-minded judgment.—Times. g- - - THE AUTHORS' CLUB, I.-AT HOME. N the 3oth ult., at 4 o’clock in the afternoon, () the Authors’ Club were “at home * to a select number of guests of both sexes. In spite of inclement weather and frequent showers of rain the rooms were crowded with literary and artistic people. No doubt the pro- longed inclemency of the elements had hardened the heart against its dangers. Mr. Oswald Crawfurd, C.M.G., the chairman of the club, was present to welcome the arrivals, and he was seconded by Lord Monkswell, Mr. Walter Besant, and Mr. H. R. Tedder, the other directors. Lady writers were very well repre- sented, Mrs. W. K. Clifford, Madame Sarah Grand, the Misses Hepworth Dixon, Mrs. Craigie, Mrs. Humphrey Ward, Mrs. Croker, Mrs. Hodgson Burnett, and Miss Helen Mathers being among those present. ..at The meeting was a success, and no doubt the club will repeat the gathering in the winter in the same or some other similar way. Mr. Hall Caine has joined the Board of Directors, -- II.-IN NEW YORK. At the Authors Club of New York the following gentlemen were in May elected honorary members:—Alphonse Daudet (France), Maartin Maartens (Holland), Maeterlinck (Bel- gium), Walter Besant (Great Britain). *- - --" -- - -, THE SOCIETY OF AUTHORS, BEPORT of DINNER, 3 IST MAY, 1894. HE annual dinner of the Society of Authors T was held last night at the Holborn Res- taurant, Mr. Leslie Stephen presiding. The following is the list of the guests: E. A. Armstrong John Bumpus Mrs. Armstrong Miss Marie Belloc Oscar Browning Walter Besant WOT. W. Mrs. Walter Besant F. H. Balfour The Rev. Prof. Bonney W. H. Besant, Mackenzie Bell Poulteney Bigelow Mrs. Brightwen F. G. Breton Mrs. Oscar Beringer James Baker C. F. Moberley Bell Rev. Canon Bell, D.D. Rev. J. B. Baynard A. W. A. Beckett Thos. Catling Mrs. W. K. Clifford Miss K. M. Cordeaux and Guest Edward Clodd Miss Roalfe Cox and Guest Mrs. Craigie Mrs. McCosh Clarke Lieut.-Col. J. R. Campbell Miss Carpenter Sir. W. T. Charley R. Copley Christie Miss E. R. Chapman W. Morris Colles Mrs. Colles P. W. Clayden (President Institute of Journalists) Egerton Castle, F.S.A. Miss Lily Croft Professor Lewis Campbell Miss B. Chambers and Guest Moncure Conway Mrs. Custer E. H. Cooper H. Cust, M.P. John Davidson C. F. Dowsett Mrs. Dambrill Davies Arthur Dillon Austin Dobson A. Conan Doyle A. W. Dubourg Gerald Duckworth Miss Doyle Miss Duckworth Daily Graphic Daily News Daily Telegraph, Daily Chronicle A. Symons Eccles W. L. Ellis Mrs. Edmonds Mr. Edmonds Mrs. Walter Ellis Miss Agnes Fraser Mrs. Gerard Ford Prof. Michael Foster S. M. Fox Mrs. Gordon Henry Glaisher Alfred Giles (President In- stitute of Civil Engineers) Edmund Gosse Mrs. Aylmer Gowing J. C. Grant Mrs. Grant Dr. L. Garnett Miss Goodrich-Freer Miss H. F. Gethen Mrs. Gamlin Francis Gribble Mme. Sarah Grand Mrs. Spencer Graves Maj.-Gen. Sir F. J. smid, C.B. J. A. Goodchild A. P. Graves Miss Mabel Hawtrey Holman Hunt Bernard Hamilton Dr. Vaughan Harley E. G. Hobbes Miss W. Hunt Rev. W. Hunt Miss Hargreaves H. Holman F. de Haviland Hall Mrs. Wyndham Hill Clive Holland Comtesse Hugo Dr. Sophia Jex-Blake C. T. C. James Miss Kenealy A. C. Kenealy Rev. Dr. S. Kinns Lord Kelvin Royal Society) C. B. Roylance Kent. C. A. Kelly. Mrs. Lynn Linton Mrs. Long A. H. N. Lewers Sidney Lee Edmund Lee John Lane Sidney Low (St. James's Gazette) W. Meredith Mrs. W. Meredith • ' Rev. C. H. Middleton- Wake George Moore Mrs. Morgan Miss A. A. Martin Norman Maccoll Morning Post S. B. G. McKinney , Miss Helen Mathers and Guest Cosmo Monkhouse Miss Moss Gold- (President W. E. Norris Henry Norman The Lord Bishop of Oxford: John Warden Page Stanley Lane Poole Arthur Paterson Miss E. C. Pollock Sir F. Pollock, Bart., LL.D. Lady Pollock , -. D. H. Parry - Pall Mall Gazette The Queen W. Fraser Rae C. F. Rideal  ## p. 40 (#54) ############################################## 4O THE AUTHOR. Miss Ross R. Sisley Percy Spalding Douglas Sladen T. Bailey Saunders Mrs. Steel Leslie Stephen Mrs. Leslie Stephen David Stott H. G. Sweet The Standard S. S. Sprigge M. H. Spielmann. Howard Swan Rev. Prof. W. W. Skeat, LL.D. Ballard Smith Colonel Sutherland J. Ashby Sterry The Times T. S. Townend G. H. Thring Mrs. G. H. Thring Sir Henry Thompson A. W. Tuer W. Moy Thomas Mrs. F. Moy Thomas Mrs. Tweedie E. Maunde Thompson (Chief Librarian British Museum) Miss Traver - Miss Tabberner - Miss E. Underdown John Underhill Mrs. J. Owen Visger Rev. C. Voysey Westminster Gazette Hagberg Wright Library) A. P. Watt, Theodore Watts W. J. Walsham Mrs. Woolastom White Miss B. Whitby W. H. Wilkins S. F. Walker Colonel Sir Charles W. Wilson, K.C.M.G. Arnold White Dr. Wallace P. F. Walker I. Zangwill (London The Chairman first proposed the health of the Queen. The Chairman next proposed “The Society of Authors.” He said: I have now to undertake a more difficult task. It is not that I have any doubt that you will receive with sympathy the toast which I am about to propose, for I am going to ask you to drink your own health. But, however much you may approve the Society of Authors, I think it highly probable that you will doubt whether I am the proper person to propose it. As a matter of fact, I not only doubt, but am rather convinced that I am a highly improper person to do so. I will, however, say in self-defence that when I was first asked to accept this honourable position, I declined it. I was foolish enough (it is inconceivable that any- one could have been so foolish at my time of life) to give a reason, and of course my reason not only broke down, but recoiled upon myself in the way that reasons always will recoil. (Laughter.) My reason is, that I had not the honour to be a member of this Society, and it puts me in rather an uncomfortable dilemma, because the question naturally occurs, why am I not a member of the Society P I feel a great difficulty in answering it. I could not say, what would have been conclusive, that I disapproved of the Society on high moral grounds. (Laughter.) In the first place, it would not have been polite, and in the second place, it would not have come so near the truth as even those deviations which I generally allow myself will permit. I myself feel that my real reason is one which I must decline to confide to you, and I must be content to give you in imaginary reason which will answer for the present occasion. I will suggest as, at least, a possible reason, that in the first place I do not like to dwell upon my own mental defects and moral obliquities; I am attached to them, but do not like to intrude them upon others. I would suggest perhaps a more plausible, but still, perhaps, not the true, reason—namely, that I am known to most of you, not so much as an author as an editor. Now, you are aware that an editor is a kind of equivocal being, and that he resembles the bat in AEsop's fable, who was equally at war with the birds and with the beasts. The birds, of course, find their analogue in the author who soared into the literary heavens; as for the beasts, perhaps I had better not attempt to specify what would corre- spond to them. (Laughter.) Now, as an editor, I know what view the authors take of me. I remember a long time ago receiving a frank con- fession from a young gentleman (I hope he is wiser now) who had written a tragedy in five acts upon a subject which he had discovered in course of his researches into history. I believe it was Mary Queen of Scots (I may mention that I am not referring to Lord Tennyson)–(laughter) —and when I declined to publish this tragedy in the next number of the magazine which I was then editing, the author informed me that my refusal was due to a base jealousy, which was not surprising, as my own attempts to rival Shake- speare had never got into print. He was kind enough to add, that there was nothing to be ashamed of in this, because, he said, my occupa- tion was such as would have deadened any sense of justice or fair play, even in an angel, and he had no reason to believe that my qualities had ever been angelic. Now you will understand, that the class of persons who is regarded in this way by the unthinking author is apt to see the weaknesses of authors. I occasionally became aware of their little vanities, of their self-illusions, of their conviction that they are the objects of the demoniacal malignity of a clique of critics. I must add that I should have been a much harder hearted person than I believe I am, if I had not also learnt to see a great deal of the hardships of a literary career, and to sympathise with those who suffer. I had the honour to succeed to the cushion occupied by Thackeray before me, and I have found that some of the thorns of which Thackeray spoke are still left in it. I had to read letters from the decayed lady who had a widowed mother or a small family dependent upon her exertions, and who tried to brush up her old recollections of French, and expected to make a living by translating from that recondite language. There was something ridiculous, but a great deal more that was pathetic in such letters. I have had to  ## p. 41 (#55) ############################################## THE AUTHOR. 41. deal with many of those people who in the last century would have been ridiculed and taunted with their poverty as occupants of Grub-street. When I had to cut down contribu- tions from such gentlemen to about a third of the length of that they had sent me, I used to feel that I was taking a crust from a beggar and scraping off the butter, and yet my action, how- ever cruel it might appear, was necessary, and was received on the whole with an amount of common sense and consideration for which I Ought to be grateful. I do not know whether I ever snuffed out a heaven-born genius. If I did, I am very sorry; but I snuffed him out so effectually that he has never been able to make any protest. People are apt to fall on the critics who extinguished Keats and poo-poohed Wordsworth. We are quite clear that we are much wiser, and yet I know one or two men, whom every one now honours, who have had to go through a long probation of disregard and contempt. I must confess that, with all respect to the critics of to-day, I do not think they are infallible, and I cannot help fancying it possible that some fifty years hence someone may point out how wrongly they have acted to the rising geniuses whose names none of them know at the present moment. I have only re- ferred to this to show that I have seen some of the seamy side of the author's profession, and I claim to have sympathised with their sufferings, and to be very anxious to see the pro- fession raised by every possible means. There are various opinions as to the best way in which that could be done; some people are of the opinion that authors ought to be paid for their writings; some are of the opinion that every promising aspirant should receive a good salary from Government, and that it should be left to their sense of honour to turn out whatever work seemed to them best. I am of the opinion that, considering how pleasant an occupation writing is, and how valuable it is to read what we write, perhaps the right plan would be for a future Chancellor of the Exchequer to lay a heavy tax on the luxury, and to make everybody who is impertinent enough to suppose that what he said would be of value to the public, pay for it. I won’t, however, argue the question, because I am afraid that I should not have either a sympa- thetic or impartial audience. I have no doubt that authors will be paid, and will want to be paid more for some years to come, and I also feel that there will always be more or less of that difficulty which naturally occurs now in the rela- tions between authors and publishers. The author is a man of genius, sometimes; he is always sensitive ; he is apt to place an excessive WOL, W. value upon the children of his own brain ; and if his work fails he is rather inclined to throw the blame upon any other cause than his own stupi- dity. The author is apt to be one of those persons to whom a balance-sheet is a source of hopeless bewilderment; he is rarely a man of busi- ness; while on the other hand the publisher is a man of business, and has that peculiar talent in which all men of business are so conspicuous, the talent for proving that he is always losing by his business, and yet of living as if his business were distinctly profitable; and very often he has had to console himself for the losses which he made by speculating in unsuccessful literature by accepting some of the profit made out of the brains of men of genius. Undoubtedly such a relation must be a very difficult one, and so far as this Society endeavours to put it on a better basis I most heartily and cordially sympathise with the work which it is doing. Undoubtedly it is desirable that when bargains are made, and when the author is for the time in partnership with the publisher, they should distinctly under- stand the terms on which they come together, and that they should take advantage of the experience of their comrades in making terms in such a form that it is not likely to lead to mis- understandings, and that honourable men on both sides may be brought together and put in such a position that if any misunderstanding arise it must be a mere accident, and not involve any disagreeable suspicion on either side. That is, I believe, a state of things which you are endeavouring to bring about, and there- fore, as I have said, I most cordially wish you success. Mr. Stephen coupled the toast of “The Society” with the name of Sir Frederick Pollock. In responding, Sir Frederick Pollock said: My Lord Bishop, ladies and gentlemen, the first thing which I must express in the name of the Society is the great pleasure which we all feel in having Mr. Leslie Stephen as our chairman. If there is to be found a worthy representative of the higher art of literature I think Mr. Leslie Stephen is that representative, but as Mr. Stephen is a very old friend of mine, and I am speaking not in my personal capacity, but in the name of the Society, it would be unfair to take the words out of the mouth of Mr. Gosse, who will have something to say on the subject. At present the question of Canadian copyright is the most urgent matter under our notice, and within a few weeks a joint committee will probably be formed, representing this Society, the Copyright Associa- tion, the Iondon Chamber of Commerce, and possibly other bodies, and I hope that that com- mittee will be able to do some useful work in strengthening the hands of the home authorities. F 2  ## p. 42 (#56) ############################################## 42 THE AUTHOR. Some people think that our Society encourages nothing but light literature, and that we look to nothing but a rapid sale of our volumes. I will simply observe that I have here at my right hand one of our most serious writers of literature, the Bishop of Oxford. He has shown us how litera- ture in the highest sense can be dealt with. The Bishop is one of those whom I was proud to count among my colleagues for a few years at Oxford. He has done more than write a classical history; he has shown us what history is and how history ought to be treated. Mr. Conan Doyle has shown us the legitimate use of history for the purposes of (what is called) lighter literature. The Society will doubtless join me in the hope that he will lose no time in giving us another “White Company.” I ask you, therefore, to couple the toast of Literature with the name of the Bishop of Oxford and that of Mr. Conan Doyle. The Bishop of Oxford, in responding, said: “Mr. Stephen, ladies and gentlemen, I will not waste your time by telling you how very grateful I am for the kind reception given to me. When I was told last week that it would be my duty to return thanks on behalf of the serious side of literature, I began to think what I should say. In the first place, I was not quite sure what serious literature was, and in the second place, I am not quite sure whether my writings are such as to entitle me to reply to the toast. I have written many hundred- weights of books, and have been frequently asked how I acquired my “style.’ I reply by saying I do not know that I have any special style; but, if I had, I acquired it by writing two sermons every week. I only wish that I could have answered better for the great society which I have been called upon to represent.” - Mr. Conan Doyle said: “While I had rather that it had been in other hands than mine, I am still glad that fiction should be represented on this occasion. It is an honour, and fiction is accustomed to be more popular than honoured. Our Colleagues of poetry, of science, and of history have made their way as high as the House of Peers and the Privy Council. But fiction has always been the Cinderella of the family. When her fair sisters go to the prince's ball, she remains behind with her wicked stepmother the critic. But she has her compensation. She still has that good old fairy godmother, and her name is Imagi- nation. With her aid, it is still as easy as ever to turn the pumpkin into the carriage and the white mice into steeds. One might even do more. With her help one might imagine that all is well with fiction, that among the successful business men from whom the peerage is recruited a place had been found also for a Scott, a Dickens, or a Thackeray; or, to come to more modern instances, that the State had shown its recognition of work done by such men as Charles Reade in the past, or Walter Besant in the present. We are periodi- cally informed by the papers, which are usually owned and edited by knights and baronets, that State recognition does not increase the prestige of the literary man. It is true. It does not increase the prestige of the author. But it enormously increases the prestige of the State. Still, come what may, we have our own kingdom of fiction, and in it we can all be kings and queens. But that kingdom has, in this country, well defined boundaries. We know how these frontiers run. To the north we are bounded by the Glasgow baillie, to the south the young ladies' seminary, and then to the east and west, of course by the two great circulating libraries. Still, it would be idle to deny that within these limitations there is room for plenty of good work. And our frontiers. are enlarging. Within the last ten years several noble novels have come from the pens of men and women which would have been, I think, impos- sible a decade earlier. It is becoming year by year more understood that it is not the indication of vice, but its glorification, which is objection- able, and that the most immoral thing which can befall literature is that it should be entirely divorced from life and truth. Fiction is at present in a state of unrest and fermentation, Some critics, I know, say that the old tree is barren, but it seems to me that I see green shoots on all her branches. I believe from my heart that the present generation will uphold the glorious inheritance which has come down to us, and will pass it on to our posterity in a manner which shall not be unworthy. Mr. EDMUND GossE.—Sir Frederick Pollock, my Lords, ladies, and gentlemen. —It is my pleasant duty to ask you to fill your glasses, and drink to the health of our chairman, Mr. Leslie Stephen. It Ought not, I think, to be difficult to speak appropriately of one who has himself spoken so wisely and so genially of a host of others. No one here to-night but must feel a debt of gratitude for some gift or other of Mr. Leslie Stephen's, But, as the Society of Authors, we welcome him among us with unusual cheer- fulness, because he is one of the prodigal fathers of our society. He is one of the very few leading men of his generation who have always looked out of window when anybody spoke of the Society of Authors. He has been not with us, and there- fore against us. He is now with us, and will for the future always be for us. We rejoice over Mr. Leslie Stephen more than over ten celebrities who have been perfectly kind to us from our foundation. If we regard the literary career of our chair-  ## p. 43 (#57) ############################################## THE AUTHOR. 43 man of to-night, we are struck, I think, first of all, by the width and catholicity of his sym- pathies, and then by the curious fate which has driven him from one corner of the intellectual province to another. He has been an authority on mountaineering and on ethics, and alternately at home with the founders of deism and with the makers of dictionaries. He began literary life, I think, as one of those who, conscious of their unconfessed offences, voluntarily make them- selves excessively uncomfortable with penitential hard labour in the Alps. Flung from peak to peak, and picking himself up at last, more dead than alive, at the foot of a glacier, he decided in future to spend his hours in the shelter of a library. And there he began a new thing; there he took down book after book, and talked to us about them, not as one of the pedantic Sanhedrim, but easily, confidentially, penetra- tively. He was dragged out of his library to become editor of the Cornhill Magazine, and now a wider work of influence began. I think he must be a little moved to-night to see around him here not a few of those whom he marshalled and encouraged in the pages of that serial, then unquestionably the most purely literary magazine which has ever been issued in this country. It was in the capacity of a contributor to the Cornhill that my own acquaintance with our chairman began, just twenty years ago. It was quite a little close corporation, and there were always wel- come, before they were welcome elsewhere, many who are widely known to-day — Mr. Thomas Hardy, Mr. Norris, Mr Austin Dobson, Mr. Grant Allen, our lamented friend John Addington Symonds, you, Sir, yourself, and many whom I do not at this moment recall. And to these, one day in 1875, was added a new writer who signed himself R. L. S. I have a letter from our chair- man, written at that time, in which he says, replying to a question of mine, “The initials are not those of the Real Leslie Stephen, as a friend of mine suggests, but of a young Scotchman from Edinburgh, called Robert Louis Stevenson.” Everyone of these, I think I may boldly say, looks back to the patient encouragement, the cordial and tireless sympathy of the best of editors with genuine gratitude. In those early days, as many of us remember, and as he himself no doubt forgets, there was no one who laughed more gaily at the trivialities of biographical literature, or who less resembled Dr. Dryasdust. It is whispered to me that a letter exists in which Mr. Leslie Stephen repudiates with contempt the man who cares to know who any other man's grandmother was. Ah! the irony of fate | Some twelve years ago, he was called upon to undertake a colossal work, the very essence of which depends upon knowing everything about everybody’s grandmother, nay, more, upon being familiar with all those mysterious consangui- nities which we read on summer Sundays at the back of the church-door. Well, he took up this task, too, as he has taken up so many others, with perfect good-nature, with exhaustive erudition, with combined energy and patience, and we all know what he made of it. But now he is released at last, this weary Titan of National Biography. He has shaken off the cousins' sisters and the mother-in-law’s nieces' husbands of genius. He can come back to literature, and that is where we love to see him. We love to see him here, at the table of the Society of Authors, and I beg you all to join with me in testifying your satisfaction. Mr. Leslie Stephen! ar- - -s REAL AUTHORS, To the City Editor of the Pall Mall Gazette. SIR,-A paragraph-writer in this morning's press on the dinner of the Society of Authors is pleased to remark on the small proportion of “real authors” present. Apparently he does not mean to deny that (omitting all those who could be said in any sense to be officially present) such people as Mr. Austin Dobson, Mr. Morris, Mr. George Moore, Mrs. W. K. Clifford, Miss Helen Mathers, Mrs. (or Madame as the reporters will have it, I cannot think why) Sarah Grand, and so forth, are real authors, but only to be sur- prised that they were in a minority; in fact, he guesses that not more than one in three of the company was a well-known author. It may be well to point out that the Society of Authors exists for the benefit, not of those authors who have already made their reputation, and may be presumed able to look after their own interests, but of those who still have their reputation to make. It does not profess to be a club of literary celebrities. If a representa- tive gathering of the society did consist mostly of writers already well known, it might be a more brilliant assembly from the reporter's point of view, but the fact would only show that the society was failing in its proper work, and had ceased to be useful, or a centre of interest to those for whose sake it was founded. The society’s definition of a “real author’’ is a person who has written and published at least one book, or its equivalent. This is a much less ambitious definition than the commentator's, but I venture to think it more accurate.—Yours, &c. June I. F. POLLOCK.  ## p. 44 (#58) ############################################## 44 THE AUTHOR. AN AMERICAN MAGAZINE. HE President of the Century Company has been reading a paper on the methods and the production of the Century magazine. The paper contains certain facts which may be useful and instructive to ourselves, especially in the light of the fact that one or two American magazines, not for their cheapness, nor because they can be charged with a low standard of style and subject, can fairly boast that the circulation of each as a monthly actually represents by itself at least three times the circulation of all the English monthly magazines combined, excepting two or three; and that the circulation in this country alone, of one or two, is equal to the circu- lation of any three English magazines combined, still excepting these two or three. It is worth while, perhaps, to read this paper, and to attempt some explanation of what is certainly astonishing, and, except on the theory that the English maga- zines are written for the highest culture only—a theory which it would be difficult to maintain— extremely humiliating. The Century magazine contains 160 pages, making about thirty articles—long and short. There are, then, from 350 to 4oo articles every year. Out of this number about 175 are either poetry or fiction. The rest are historical, bio- graphical, of travel, of social matters, and miscel- laneous. It is found that fiction, even when a novel is produced by one of the foremost English or American writers of the day, does not seem to advance the circulation of the paper. Yet it keeps up the circulation which begins to drop when the fiction is weak or unattractive. This statement probably amounts to saying that general excellence in every branch must be main- tained or the circulation suffers. On the other hand, the most popular subject ever started by the Century was that of the Civil War, on which a series of papers appeared. This series caused the circulation to go up by leaps and bounds. It is found, next, that no American magazine has ever attained a popular success unless it was illustrated. In recognition of this fact, the Century has always paid the greatest attention to its illustrations, which are now the finest that can be procured. That is to say, the artistic branch demands now a very large part of the expenditure. So great is the outlay on illustrations, as well as contributions, that every number costs, before it goes to press, about £2OOO. Even if this includes the salaries of editors, managers, and clerks, the rent of offices and the service of distribution, it is evident that a very large capital is embarked in 'an American magazine, and that the risk of a fall in the circulation means a possible loss of this large capital. This danger alone proves the necessity for the most unceasing watchfulness, the most intelligent apprehension of the subjects that the public like to read about, and the greatest care in finding the writers most capable of presenting those subjects. That artists and authors when engaged should be paid in pro- portion to the services they render, i.e., greatly in excess of what they have been accustomed to receive from journals of less circulation, is a natural result of increased interests and a larger property to defend and to advance. What is the circulation of American maga- zines P Of one it is said that it circulates 200,000 in America and 30,000 in this country. Another is reported greatly to surpass this number in America, though its circulation is small in Great Britain; of two or three more it is said that they circulate over IOO,OOO in the States, besides having a small circulation in this country. Now, in America, our magazines are hardly ever seen; there are none on the bookstalls, either at the stations or in the hotels. Why does the American magazine come here P Why does not the English maga- zine go over there P. How comes it that while in a population of 60,000,000 some of their journals arrive at a circulation of 200,000, we find, in our own population of 37,000,000, without counting the I 5,OOO,OOO of Britons abroad and in the Colonies, our magazines crawling along with a circulation of 2OOO to 20,000 P. We speak here of old-estab- lished magazines which, like those of America, are “serious,” that is, do not aim at popularity alone. There are monthly magazines here which appeal to popular tastes, and, without being necessarily unwholesome or sensational, do attain to a popularity which rivals that of the Americans; but those we do not here consider. Why is it, in short, that the old established and highly respect- able paper the Cheapside is sending out every month its ten thousand instead of its quarter of a million ? Among some of the causes are, perhaps, these : In the States, the editor—always a man of proved ability—is engaged to give his whole time, all his thoughts, all his ability, to the conduct of his paper. He has assistants, all of whom are engaged also to give to the paper their whole time and all their thoughts. In this country the editor too often does a great many other things; he has engagements which distract his attention; he does work of his own which absorbs him. The first essential for the successful conduct of a magazine seems to be that one man, at least, should think for it—think all day for it. Again, it has hitherto been considered enough for an editor to sit at his table and receive the contributions poured in upon him by every post,  ## p. 45 (#59) ############################################## THE AUTHOR. 45 to read them, reject most of them, and select a few. It is only quite recently that he has even begun the American method—to plan beforehand, to arrange what he will have for the next year, and for the year after, what fiction he will invite, what poetry he will invite, what special subjects he will treat, and, to be in touch with points of the day, what men will be best to treat them for him. One lesson for us would seem to be that the casual contributor by himself cannot be trusted to create a popular demand. Few of our magazines are illustrated. Is the absence of illustrations a cause of failure ? Some years ago a new illustrated monthly was started, in which the artistic element was treated most carefully. One knows not, with any certainty, how far this magazine failed or succeeded. But it has changed hands twice. Therefore good illustrations alone do not seem to bring success. Perhaps the English are not so keen after pictures as the Americans. Some English readers, certainly, do not like the photogravure processes with the broad black line all round which decorate the American page. As regards fiction, our magazines are apt to fall into one of two extremes; either, that is, they neglect and “starve” fiction, publishing poor weak stuff; or they sacrifice everything to fiction, running two or three serials and depending entirely on them for success. Fiction in a high class magazine must be of the best; but it must never be considered the only thing. Another lesson we may learn from the Americans. We have hardly yet got beyond the prejudice that the only serial in a magazine must be the novel. This is a very foolish prejudice, mischievous alike to the publisher of the magazine and to the author. For there are many books written every year—books of historical research, biographies, collections of verse, essays, travels, popular science, which, if first run through a magazine as serials, would attract thousands of readers, and give the book when published a far greater chance of success. At present the author has to be content, say, with a single edition of a thousand, or even 500 copies. If he expects any money he is disappointed. Perhaps he only expects general reputation or distinction. How much of either can he get from this mere mite of a circula- tion? One or two attempts in this direction have already been made—but tentatively. It is as if editors do not as yet recognise the fact that an extremely attractive serial may be made of a sub- ject not belonging to fiction at all. For instance, many volumes of poetry are run through various magazines first. I would run them through one magazine only. “Mr. Austin Dobson’s new volume of verse will be commenced in the January number of the New Year; it will run through twelve months, and will be published in volume form in November.” Would not such an an- nouncement be attractive P Or this: “Professor Dowden's new work on Shakespeare is nearly completed. It consists of twelve chapters, and is to run through twelve numbers of the Cheapside magazine; it will then be published in the autumn books of Messrs. Bungay.” Does any one pretend that the comparatively wide cir- culation of the magazine would not assist the author in disseminating his teaching and the publisher in afterwards distributing the book? The next point is the investment of large sums of money in the enterprise. This, no doubt, is risk; such risk as few publishers care to face. Yet, if one appeals to the great public there are but two ways: to hope for gradual recognition of work always good; or by a bid for popularity— immediate and wide-spread — by treatment of topics always fresh and interesting, and by wide advertisement. Both methods, however, mean the investment of money. g One more reason, perhaps, why our higher class magazines are not popular. Nearly all of them aim, more or less, at expounding and perhaps solving the many questions and problems of the day. Not, that is, the treatment of fresh topics, but the difficulties of the day. The articles are, as a rule, very well written; the American magazines do not seem to me, on the whole, nearly so well written as our own ; but if we take up the new numbers of any magazine of the better kind, what we find in it is too often the continuation or even the repetition of the daily and weekly leading article. If the editors would only con- sider that the same subject which we gladly read when treated in the Times of to-day and in the Spectator of next Saturday, will become wearisome when treated, without much new light or much new wisdom, in the monthly magazine of the week after next, they would perhaps refuse certain papers. There are, of course, brilliant exceptions, as when the One man who knows can be got to speak, or when one who is allowed to be a leader speaks. For the most part the writers are not known by the world to be of greater eminence on this question or on that than the anonymous writer in the Times or the Spectator. Another reason, perhaps equally weighty, is the undue prominence given by English maga- zines to literary papers and especially those of the mournful or the savage kind. It is a great mistake to suppose that people, even of culture, are always wanting to tear the literature of the day up by the roots, to see how it is getting on; and it is quite certain that the kind of criticism  ## p. 46 (#60) ############################################## 46 THE AUTHOR. which only sneers and depreciates, and can only find in the popularity of a writer a reason for pretended contempt, is offensive to all readers, whether of culture or not. Of the “Decay of Fiction,” the “Decay of Poetry,” the “Decay of the Drama,” people have already heard too much. Americans do not strike this note, nor will they endure it; theirs must be the note of hope, eager looking forward and confidence. There is no reason why in every field of intellect, art, science, imagination, this note of confidence should not be struck by ourselves. I, for one, believe that it is the true note—that the present is a time of great endeavour and of deserved success. It is true that there are failures by the million, because there are attempts by the million. Instinctively the people — better class and all — turn with disgust from the pessimist and the mournful downcrier of what he dares not even try to imitate. Let us leave the million failures to die in nameless peace. Let us rejoice in the successes, and lift up our heads with something of the American hope and confidence. We are a young country still, with our future still before us. These are some of the reasons why the English magazine is distanced and beaten by the American: rival. The problem before us is this: “How are we to maintain a high level of style and subject, and yet make a serious bid for the popularity which this rival obtains P” W. B. *- - -º - - - NOTES AND NEWS, Tº Literary Congress of San Francisco seems to have been a comparative failure. The original plans, a correspondent writes, were changed, and it was hurried upon the boards long before the time originally planned. Conse- quently few were there, and “it became merely a provincial gathering of people of unequal ability, and not in the least representative of California. It was disappointing to those who had been most active in planning it.” *- It is pleasant, for one who took part in it, to read that the Literary Congress of Chicago is bearing fruit in the best possible way. The following is an extract from the Critic of New York, the only paper to which we can look for a week-by-week record of American literature: It was evidently not in vain that Chicago lavished her millions in time and money upon the Fair. The intellectual returns are beginning to come in, and they indicate a remarkable enlargement of vision, an increased appreciation of science and art, and of what they can offer. It was inevitable that such would be the result; the mere labour of design and construction was bound to develop the ingenuity and the resources of the people. But the most sanguine of us looked forward many years before the evidence of this inspiration should appear. We did not expect the fruit to ripen overnight ; we forgot the rapidity with which the American people take up an idea and develope it and make it their own. Of course, it is too soon for the effect to be visible in deeds, but there are many things that indicate the general tendency. And not the least of these is the state- ment of Mr. Hill, the librarian of the Public Library, in regard to the changes in the demand for books. He says that the standard of quality in the books called for at the library is decidedly higher than it was a year ago. Art has felt the same stimulus from the Fair. The inte- rest in pictures and sculpture is evidenced by the crowds that enter the Art Institute, and even more positively by the statements of the dealers. Mr. O’Brien, who has been giving a series of delightful exhibitions of works by American painters, says that a year ago such pictures would have been utterly neglected here. But at present the galleries in which they are hung are crowded. Many collectors, too, have been developed by the Fair—men and women who, before it, never thought of buying a picture. These facts are, of course, merely straws, but they show the direction of the wind. The fruit of the fair in production will be slower in ripening, but the buildings, the statues, the pictures, and poems it will inspire will be worth the waiting for. “At the dinner of the Authors’ Club last week, which brought together a large company, who seemed to be toler- ably happy in spite of the continued existence of publishers, Mr. Leslie Stephen foretold ‘the coming of that glorious time ’ when writers will be better paid than they are now. The prophecy excited, on the whole, more doubt than belief. We hear, however, that a new literary agency is in process of formation, with a large capital behind it, which will employ its own readers, and pay authors a sum down as soon as it has approved their works. One of its chief objects will be to force up the average price of serial rights.” The above is a cutting from the Athenæum of June 9. One wonders who are the people who amuse themselves by concocting such paragraphs. The Authors’ Club has held no dinner at all except its monthly house dinner. Mr. Leslie Stephen has never yet favoured the club with his presence at that or any other function. The Authors’ Society held its annual dinner, and the president of the evening was Mr. Leslie Stephen. His speech, reported verbatim, will be found on p. 39 of this number. The words attributed to him were not spoken by him; he did not “foretell the coming of that glorious time ’’—the inverted commas mean a quotation, which makes it a deliberate invention—when writers will be better paid than now. He said nothing of the kind; he did not use the words “glorious time ’’ at all; what he said was that, in the aim of the Society towards the adjustment of their own affairs, he wished it every success. “The prophecy excited, on the whole, more doubt than belief.” Wonderful | First, to invent a prophecy, never uttered, and them to describe the way in which that prophecy was received Even a prophet of Baal had to say  ## p. 47 (#61) ############################################## THE AUTHOR. 47 something before his audience began to consider his prophecy. As regards the alleged “new literary agency,” that bears on the face of it every sign of being another invention—perhaps an invention intended to be comic. Certainly no one in his senses could deliberately set himself to persuade people that a company had been formed whose “chief object” was to force up the “average" price of serial rights. What, to begin with, is the “average * price? Is it the average of all the magazines and journals that exist without reference to subject, circulation, name, character of the paper? As for “forcing,” one has always considered, in matter of papers for magazines, that the editor is a despot from whose word there is no appeal. He can say, and he does say, that his remuneration is a certain stipulated sum. It is for the author to “take it or leave it.” Nor can any “forcing ” alter this condition of things. Certain magazines and journals acquire a good name for their treatment of contributors in this respect; such a good name, no doubt, is a very useful thing for a journal to possess; one ventures to believe and to hope that it helps the circulation. Certain other magazines acquire precisely the opposite reputa- tion, insomuch that the literary world regards with complacency the decline and fall of those magazines. The only influences that can be brought to bear upon this monarch of all he surveys—the editor—are those of competition first—it needs no company “with a large capital behind it,” to create competition among editors; and, next, a sense of what is due to the producer, in other words, a sense of justice. Since the most friendly relations seem to prevail between the editors of our high-class magazines and their con- tributors, it seems as if this sense of justice does exist. The following is from the New York Critic. The same circular has been sent to myself, doubtless among many others: Authors have strange requests sometimes. Here is one recently received by a well-known novelist from the editor of a periodical which up to this time has devoted itself to illustration rather than to text :—“Although it is not the custom of our paper to publish stories, yet if you have an unpublished novel of medium length which you could remodel only to the extent of having a portion of the scenes laid in studios and art galleries, I should be pleased to have you submit the same, and am willing to pay well for it. We always pay for MSS. as soon as accepted.” There is some- thing attractive in this last statement, for authors as a rule are needy. The one in question is not, however, so he failed to be caught on this well-baited hook. The editor of this paper evidently thinks that authors have no feelings, or why would he expect them to recast their stories to suit his audience P A very useful compilation is the Index to the Periodicals of the World, published by the Review of Reviews Office. The list of periodi- cals fills thirty-seven pages devoted to English and American periodicals alone, and fifty pages for the periodicals of all countries. Reckoning roughly, an average of thirty-four to a page, we have 1700 periodicals of the whole world indexed in this volume, and I 258 English and American periodicals. Those that specially concern our- selves—the literary journals—are about Io2 in number, but there are many others — some educational, musical, artistic, historical, legal, economical, medical, and scientific, which concern many of our members. The papers and articles on literature in one or other of its branches are innumerable. It is the one subject of which editors seem never tired. The American perio- dical abounds with personal descriptions of literary men, especially with accounts of their methods of working, about which one wonders why there exists any curiosity at all; for certainly, if one knew the methods of every writer under the sun, without natural aptitude one would be not a whit advanced. The discussion of the novel is more favoured by English magazines. The reason, one fears, is not that the public demands this vast mass of criticism or talk about literature, but that it can be produced in any quantity, either from the man with a name or the man without a name. These indexes have become indispensable. . I have always advocated for those writers who are not men—or women—of business the employ- ment of an agent. The only argument which appears to me of any weight at all against the middleman is that where an author is able to manage his own affairs he may just as well do so, and save the commission. Even in that case it may be worth the author's while, if he is a busy man, to let his agent think for him and plan for him. As for those who do not possess the necessary knowledge or habits of business, the only danger, it seems to me, that they have to fear is that of falling into bad hands, and the only real objection that can be raised, by the other side to the agent, is that he is expected to conduct negotiations in a business manner; in other words, he prevents his client from being “bested ”—a word which very often covers, but does not hide, another and an older word. Now, if the agent works for the author, he must be paid by the author. This seems ele- mentary. But I have heard certain stories which ought, I think, to be brought out into light. There is, for instance, the story of the author who  ## p. 48 (#62) ############################################## 48 THE AUTHOR. comes to the agent, finds out the name of the editor or the publisher to whom he proposes to send the work, and then uses the information and goes there himself. There is, again, the author who, when he has been successfully placed, gets the cheque sent to himself, and then refuses to pay the commission. There is, again, the case where the publisher writes direct to the author after receiving an offer from the agent. It is of course the author's duty, as a matter of honour, to send that letter to the agent in whose hands he has already placed the MS., and whose work for him has obtained this offer. Unfortunately he does not always do so. Now, most of these practices come from failing to understand that transactions in literature are like those in every other kind of business, so that the same rules should obtain between author and agent as between client and solicitor. Of one thing writers may rest assured, that any attempt made to detach the author from his agent can only be due to an intention to profit by the author's ignorance. As for the pretended desire to maintain friendly relations, a friendship which will not survive the adjust- ment of honourable terms between two men is worth nothing — nothing at all. Any person who ventures to put forth this ridiculous plea stands self-condemned. On more than one occasion an agent's commis- sion of so much per cent. has been represented to an author as the deduction of a royalty of so much per cent. " This amazingly impudent assertion has been actually accepted and credited Let us there- fore see exactly what it means. We will suppose a royalty of 20 per cent., which is a little over Is. 2d. On a 6s. book. The returns show a sale, say, of 3OOO copies, which at this royalty means for the author the sum of £180. On this the agent takes, say, Io per cent., i.e., 318. Now, if the commission had been the deduction of a IO per cent. royalty, the agent would have received £90. A commission is a percentage on the whole amount received from royalties or from purchase; a royalty is a percentage on the advertised pub- lished price of each copy. This explanation may seem elementary, but there are really no “sums” in literary business which are too elementary to be explained. “But,” said a publisher plaintively, “why incur this extra expense P Why not come to me, as my friends, Lord Addlehede and Professor Insipiens always have done, direct, and so save the intervention of the other party P” Let us, in reply, without calling names, or getting angry, recognise the plain fact that when a man of business transacts affairs with a man who does not understand business, the former always gets the better of the latter, which is the reason why Lord Addlehede and the Professor above named would do well to consider their ways, and approach their publisher with the help of a man of business. The book of the month is, of course, our President’s new novel, “Lord Ormont and His Aminta.” A great many have followed it in its course through the Pall Mall Magazine. Meredithians—how large a company have they become !—will rejoice in it, while the old charge of obscurity certainly cannot be brought against any of the characters in this the latest, and, in some respects, perhaps the best of this author's remarkable series of novels. William Watson's sonnet to France (June 25, 1894), which appeared in the Westminster Gazette, seems to me very fine. To France— “immortal and indomitable France.” Nation whom storm on storm of ruining fate Unruined leaves—nay, fairer, more elate, Hungrier for action, more athirst for glory ! It is the gift and the privilege of the poet to speak the voice of one nation to another in days of great sorrow or great disaster, as well as in days of great joy and great victory. William Watson speaks to France for England: Little thou lov’st our island— Yet let her in these dark and bodeful days, Sinking old hatreds 'neath the sundering brine— Immortal and indomitable France — Marry her tears, her alien tears, to thine. The premature death of Mr. John Underhill from some affection of the brain—a tumour apparently—took place on Wednesday, June 27, at his residence, Wimbledon. Mr. Underhill was only twenty-nine years of age. He was born at Barnstaple, where he was privately educated by the Rev. Dr. Cunningham Geikie, at that time vicar of Barnstaple. He developed an intense love for books and for everything that belongs to literature. It became obvious that no career except that of literature was possible for him. He therefore came to London proposing such a career. He was armed with one or two letters of introduction. One of these was to Mr. W. T. Stead, who was at that time assistant editor, or actual editor, of the Pall Mall Gazette. Mr. Stead assisted the lad, as he has assisted many others, by giving him a start. He placed him in his office and taught him journalism. He remained on the staff of the Pall Mall Gazette till a few weeks ago, when  ## p. 49 (#63) ############################################## THE AUTHOR. 49 he resigned his post, intending to devote himself entirely to literature. As an original writer he would not have succeeded; he knew his own limitations, and aspired only to the humbler but not less useful work of editing, annotating, writing biographies, and compilations. That is, he would never have become a bookmaker; but he would have been, and was already, a most useful and trustworthy editor. His private character was beyond all reproach ; he was always, as a journalist, on the side of honour and of truth; as a reviewer he was wholly unin- fluenced by personal feelings, he was incapable of rancour or of spite. That he had his own way to make in the world only increases the honour of having made his way so far with so much distinction. That he made friends every- where is a proof of his generous and sympathetic mature. He was especially engaged at the time of his death on a history of journalism. He leaves behind him a young widow and one child. WALTER BESANT. *- a .sº GEORGE ELIOT AND HER CREED, NE little story of George Eliot's childhood has lingered ſong in my memory, for in a measure it typified the creed shaping each novel and story, long after it ceased to be her personal one, remaining the much more widely diffused faith she chose to give to the world in her books. When a child at school, an essay was given her to write, and the subject set was God, little Marian Evans drew upon her paper, for sole essay, a large eye. And does not each novel and poem inclose the awful eye of unsleeping, unforgetting fate P For no single character is ever allowed “to fly responsibility.” Her mind hardly seems to have been wrought into creative sympathy with the thought of the nineteenth century; although her youth witnessed an era of great political reform, and her middle and later life was surrounded by the most advanced literary and philosophic thoughts of this century. Notwithstanding all these stirring influences at work around her, to a large extent her imaginative and constructive force remained alien to the “march of events,” political and social, which swept past her, and left her, the dispassionate his- torian of the provincial scenes of her early youth, and of fifty years earlier. Her creed at times discloses a tendency to an almost barren fatalism, her characters invariably creating an adverse destiny for themselves, woven out of their early follies and failures. Like the cruel god- mother of a fairy tale, George Eliot possesses the fearful and mysterious gift of dowering her dramatis personae with some one fatal, irradi- cable weakness, which the reader foresees from the beginning of their history pre-destines them to certain failure and disaster; the retributive justice of inexorable consequences frustrating their every effort to right themselves or retrace their hapless steps through the labyrinths of early sins and errors, a creeping Nemesis being evolved at each step, to hunt them down till they sink into the slow torture of their moral and social death. Maggie Tulliver, the slave of generous impulse, is doomed to high failure, with her gift of feeling and thinking nobly, yet of acting impulsively in crucial moments; from the early days of childhood, when on a visit to a severe aunt she upsets brother Tom's tea by the bestowal of a too impulsive caress, given at an inauspicious moment, down to the time when, a beautiful young woman, she runs away with Stephen, gliding, indeed, but a small way down the stream of temptation, but awaking to a sense of duty too late to save appearances or irreme- diable grief to those she best loved. So that when the choice of utter renunciation of personal happiness is made, her initial error has robbed self-sacrifice of the first bloom of dignified heroism, and her life has turned to the dull ache of failure and inadequate retrieval; but this is finely transmuted into the heroism of her death. Running up and down the gamut of George Eliot's creations, each one is the sport of some apparently wilfully self-created destiny; a Jugger- naut car of untoward consequences set loose upon the victim of circumstances; heredity and free will engaged in ceaseless warfare for the possession of the human soul. Lydgate, the lowable doctor in “Middlemarch,” full of enthusiasm for his profession and a great tenderness for the suffering—has not the author chosen that fate should use him too grievously ill, when she gave him a lovely, heartless, shallow wife, whom he had chosen to wed, partly from the fact that, with all his brilliant gifts and winning traits, there is in his character just a tinge of intellectual egoism which made him count brains superfluous in the woman he married; that lack of finer judgment making him lose his hold on the ennobling ideals of life. Yet these little flaws in Lydgate's character doom him to be another soul's tragedy of baulked achievement, and he tells his wife in late years, with sad irony, that she is like a certain plant which is known to flourish best on dead men's brains. Perhaps a less inexorable moralist than George Eliot would have con- ferred happiness upon him, later in his life, by  ## p. 50 (#64) ############################################## so THE AUTHOR. the bestowal of Dorothea's love, but so stern a moralist is seldom happy in the contemplation of too much unaccounted for happiness, unrelated to moral sequence—unweighed in the judicial moral scales. At times, one half suspects, the force of these ethical strictures arose from a lack of ideality, for an idealist abhors the fixity of moral judg- ments. George Sand, her French prototype, who suffered from an excess of luminous ideality, seldom or never passed moral judgment on her creations, for with her was the large tolerance of the humanist, and the love which says, com- prendre, c'est pardoner. In the “Spanish Gipsy” is worked out the modern conception of the forces of heredity, playing through the woof and warp of indivi- dual character, which she thus defines: “I saw it might be taken (the drama of the ‘Spanish Gypsy”) as a symbol of the part which is played in the general human lot by hereditary conditions in the largest sense, and of the fact that what we call duty is entirely made up of such condi- tions, for even in cases of just antagonism to the narrow view of hereditary claims the whole back- ground of the particular struggle is made up of our inherited nature. Suppose for a moment that our conduct at great epochs was determined entirely by reflection, without the immediate intervention of feeling which supersedes reflec- tion, our determination as to the right would consist in an adjustment of our individual needs to the dire necessities of our lot, partly as to natural constitution, partly as sharers of life with fellow beings. Tragedy consists in the terrible difficulty of this adjustment, ‘the dire strife of poor humanity’s afflicted will struggling in vain with ruthless destiny.’” “The collision of Greek tragedy is often that between hereditary entailed Nemesis and the peculiar individual lot, awakening our sympathy for the particular manor woman whom the Nemesis is shown to grasp with terrific force. . . .” IHence sprang the abiding sadness of George Eliot's creed, the insistent sombre criticism of life and human effort. Her private letters to her personal friends are melancholy reading, so often do her words limp between headache and peren- nial pessimism. Her literary career, however, was a smooth one, she served no long probation to the muse, her genius burst full blown upon a world which received it with unqualified praise, and she won success without ever experiencing that “grace of discouragement” by which Browning climbed to the bracing heights of his rare optimism. Did the gloom of her moral dynamics crush out of her the capacity for being happy?. She did not labour under the bane of being in too great advance of her time, nor of heralding unpopular truths; for her genius lay rather in presenting the old truths with matchless wit and pathos, than in lending that great genius to light the birth of the new. GRACE GILCHRIST. *~ * ~ * BOOK TALK, R. EDMUNID GOSSE has admitted into M the International Library, of which he is the editor, two novels by authors who have been previously represented in the series. The novels are “Farewell Love,” from the Italian of Matilde Serao, the author of “Fantasy,” and “The Grandee,” from the Spanish of Armando Palacio Valdés, the author of “Froth.” Whether it was the great success which attended the publication of “Fantasy.” in English, or whether the Editor considers “Farewell Love" to be the superior novel, does not appear from his introduction. Though perhaps the fact that it is a most enjoyable book would be reason enough for publication. Mr. Gosse lays great stress on the fact that the author is a jour- malist, and “all her life has been spent in minis- tering to appetites of the vast rough crowd that buys cheap Italian newspapers.” The story is true to its title; it tells of love and jealousy, of a baulked elopement, an unfortunate marriage, and self-destruction. One passionate scene follows another so quickly that the reader is surprised by the skill with which the real wickedness of the characters is concealed. There is a husband—one Cesare Dias—who is extremely like “Grandcourt,” cold, cynical, and “not a wordy thinker.” Except that he is Italian, he has a thoroughly English hatred for scenes, and finds his romantic young wife Anna Dias — née Aquaviva — a bore, and tells her so. In fact, previous to their engagement we are told she had taken the humiliating step of declaring her love; and here are three charac- teristic letters showing what happened : “Dear Anna, All that you say is very well; but I don’t know yet who the man is that you love.—Very cordially, Cesare Dias.” She read it, and answered with one line : “I love you.-Anna Aquaviva.” Cesare Dias waited a day before he replied: “I)ear Anna, Very well. And what then P-Cesare Dias.”—The translation is by Mrs. Harland, and reads very smoothly, though there is one odd phrase on p. 63: “‘Would you like a rose?” She asked to placate him.” Quite recently Mr. Grant Allen, in the West- minster Gazette, told us Londoners to go to Italy  ## p. 51 (#65) ############################################## THE AUTHOR. 5 I and revel in beauty denied us here. One would think that in default we could not do better than read the novels of Matilde Serao. “The Grandee” is a powerful story, turning on the horrible subject of cruelty to children, or in this case rather to one particular child. The author describes the state of society in a Spanish town called Lancia, thirty or forty years ago, which is identified for us by the editor as Oviedo, a place of about Io,000 inhabitants, the capital of Asturias. It is with the private life of a few of the leading families in this town that the reader has to make himself acquainted, and, though he must not expect anything much more than the visits of friends, the description of At-homes and marriage fêtes, there is, in spite of some Sameness, hardly a dull page in the book. It is most inte- resting to note how, in spite of the narrowness of life which is generally found in provincial towns, the Spaniards here described never seem to be at a loss for an enlivening incident. The stock-in-trade of their amusement is, it is true, the eternal subject of match-making, which is described as being carried on with great vigour by the elders, in spite of their constant mistakes. We are uncertain whether the author intends to reprove this custom or not, for indirectly he cer- tainly brings out that it shielded the hero in his adultery, enabling him to appear in public as the accepted suitor of one lady while he is the lover of another. This is the more amusing side of the book; but, as we have said, there is another aspect which is not only extremely serious, but is of such a nature that we cannot help wondering what moral conclusion different readers will draw from it. That well-to-do people have been known to treat young children with cruelty cannot be denied, and Mr. Gosse writes: “Nor do the reports of Mr. Benjamin Waugh permit us to question that such horrors are daily committed at our own doors.” This brings the matter so directly into the sphere of practice that we may look to the pages of this novel for light on the question of child protection, actually under dis- cussion by those who are not simply interested out of curiosity, but deeply moved by the subject. We may suppose that, in spite of its danger to liberty, some people would ask for increased powers of obtaining evidence, when they were reasonably certain cruelty was being practised. The lesson we draw from this work is of a diffe- rent nature. We must remember that to abuse the parent is part of the bias of some professional men, notably the pedagogue and the cleric, and therefore in any case of alleged cruelty it is well to try and discover what the actual parentage of the child is, otherwise there is a danger of legislation being based on false information. The point that comes out most clearly in “The Grandee” is that where the victim is illegitimate as much would be gained by altering the position of such children, and so stopping the temptation to cruel treatment, as can possibly be gained by legisla- tion, which would also interfere with the well- established duties of lawfully married parents towards their children. Mr. Gosse also raises another nice point, “Whether these maladies of the soul are or are not fit subjects for the art of the novelist is a question which every reader must answer for himself.” To which it may be suggested, by way of reply, that as long as there are customs which shield gross immorality, the art of the novelist is well employed in laying bare the evil, lest these matters should fall into the hands not of the novelist, but of the sensation- monger, and become the cause of hurried and ill-considered legislation. The translation of “The Grandee’’ is by Miss Rachel Challis, and it seems to read quite as easily as many English novels; but we should like to know what authority the translator has for making the word “lover” feminine. Mr. Gilbert Parker's latest story, “The Trans- lation of a Savage,” is one which must come as a happy surprise to the most persistent novel reader. Whether the main idea is really possible we do not care to ask, because the author has used it so well that any carping criticism tending to spoil the illusion, when we have been given so much pleasure, would be entirely out of place. We are to take it for granted that an American Indian, the daughter of the chief of her tribe, being sent on her marriage with an English General’s son to his family in England, could be translated, as Mr. Parker calls it, into a refined member of English society. Once grant this difficulty, and then the amusement which arises out of the process of “translation” meets us at every page. We are not bored with details as to how the transformation is brought about, but the force of example and surroundings do much, and personal devotion does the rest. Only once does the young lady, as we may call her, really forget to be English, and then she takes to riding madly across her father-in-law's property in the dress and style of her tribe. A child is born to her in England, but her husband remains in Canada, and she has learnt to hate him. The reason of all this it is not our business to tell. The matter- of-fact reader who could find fault with Mr. Parker for his choice of incident would be very foolish indeed, for we have here a story in which the author has been able to depict malice and revenge, as well as true love and friendship, in a compass long enough to make one good volume, but with such a charming narrative style that  ## p. 52 (#66) ############################################## 52 THE AUTHOR. nearly every reader will make a point of finishing it at a single sitting. + Mr. Austin’s new volume, “The Garden that I Love,” has much in it to awaken the envy of his fellow poets. He obtained the lease of an old manor house, and the reader will learn how he converted it to suit the author-gardener's taste and his sister Weronica's sense of comfort and house room. It will be seen that, though the |book is properly enough named, it is more the garden-lover's leisure and his talks with his two guests rather than the garden apart that we have to hear about. Of the guests one is a poet, who is not only so in name but recites his own poetry, the other a young lady called Lamia. The garden becomes the happily suggestive subject for con- versation which takes a wide range from the almost frivolous to the lofty and serious. Of the two women “Veronica ’’ and “Lamia,” we prefer the latter, though poetic justice is done by making Veronica, the housekeeping lady, who has a sweet sense of tidiness, marry the poet. Her redeeming quality is a love for old-fashioned goods, especially if she can purchase them cheap. As to Tamia, with one’s recollection of Keat's, her name would suggest, not a reptile itself, for, though there four persons in this garden—two pairs—it is not the serpent of Eden she suggests, but the power of sudden transformation, always seeming to be possessed by a demon of contra- diction. Paying due attention to the large number of flowers, shrubs, and trees which are here given, some under their popular, others under their Latin names, we have allowed our- selves to imagine the author doing the honours of “The Garden that he Loves” to Lady Corisande, to Dr. Rappacini and his lovely daughter, and with almost equal pleasure to Mrs. Gardiner—Gardiner by name and gardener by nature as Tom Hood describes her. Lady Corisande would find much that is old fashioned and sweet smelling—just her garden in favoured spots, over which to grow enthusiastic. Dr. Rappacini would be able to ponder over the contrast between his own—the garden of an herbalist—and the garden that the poet loves. Mrs. Gardiner would find a friend who would understand at once why, in spite of her widow’s weeds she should still say of herself “I am single and white ” and of her maiden neighbour “she is double and bloody.” But we think these three visitors would each have asked how the Ampelopsis Veitchii got there, which belongs not to manor-houses and poets, but to the jerry- builder of the suburb. In the manor-house, if anywhere, the old Virginia creeper should hold its own. The Tennyson memorial, which is to be erected tion of a work by Wilhelm Joseph on “the ridge of the noble down '' at Freshwater, will be an international and not a local under- taking. The Americans are showing an active interest in the project. Mr. Arthur Warren, the London correspondent of the Boston Herald, who resides during a portion of each year in the Isle of Wight, is a member of the committee having the memorial in charge, and his recent appeal to his countrymen has resulted in the organisation of an American committee, which has among its members Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Miss Alice Longfellow, a daughter of the poet, Mrs. Burnett, daughter of the late James Russell Lowell, President Eliot of Harvard University, Mrs. Agassiz, the widow of the great naturalist, Professor Charles Eliot, Norton, T. B. Aldrich, Margaret Deland, the author of “John Ward, Preacher,” Professor Shaler, Mrs. James T. Melds, the widow of the publisher who intro- duced Tennyson, as well as Carlyle, to American readers, Dana Estes, the head of the publishing house of Estes and Lauriat, Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, Miss Sarah Orne Jewett, the Hon. Robert C. Winthrop, Mr. Martin Brimmer, and Mr. PIowells. The English committee met at Fresh- water on Monday, June 5, and accepted the design which Mr. Pearson, R.A., has submitted for the memorial. The design is an Iona cross, 34 feet high, graceful in proportions, and beauti- fully ornamented. By an arrangement with the Masters of Trinity House the cross will super- sede the present Nodes Beacon, a wooden struc- ture, and will be known as the Tennyson Beacon. On one face of the base will be carved in bold 1etters the name “Tennyson,” and on another face these words: “Erected by friends in Eng- land and America.” The cross will stand near the seaward edge of the great down, 716 feet above high water mark, and will be visible for many miles by sea and land. “The Violoncello and its History” is a transla- Won Wasielewski. The translation is executed by Miss Isabella E. Stigand, and the publishers are Messrs. Novello, Ewer, and Co. There is no other history of the instrument at all. “Mr. John Lee Warden Page is of medium height, his face tanned, and his moustache bleached in quite an Australian manner by expo- sure to sun and storm. Mr. Page lives just out- side Ilfracombe, and only pays flying visits to London now, though he was once a lawyer in London.” This notice was intended to be compli- mentary, and it is therefore unfortunate that it should contain so many mistakes. Mr. Page's second name is Lloyd, not Lee; he is not of “medium height,” unless six feet is medium ; his  ## p. 53 (#67) ############################################## THE AUTHOR. 53 moustache is not bleached at all, either by sun or by storm; and he has never practised as a lawyer in London. Still, it might have been much WOTSé, We recently mentioned the publication of Mr. Joseph Hatton's early novel of “Clytie ’’ as being published in Swedish, following the success of his “By Order of the Czar” in that language. It is interesting to learn that an edition of the latter sent into Finland has been confiscated by the Russian authorities. The Swedish Press appears to be unanimous in its commendation of “By Order of the Czar,” and in most cases the criticism is couched in a high spirit of literary appreciation. The Smaalandposten says: “Of all the pictures of life in the great Eastern Empire of Europe which have appeared during recent years not one, probably, can bear com- parison with Joseph Hatton's novelin its startling vigour of delineation.” The Gothenburg Post describes the book as “No average commercial novel, but a literary work of enduring worth; ” and the Helsingborg Dagblad speaks of “The epic calm’’ with which the author describes the many horrors of Russian despotism. Messrs. Sampson Low announce in their 2s. 6d. series of novels uniform with Black, Blackmore, and other popular writers, two novels of Joseph Hatton previously in their 6s. library, namely, “The Old House at Sandwich’” and “Three Recruits and the Girls they Left Behind Them.” The locality of “The Old House at Sandwich * is no fiction; the house a reality and a very interesting one. “Patient Grizzle,” who was with us a popular figure till about two centuries ago, would pro- bably have been quite forgotten by this time if it were not for Chaucer's admirable “Clerke's Tale,” which still finds numerous readers and admirers. In Germany the memory of the heroine of patience has been kept up by Halm's famous drama, “Griseldis,” of which Professor Benbheim has just issued an edition at the Clarendon Press. The introduction contains, besides a short “Life " of the author, the Griselda legend as told by Petrarch and Boccaccio, and an account of its subsequent literary treatment in and out of Italy. The true gist of the drama, with its picturesque Arthurian background, is shown in the critical analysis. Rürschner’s “Deutscher Litteratur Kalendar ” which, thanks to the full notices, brought on this valuable literary annual by the Spectator and the Literary World, is now fairly well known in this country, has made its sixteenth appearance both enlarged and improved. Every information as regards living German authors and literary institutions now flourishing in Germany, may be found in this publication in a condensed form, so that it is not to be wondered at that the Litteratur-Kalendar was honoured two years ago, together with the same editor's highly useful Staatshandbuch, with a prize at Chicago. We have yet to add that the publication of the annual has been trans- ferred to the well-known firm of G. J. Göschen at Stuttgart. A story entitled “Phil Hawcroft's Son,” by Gerda Grass, will run in serial form through the Newcastle Weekly Chronicle from July 14. Mr. L. J. Nicholson, who is known among his friends as “The Bard of Thule,” is about to pub- lish, by Mr. Gardner, Paisley and London, a volume of his poems, which will be entitled “Songs of Thule.” Mr. Bloundelle-Burton’s first novel, “The Silent Shore,” is about to reverse the ordinary method of procedure adopted by romances, viz., having originally appeared in volume form, it is now going to be run as a serial in several country papers. It has already been dramatised—at the Olympic—it was reprinted in the United States, and it has had the somewhat unusual experience of running as a serial in the Spanish language in South America. A new edition (being the fifth) of “Chitty's Statutes of Practical Utility” is just being brought out by Mr. J. M. Lely, assisted by col- leagues at the Bar, in about twelve volumes (Sweet and Maxwell Timited; Stevens and Sons Limited). It is intended to contain all public general Acts of Parliament, except those repealed or obsolete, or applying to Scotland or Ireland only, or to limited areas only in England, or those which are of little or no interest to the lawyer or the general public. The Acts will be fully anno- tated and indexed. The first volume will appear in the present month. The publishers are issu- ing a circular stating that the price of the work when completed, will be a guinea a volume, but that a subscription of 6 guineas, prepaid before Aug. I next, will entitle the subscribers to the complete work. This is being done in order that the publishers may ascertain in advance the approximate number to print. In an editorial announcement which accompanies the circular, Mr. Lely states that the Acts comprised will number some 23OO, and enumerates the titles under which they will be grouped in alpha- betical order. The first volume is expected to contain the titles “Act of Parliament” to “Charities.”  ## p. 54 (#68) ############################################## 54 THE AUTHOR. “From Manuscript to Bookstall” ” is the title of a book on publishing by Mr. A. D. Southam, It professes to give information on the cost of production and on the various methods of pub- lishing. As regards the former, we have to notice that the charges for composition are in some cases higher than those in the Society’s book called the “Cost of Production.” We do not attach much importance to this discrepancy, because a printer's bill is always an elastic thing. Moreover, it is certainly not the desire of the Society to cut down the pay of printers and book- binders, but rather the reverse; therefore, we welcome the book, so far, and without accepting its figures, as a step in the right direction. Above all things, and as the preliminary to future and better arrangements, we must know what things mean, what printing and paper cost, and the rest of it. One notices a curious discre- pancy repeated in every page of the “Cost of Production.” It is that for an edition of 500 copies paper is reckoned by the ream, and for a thousand copies it is reckoned by the sheet, the ream in the first instance standing for the sheet. One would advise the compiler of the book to lay his prices before two or three other firms of printers when he produces another edition. Some- thing, too, is desired on the subject of discounts; the prices given in the Society’s estimates do not contemplate discounts. The part of the book devoted to the different methods of publishing is neither exhaustive nor satisfactory. For instance, the word royalty is a very vague expression. We want to know what, given certain conditions, should be accepted as a fair royalty; we want to know the meaning of a deferred royalty, The thanks of authors are, however, due to the writer for his recognition of the principles always advocated by the Society, viz: : I. The audit of the accounts. 2. The understanding at the outset of all the clauses in the agreement. 3. A voice as to the advertisements where there is division of profits. The real “intention” of the book, however, is to advocate a system of seals or stamps by which the author shall always know how many copies of his books have gone into circulation. The method seems to us cumbrous. It would certainly be difficult to get publishers to accept the system. The reader, however, is referred to the book for the arguments in favour of it. -* * “From Manuscript to Bookstall.” By A. D. Southam. London: Southam and Co., St. Paul’s-buildings, Paternoster- row. 58. Mr. Isidore G. Ascher, the author of “An Odd Man's Story,” and a Canadian volume of poems, “Voices from the Hearth,” has just sold Messrs. Diprose, Bateman, and Co., a one-volume novel, which will appear in the autumn. It is sensa- tional and physiological, a somewhat rare com bination. - *—- ~ 2--" r- - -, CORRESPONDENCE, I.—GRAMMATICAL : USE of “No R.” Grammar depends upon usage rather than logic. Usage depends partly upon logic and partly on euphony, or upon what is most readily intelligible when uttered. The best guide, in questions such as the present one is neither Murray nor Mason, but Mätzner, who gives a large number of examples from standard authors. Those who cannot read German may consult Grice's Translation, vol. iii., p. 355, &c. - “It did not rain nor blow" is logically correct. “It did not rain or blow ’’ is colloquially permis- sible, chiefly because the sentence is short. Lengthen it, and observe the difference. We could hardly say, “It did not rain any longer, or did it blow at all.” Mätzner shows that even good authors occasionally use neither—or instead of neither—nor. But much depends upon the length and general form of the sentence. I should advise every author to judge for himself. To doubt whether the word nor has a right to exist is needless. Of course it will exist as long as our language, because in many collocations it is indispensable. WALTER W. SKEAT. II.-KICKED OUT. I sent in the MS. of a short story to a well- known firm of publishers last February. Ten weeks afterwards it was returned to me as unsuitable. I then inquired whether the deci- sion was final, or if Messrs. So-and-So might be disposed to divide the risk. They wrote in reply: “We could not undertake the publication of the story even if you took the whole of the risk.” This struck me as quite a superfluous, un- friendly sting to add to a rejection. A SENSITIVE BookMAKER. Authors’ Club, Whitehall Court, S.W. III.-REPORTER’s HARD EARNINGs. . An occasional paragrapher for Le Figaro fell in debt to a money-lender, who, two years ago  ## p. 55 (#69) ############################################## THE AUTHOR. - 55 (April 25, 1892), served upon that journal an attachment of all moneys due or payable to the said journalist. The newspaper rejoined that there was nothing owing to the reporter, who received no salary, and was not regularly employed; but was always paid by the line, day by day, for every accepted paragraph, “echo,” or news-item he chanced to supply. The case was, however, pursued at law by the money-lender, who alleged the habitual employment of the journalist by the paper, and brought his action against the Figaro; but it dragged on, and it was only on May 3 I last that the matter was decided. The 6th Civil Court, having examined a file of the journal for two months prior to the date of the attempted setting up of a lien, was of opinion that the services rendered could not be called habitual ; but, on the contrary, that the para- graphs offered and accepted were of an “acci- dental” type, and showed no such regularity as would indicate an established engagement. The court thereupon held that the sale by a contri- butor of single articles for a sum there and then paid (which was the case before them) is mere buying and selling for ready money; that there existed no inherent right in the journalist's relations with this journal which could be con- strued into matter for seizure or attachment; and that thus the money-lender had shown the court nothing which legal process could lay hold of as attachable. The court therefore decided for the Figaro, and cast the money-lender in costs. Outside the court (and inside the journal) there is a prevalent opinion that if reporters' scant chance earnings were interceptable in this fashion, newspapers would very soon be short of Copy. J. O’N. IV.-SERIAL RIGHTS ONLY. “A Journalist” writes informing us that, “despite the very proper and energetic action of the Authors' Society in the interest of young authors, there are still proprietors of publications who send to contributors with their not too liberal cheques, formal documents in which the author is called upon to sign away to them all rights whatsoever in his work. It cannot be too frequently impressed upon authors that a contri- bution to a periodical is for the use of the said periodical and that only, the copyright for re- publication remaining with the writer. Further- more, I see that there is a question as to the time when payment should be made for contribu- tions. The money is due and payable when the accepted MS. is in the hands of the editor. I know several popular authors, and that is their ruling. Harper's, The Century, Scribner's, The Idler, The Ludgate Monthly, Macmillan's, and The English Illustrated, to which a friend of mine has contributed, always paid him on the delivery of his MS. ; then it must, of course, not be forgotten that the editors wanted his matter. The very severest terms as to payment from the honest publishers’ point of view does not go over a week after publication.” W.—AN AUTHOR’s GUIDE. Correspondents in the columns of the Author have from time to time expressed a wish to see produced an Authors’ Guide, having for its main object to give writers some practical and useful information about the various periodicals, news- papers, and publishing houses. It is a matter of complaint that, as things now are, the in- experienced author is quite unable to form an opinion for which of the numerous periodicals and newspapers his articles are most suitable, upon what terms editors would be willing to receive them, and also which of the publishing houses would be most likely to undertake the publication of any work which he may have written. It is said that the ignorance which prevails upon these points is the cause of much loss of time, unnecessary trouble, and not seldom of misunderstanding and irritation, and it is believed that a guide which would help to dispel this ignorance, and prevent these annoyances would be welcome to authors, editors, and pub- lishers alike. I am now enabled to state that Messrs. Southam and Co., of St. Paul’s-buildings, 29, Paternoster-row, have undertaken the publication of an Annual Authors’ Guide and Directory of Publishers, Periodicals, and Newspapers, in order to supply this want, and that they will gratefully receive any information or suggestions from members of the Society of Authors, with the view of making a good start in what it is hoped will be an annual publication. There is, of course, no royal road or short cut to literature, and Messrs. Southam and Co. do not intend to undertake the impossible task of trying to make one, but they hope that the book will be of real use to those who intend to apply themselves seriously to the profession of letters. All communications will be treated in con- fidence. C. B. ROYLANCE KENT. VI.-QUESTIONS FOR EDITORs. A circular to the same effect has reached us from Messrs. Southam and Co. It is accompanied by a list of questions sub- mitted to editors. They are as follows:  ## p. 56 (#70) ############################################## 56 THE AUTHOR. I. What class of contributions do you consider the most suitable for your paper ? 2. What length of contribution do you prefer? 3. What is your scale rate of remuneration for accepted articles? 4. What are the conditions to be observed by authors in sending their contributions and upon which you are willing to receive and consider them P - 5. Then give any information which you think may be of use to authors in connection with your publication. - Please send rates for advertising publications with the discount for a series and the approxi- mate circulation. VII.-“THAMES RIGHTS AND THAMES WRONGs.” “I4, Parliament-street, S.W., June 1st, 1894. Sir, Sir Gilbert East has drawn our attention to a mistake in “Thames Rights and Thames Wrongs” which we have just published. Sir Gilbert East was not a conservator at the time he gave evidence before the Select Com- mittee of the House of Commons on Thames Preservation. He was elected on Nov. 23, 1885. Your insertion of this would greatly oblige,_Your obedient servants, ARCH. ConstABLE AND Co.” *- 2-# g- * ~ * M. ZoDA’s “Lou RDES.” Paris, June Io. A telegram from Rome, published in Paris this morning, stated that the Congregation of Rites had put its ban upon M. Emile Zola's romance of “Lourdes,” which is being published by a Roman firm simultaneously with its issue in Paris. M. Emile Zola was interviewed upon the subject to-night, and said it was the first time that such an honour had been conferred upon him. He was all the more surprised, because “Lourdes” was not in any sense an attack upon religion, but simply a perfectly human picture of what would take place at the famous place of pilgrimage. One could, he added, be a very good Catholic, and yet not believe in the miracles of Lourdes.—Standard, June I I. *-- * ~ * a- - --> NEW BOOKS AND NEW EDITIONS, Theology. ALEXANDER, REv. S. A. Christ and Scepticism. Isbister. ANDERSON, ROBERT. A Doubter's Doubts about Science and Religion. Second edition. Kegan Paul. 3s. 6d. BENNETT, PROFESSOR. W. H. The Expositor's Bible : The Books of Chronicles. Hodder and Stoughton. 7s.6d. BUCKHOUSE, EDWARD, AND TYLOR, CHARLEs. Witnesses for Christ. Second edition, revised and somewhat abridged. Simpkin, Marshall. DIDON, REv. FATHER. Belief in the Divinity of Jesus Christ. " Kegan Paul. 58. DISCIPLESHIP : THE SCHEME of CHRISTIANITY. author of “The King and the Kingdom.” and Norgate. GOUGH, E. J. Preachers of the Age. The Religion of the Son of Man. Sampson Low. 3s.6d. HALL, REv. H. E. Manual of Christian Doctrine, chiefly intended for confirmation classes. With a preface by the Rev. W. H. Hutchings. Longmans. MALDONATUS, JOHN. A. Commentary on the Holy Gospels: St. Matthew's Gospel. Part I. Translated and edited By the Williams from the original Latin by George J. Davie. John Hodges. Is. MAx MüLLER, F. The Sacred Books of the East. Edited by. Wol. XLIX. Buddhist Mahāyāna Sūtras. Trans- lated by E. B. Cowell, F. Max Müller, and J. Takakusu. Oxford : At the Clarendon Press. Henry Frowde. I2s. 6d. MEUGENs, REv. A. M. The Lord’s Prayer, illustrated by the Lord's Life. By A. T. M. S.P.C.K. 6d. PALMER, JOHN. Catechisms for the Young. Second Series: Teachings from Old Testament History. Church of England Sunday School Institute. 2s. Power, REv. P. B. The Husbandry of the Soul. S.P.C.K. PRESTON, REv. DR. Anti-Ritualism. With a preface by the late Rev. Dr. Blakeney. Twelfth thousand, with appendices. Protestant Reformation Society. 2d. ROBson, WILLIAM. The Lord’s Supper : Its Form, Meaning, and Purpose, according to the Apostle Paul. Second edition, with additions. Elliot Stock. SINCLAIR, VEN. ARCHDEACON. The English Church and the Canon Law. The Fourth Charge. Elliot Stock. 6d. STRONG, JAMEs. The Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible. Published by subscription. Hodder and Stoughton. 2 Is. WEDGwooD, JULIA. The Message of Israel, in the Light of Modern Criticism. Isbister. 7s. 6d. - WELSH PULPIT, THE. By a Scribe, a Pharisee, and a Lawyer. Fisher Unwin. Is. WILLIAMs, F. J. The Charm of the Presence of Christ. Partridge. Is. History and Biography. BELL, MACKENZIE. Charles Whitehead : A Forgotten Genius. New ediition, with an appreciation of White- head by Hall Cane. Ward, Lock. 3s. 6d. BELL, NANCY. Heroes of North African Discovery. Fourth edition. Marcus Ward. 3s.6d. BRITTEN, F. J. Former Clock and Watch Makers and their Work. Spon. 5s. CALENDAR of THE PATENT ROLLs preserved in the Public Record Office, Edward II. 1307-1313. Pre- pared under the superintendence of the Deputy Keeper of the Records. Eyre and Spottiswoode. CAMERON, WILLIAM E. History of the World’s Columbian Exposition. Edited under the personal supervision of. Second edition. Chicago: Columbian History Company. Four parts. 3 dollars each. CHRISTOPHER, CoLUMBUs. His own Book of Privileges, *…* 1502. Facsimile of the manuscript in the Archives of the Foreign Office in Paris, now for the first time published. Translated by George F. Barwick, with an historical introduction by Henry Harrisse. The whole edited, with preface, by Benjamin Franklin Stevens, 4, Trafalgar-square.  ## p. 57 (#71) ############################################## THE AUTHOR. 57 CLIMENSON, EMILY J. The History of Shiplake, Oxon. For subscribers only. Eyre and Spottiswoode. CUPPLEs, GEORGE. Scotch Deer-Hounds and their Masters. With a biographical sketch of the author by James Hutchison Stirling. Blackwood. DUNN, WALTER T. Records of Transactions of the Junior Engineering Society. Wol. III.; 1892-3. Edited by. Published by the Society. - EHRLICH, A. Celebrated Pianists of the Past and Present Time. A Collection of 116 Biographies and I 14 Por- traits. Authorised English edition. H. Grevel. 7s.6d. FERGUson, RICHARD S. A. History of Westmoreland. Elliot Stock. 7s.6d. FISKE, JoHN. Life and Letters of Edward Livingston Youmans. Comprising correspondence with Spencer, Huxley, Tindall, and others. Chapman. 8s. HENDERSON, ERNEST. A. History of Germany in the Middle Ages. Bell and Sons. HoPE, MRs. The First Divorce of Henry VIII. Edited, with Notes and Introduction, by Francis Aidan Gasquet, Kegan Paul. 6s. LUDLOW, EDMUND. Memoirs, Lieutenant-General of the Horse in the Army of the Commonwealth of England, I625-1672. Edited, with appendices of letters and illustrated documents, by C. H. Firth. 2 vols. Oxford, at the Clarendon Press; Henry Frowde. 36s. LYALL, SIR ALFRED. The Rise and Expansion of the British Dominion in India. Third and enlarged edition, with maps. Murray. MACLAY, EDGAR STANTON. A History of the United States Navy from 1775 to 1893. With technical re- vision by Lieutenant Roy C. Smith, U.S.N. 2 vols. Vol. I. Bliss, Sands. MÉNEVAL, BARON CLAUDE DE. Memoirs to Serve for the History of Napoleon I., from 1802 to 1815. The work completed by the addition of unpublished documents, and arranged and edited by his grandson, Baron Napoleon Joseph de Méneval. Translated and anno- tated by Robert H. Sherard. Photogravure portraits and autograph letters. Wol. II. Hutchinson. PITMAN, SIR ISAAC. Life and Work. Illustrated. Pitman. Is. PORTAL, SIR GERALD. The British Mission to Uganda in 1893. Edited, with a memoir, by Mr. Rennell Rodd, with the diary of the late Captain Raymond Portal, and an introduction by Lord Cromer. Illustrated from photographs by Colonel Rhodes, with a portrait of Sir Gerald Portal by Lady Granby. Edward Arnold. 21s. SAUNDERS, F, BAILEY. The Life and Letters of James Macpherson. Swan Sonnenschein. SMITH, REv. DR. G. ADAM. The Historical Geography of the Holy Land. With six maps. Hodder. 15s. ToRRENs, W. M. History of Cabinets, from the Union with Scotland to the Acquisition of Canada and Bengal. 2 vols. Allen. 36s. WALLACE, ARTHUR. The Earl of Rosebery: His Words and his Work. Portrait. London : Henry J. Drane. Is. WoRSFOLD, REv. J. N. History of Haddlesey : its Past and Present. Elliot Stock. General Literature. ALLIES, T. W. The Formation of Christendom. Popular edition. Burns and Oates. ARTHUR, T. C. Reminiscences of an Indian Police Official. Illustrated by Horace Van Ruith and E. M. Cautley. Sampson Low. I6s. ATLAS OF ANCIENT EGYPT, with complete index, geo- graphical and historical notes, Biblical references, &c.; special publication of the Egypt Exploration Fund. Kegan Paul. 3s. 6d. BADMINTON LIBRARY : YACHTING. Large paper edition. 2 vols. Longmans. BELL, HoRACE. Railway Policy in India. Rivington, Percival. I6s. BERESFORD-WEBB, H. S. Stories of Greek Heroes. With notes and vocabularies. Rivington. BoothBY, GUY. On the Wallaby. Longmans. I88. BRABNER, J. H. F. The Comprehensive Gazetteer of England and Wales. Vol. 2. Cau—Goa. Mackenzie. BRAIDwooD, DR. The Mother's Help and Guide. The Scientific Press. 2s. 6d. JBRASSEY, LORD. Papers and Addresses : Naval and Maritime, from 1872-1893. Arranged and edited by Capt. S. Eardley-Wilmot, R.N. 2 vols. Longmans. IOS. BRIGGs, R. A. Bungalows and Country Residences. Second edition, with additional plates. Batsford. I 2s. 6d. BRINE, WICE-ADMIRAL LINDESAY. Travels amongst American Indians, their Ancient Earthworks and Temples. Sampson Low. C. K. By Celtic Waters. Holiday Jaunts, with rod, camera, and paintbrush. Illustrated. Davey. 2s. 6d. CAINE, HALL. The Little Man Island. Douglas, The Isle of Man Steam Packet Company Limited. CALVIERT, ALBERT F. The Coolgardie Goldfield, Western Australia. Simpkin, Marshall. Is. CARPENTER, DR. The Principles and Practice of School Hygiene. With illustrations. Fourth edition. Allen. 4s. 6d. CATALOGUE OF SCIENTIFIC PAPERs (1874-1883). Compiled by the Royal Society of London. Vol. X. C. J. Clay. CHESTERTON, THOMAs. Manual Drill and Physical |Bxercises. Third Edition. With an introduction by Charles Roberts. Gale. 2s. 6d. CoGHLAN, T. A. The Wealth and Progress of New South Wales. 1893. Seventh issue. Sydney : Charles Potter Petherick. CURTICE’s INDEx TO THE TIMEs, THE LONDON MORNING AND EVENING PAPERS, 120 WEEKLIES, AND 3.I PRO- v1NCIAL NEWSPAPERs. July 1—Sept. 30, 1893. Pub- lished quarterly by subscription. Edward Curtice. CUSTANCE, HENRY. Riding Recollections and Turf Stories New edition. Arnold. 2s. 6d. DERBY, EARL OF. Speeches and Addresses of Edward Henry, XWTH EARL OF DERBY, K.G., Selected and edited by Sir T. H. Sanderson and E. S. Roscoe, with a prefatory memoir by W. S. H. Lecky, and a portrait. 2 vols. Longmans. 2 Is. DICKENs's DICTIONARY OF LONDON, 1894-1895. I 8. ; DICKENs's DICTIONARY OF THE THAMES, 1894. Is. J. Smith. Douglas, JAMEs. Canadian Independence, G. P. Putnam's Sons. ELLIs, Robinson. 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Title A name given to the resource The Author, Vol. 05 Issue 02 (July 1894) Subject The topic of the resource <em>The Author</em>, Vol. 05 Issue 02 (July 1894) Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015013732253" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015013732253</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Publication Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1894-07-02-The-Author-5-2 publication The Author https://historysoa.com/files/original/5/267/1894-08-01-The-Author-5-3.pdf 00434cab0194b0a82cb4148afa33de88 PDF Text Text ���������������������������� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Author Subject The topic of the resource <em>The Author</em> Description An account of the resource A digitised run of the Society of Authors' monthly periodical, <em>The Author</em>, 1890<span>–</span>1914, made available together for the first time.<br /><br />Currently users can browse issues and <a href="https://historysoa.com/items/browse?search=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Index&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;tags=&amp;exhibit=&amp;date_search_term=&amp;submit_search=Search+For+Items&amp;sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CTitle">indices</a> (not available for all volumes). Full text search for all issues, and other additional search functionality, will be added in 2022. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1890–1914 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context The-Author-Issues Publication Date The date of an event (in YYYY, YYYY-MM or YYYY-MM-DD format) 1894-08-01 Volume 5 Issue 3 Pages Page range in volume 61–88 Ngram Date Version of the date in YYYYMMDD format for use by the Ngram plugin 18940801 Ngram Text Version of the text with no HTML formatting for use by the Ngram plugin C be El u t b or, (The Organ of the Incorporated Society of Authors. Monthly.) CON DU CTED BY WALTER BES.A.N.T. Vol. v.–No. 3] AUGUST 1, 1894. [PRICE SIXPENCE. For the Opinions eaſpressed in papers that are signed or initialled the Authors alone are responsible. None of the papers or para- graphs must be taken as earpressing the collective opinions of the committee unless they are officially signed by G. Herbert Thring, Sec. 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Be yourself a business man. g Society’s Offices :- * 4, PORTUGAL STREET, LINCOLN's INN FIELDs. *~ * –” z- - - HOW TO USE THE SOCIETY. & . I. VERY member has a right to ask for and to receive advice upon his agreements, his choice of a pub. lisher, or any dispute arising in the conduct of his business or the administration of his property. If the advice sought is such as can be given best by a solicitor, the member has a right to an opinion from the Society’s solicitors. If the case is such that Counsel's opinion is desirable, the Comº mittee will obtain for him Counsel’s opinion. . . All this without any cost to the member. - - . . . ; . . . . . . . . - G 2  ## p. 62 (#76) ############################################## 62 TILE AUTIIOR. 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 is in order to ascertain what has been the nature of your agree- ments, and the results to author and publisher respectively so far. The Secretary will always be glad to have any agreements, new or old, for inspection and note. The infor- mation thus obtained may prove invaluable. 4. If the examination of your previous business trans- actions by the Secretary proves unfavourable, you should take advice as to a change of publishers. 5. Before signing any agreement whatever, send the pro- posed document to the Society for examination. 6. The Society is acquainted with the methods, and—in the case of fraudulent houses—the tricks of every publish- ing firm in the country. 7. Remember always that in belonging to the Society you are fighting the battles of other writers, even if you are reaping no benefit to yourself, and that you are advancing the best interests of literature in promoting the indepen- dence of the writer. 8. Send to the Editor of the Author notes of everything important to literature that you may hear or meet with. *-- - -* ,- w -s. THE AUTHORS’ SYNDICATE, EMBERS are informed : - I. 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 Symdi- 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 booking fee is charged to cover postage and porterage. 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 Director by appointment, and that, when possible, at least four days’ notice should be given. 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. 4. 7. That the Authors' Syndicate does not invite MSS. without previous correspondence, and does not hold itself responsible for MSS. forwarded without notice. - 8. That the Syndicate undertakes arrangements for lectures by some of the leading members of the Society; that it has a “Transfer Department’’ for the sale and purchase of journals and periodicals; and that a “Register of Wants and Wanted * has been opened. Members anxious to obtain literary or artistic work are invited to com- municate 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. NOTICES, Tº: 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 P - Communications for the Author should reach the Editor not later than the 21st of each month. All persons engaged in literary work of any kind, whether members of the Society or not, are invited to communicate to the Editor any points connected with their work which it would be advisable in the general interest to publish. Members and others who wish their MSS. read are requested not to send them to the Office without previously communicating with the Secretary. The utmost practicable despatch is aimed at, and MSS. are read in the order in which they are received. It must also be distinctly under- stood that the Society does not, under any circumstances, undertake the publication of MSS. The Authors’ Club is now open in its new premises, at 3, Whitehall-court, Charing Cross. Address the Secretary for information, rules of admission, &c. Will members take the trouble to ascertain whether they have paid their subscriptions for the year P If they will do this, and remit the amount, if still unpaid, or a banker's order, it will greatly assist the Secretary, and save him the trouble of sending out a reminder. Members are most earnestly entreated to attend to the warning numbered (8). It is a most foolish and may be a most disastrous thing to enter into an agreement binding for a term of years. Let them ask themselves if they would give a solicitor the collection of their rents for five years to come, whatever his conduct, whether he was honest or dishonest ? Of course they would not. Why then hesitate for a moment when they are asked to sign them- selves into literary bondage for three or five years P Those who possess the “Cost of Production ” are requested to note that the cost of binding has advanced 15 per cent. This means, for those who do not like the trouble of “doing sums,” the addition of three shillings in the pound on this head. In other words, if the cost of binding is set down in our book at eight pounds, to this must now be added twenty-four shillings more, so that it now stands at £9 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 clastic 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  ## p. 63 (#77) ############################################## TIIE AUTIIOIP. 63 often go, there is nothing to prevent the publisher from sweeping the whole profits of a book into his own pocket, by inserting any number of advertisements in his own magazines, and by exchanging with others. Some there are who call this a form of fraud; it is not known what those who practise this method of swelling their own profits call it. *-* * *-*. LITERARY PROPERTY. I.—THE THREE-VoI,UME Nov FL. T a meeting of the Council of the Authors’ Society it was Resolved that: “The Council, after taking the opinion of several prominent novelists and other members of the Society, and, finding them almost unani- mously opposed to the continuance of the three volume system, considers that the disadvantages of that system to authors and to the public far outweigh its advantages; that for the convenience of the public, as well as for the widest possible circulation of a novel, it is desirable that the artificial form of edition produced for a small body of readers only be now abandoned; and that the whole of the reading public should be placed at the outset in possession of the work at a moderate price.” A very large majority of the opinions received, including those of the leading novelists, was in favour of the resolution. Only one opinion was opposed to it, and desired to support the three volume system. By order, G. HERBERT TIIRING. The Resolution passed at the meeting of the council on Monday, July 23, was, so to speak, dictated by the novelists who are members of the Society. A “private and confidential” circular setting forth the main facts of the case and the principal points open to discussion, was sent by order of the Chairman to all novelists on the roll of the Society, asking for an opinion. The answers received gave the opinions of most leading novelists, together with those of many others likely to be affected by the action of the libraries. One or two left the matter open; one, especially, pointed out—which is perfectly true— that the abolition of the three-volume form would make a beginning more difficult than ever for a young writer. One desired the continuance of the present plan; the rest were all against it, and wrote in support of the one-volume form. So that the persons most concerned in the matter have pronounced almost unanimously in favour of the one-volume and against the three-volume form. - Several points of interest have been raised, not only in these replies, but also in the discussions on the subject which have been carried on in the newspapers. For instance, more than one critic has advocated the one-volume form simply because it will make the novel shorter. But it has not yet produced that effect. There is no rule as to 1-ngth; novels in one volume are very often as long as novels in three. Moreover, it is possible for a novel to be quite short, and yet very ill-constructed. Again, it has been pointed out that the large type and lightness of the book make the three-volume form useful for invalids, but then many books in one volume are also in large type, and light to hold. - The point concerning the beginner is strong and interesting. At first sight one asks why a beginner has a better chance under the old system. The reason will be seen by a little study of figures. Without advertising, a small edition of a three-volume novel can be produced for something less than £90, those copies only being bound that are wanted. If the libraries take I 30 copies only at 14s. the cost is more than covered: anything over is profit. A single volume, half the length of the above, costs, without mºulding, stereotyping, or advertising, about £7O for an edition of IOOO. Now a beginner's three-volume novel is sometimes considered to be sufficiently advertised by being placed in the boxes and on the lists of the libraries. As a rule the houses which produce these works find it to their interest to expend very little money in advertising them. But a single volume wants to be advertised. Suppose only £20 spent in adver- tising such a book. Over 500 copies must be taken before the cost is covered. If the work is moulded and stereotyped at a cost of £12 more, 600 copies will be wanted to clear the cost. Who will take these copies of a book by an unknown writer, unless he happens to be very good indeed P And of course a publisher does not publish in the hope of merely paying his expenses. Now a book by a new writer which exhausts the first edition does exceptionally well. These figures show, therefore, that it is easier to enter by the old way than by the new. The strongest point brought out is the strange fact, which so few have understood, that under the old system novelists positively do not offer their books to the world at all, but only to the limited number of those who subscribe to the libraries— perhaps 60,000 in all—say, 240,000 readers. The rest of the world must wait—the whole vast army of those who read in this country and in India and in Australia and the colonies, must wait— until the cheap edition appears. This is an enormous privilege to the libraries. What cor- responding advantage does it give to the author P  ## p. 64 (#78) ############################################## 64 THE AUTHOR. Noue, apparently. What to the publisher ? None, apparently. There is another point still. The best chance for the beginner has hitherto been with one or two houses which have been privileged to send a certain number of any novel issued by them to one of the libraries. This was clearly a privilege —it is understood to be now at an end—which might be abused in two ways; first, to the detri- ment of literature by the production of rubbish; next, to the detriment of the author, for it was not necessary to advertise him, or to take any steps to make him known, or to give him a cheap edition. Both these things have, in fact, happened. There are a certain number of novelists wholly unknown to the world at large, whose works, good or bad, appear only in a very limited three- volume edition and are heard of only by a brief notice in the Athenæum. Will these authors vanish P Since the privilege has ceased it is probable that the demand for them by the libraries will also cease or be reduced to such narrow limits as to make the vanishing not only of the author, but of the publisher, a certainty. In the long run it will be better for everybody, because the author, if only for self-preservation, will become far more careful over his work, and there will be a survival of the fittest. Yet the three-volume novel will not suddenly disappear. There will still be a demand, especially among sick people, for that form of reading which demands no thought and not much attention; which diverts the mind without fatigue; which transports the reader to another and a more pleasant atmosphere, with a book easy to hold, light, and in large print. It is not a highly dignified function to amuse the weakened in mind and body by illness, but it is at all events useful, and so long as libraries give enough to the publisher to make it worth his while to continue, and the publisher gives the author enough to make it worth his while to continue, the old system will probably be carried on. The appeal to the whole world of readers opens up a great field for speculation. Will the world of readers respond? Remember that it is not a sudden and an unexpected appeal. We have experience: we can answer confidently that in the case of favourite authors readers certainly will respond. And an author can now create his reputation so rapidly—one could point to many reputations made within the last year or two—that there seems to be no fear about the future of the better class of writers. Unknown authors, and those who have their reputation still to make, will certainly not leap into popularity by the mere fact of being issued in one volume; nor will the public buy a book by an unknown writer at six shillings any more readily than at thirty shillings. Objection has been taken to the Resolution on the ground that publishers, since they buy the books, have the sole right to manage their own property. Quite true, if they buy the books. But they do not. Except in a very few cases they issue the books on a royalty system. There are two or three publishers who buy, and these will doubt- less continue to manage their own property in their own way; it is a good plan—in some cases the best plan—for the author to sell his book, provided he knows what he is about, or works by means of a man of business who knows the meaning of literary property. But in most cases the royalty is the system, and on this system, which is one of joint adventure, with a fiduciary obligation on the publisher, the author has undoubtedly the right to consider the administration of his own property. What certain papers do not realise is the change that has of late come upon the whole business of publishing—the greater independence of the author, his claims to open partnership, his knowledge of a business which has hitherto been kept profoundly secret, the rush of new pub- lishers, and the increased competition. - The last point to consider is the price of the future. Since below a certain level nobody buys books at all, it would be absurd to make books too cheap. Besides, a thing of little price is apt to be lightly regarded. We must, however, remember that for most people six shillings is a good deal to pay, even reduced to 4s. 6d., for an author unless one greatly desires to possess him. We may also remember that the area of readers extends every year by hundreds of thousands; that the free libraries as well as the schools are doing us an immense service in continually enlarging this field, and that the taste for reading brings with it the desire for possession. It seems, there- fore, safe to predict that books desirous of speak- ing to many—what book is not so desirous P- will be issued at such a price as to be within the reach of many; that the six-shilling book will before long become the three-shilling book ; that where a popular writer is now advertised to be in his sixtieth edition he will then be in his six hundredth. There is absolutely no limit to the enlargement of the vast circle of readers who, in fifty years will be calling for the work of a popular writer, living or dead. It is ten years since some of us recognised this truth and pro- claimed it. During these ten years we have again and again proclaimed it. Those who cannot get outside of London; those who know nothing about the extent and the needs of the Empire, or even of this little island; those who are still governed by the prejudice of believing that below a certain  ## p. 65 (#79) ############################################## THE AUTHOR. 65 line everybody reads “slush ’’ if he reads any- thing; cannot be made to understand this fact. How the literature of the future will be affected by this increased demand is another question. Mean- time, we have to deal with the wants of the present, which seems to ask for a book which costs four and sixpence, while the circle is being enlarged. As for the circulating libraries, they must con- tinue in some form or other, because reading is now a habit, a recognised way, in country places, at least, of spending part of the day; and all the popular writers together cannot produce enough material to fill up that part of the day all the year round. II.-Ass IGNMENT OF CONTRACT. The following is a case submitted to counsel as to the right of assigning an agreement to pub- lish : - Instructions from Solicitor to Counsel. Counsel will see from the agreement, that the author agreed to grant the right of publication of a work to the publishers until the number of copies sold should have reached 6ooo, all details of the publishing—as to size, price, and advertising, &c. —being left to the publishers, who agreed to publish a cheap edition of the said work at their own expense and risk, and to pay to the author one-half of the net profits arising from sales, the author reserving to himself the right of publish- ing an édition de luate of the work. And counsel will observe that there are provisions in the contract as to rendering of accounts, &c. Subsequent to the date of the contract the publishers, formerly a private firm, were formed into a limited company under a name corre- sponding with the name of the private firm, with the addition of the word “Limited.” All the business, goodwill, &c., was taken over by the limited company, but no express notice of this appears to have been given to the authors of books which the old firm were publishing, or, at any rate, no such notice was received by the author in question. After the date of the transfer of the business to a limited company, however, the author received from the company a letter inclosing account of sales, &c., up to date, and signed by the name of the firm, with the addition of the word “limited,” one of the former partners signing the letter as “Managing Director.” This appears to have been the first opportunity given to the author of ascertaining that the publishers had become a limited company, as he states that he had heard nothing of the matter previously: but even on the receipt of the accounts he did not observe the alteration in the firm, and therefore took no objection to his book being continued to be published by the limited company. Counsel will consider whether the fact of this letter having been received must be taken to be notice to the author of the change in the firm, and, if so, whether the author must be taken to have acquiesced in the publication of his book by the limited company, and is so estopped from taking objection to the book having been assigned to the limited company without his consent, and to its being published by them. From the time of receiving the accounts a year or two passed, and then the limited company got into difficulties. A receiver and manager was appointed by the Chancery Division in an action commenced by debenture-holders, and later on a resolution was passed for voluntary winding-up, and the same gentleman was appointed liquidator as had been appointed receiver. On hearing of this the author wrote to the receiver and manager protesting against his book having been assigned to the limited com- pany without his consent. According to an account rendered to the author by the receiver there was up to the date of his appointment a loss on the book. Counsel will please advise : I. Assuming the author is not to be taken to have acquiesced in the transaction, and to be estopped from objecting, whether he had the right to object to his book having been assigned to a limited company, and if he is estopped from making this objection ? 2. Can he object to the liquidator and receiver of the company continuing to sell the book P *- 3. Whether the liquidator and receiver is liable to pay the share of profits in full from the date of his appointment P 4. Would the parties be entitled to go on selling for an unlimited time in the present state of affairs, i.e., while the business of the company is being carried on by a receiver ? 5. If the company were reconstructed, would they be entitled to go on selling P - 6. Would the liquidator and receiver be entitled to make over the book to another publishing firm without the consent of the author P w Counsel's Opinion. I. Whenever the due execution of a contract involves the personal skill and ability of one con- tracting party, he cannot assign the contract to a stranger without the consent of the other con- tracting party. In this case the author bargained for the personal skill and attention of the pub- lishers whom he selected ; and he cannot be com- pelled to accept the skill and attention of some substitute whom they select. But as, in all probability, some, if not all, the  ## p. 66 (#80) ############################################## 66 THE AUTIIOR. members of the original firm entered into the employ of the new company, and some, if not all. of the persons employed by the former firm continued to do for the company precisely the same work as they had done previously for the firm, the court will presume on very slight evidence that the author assented to, or acquiesced in, the assignment of his contract to the limited company. Such an assignment would not appreciably affect the prospects of a profit being earned. In this case I think it would be held that the author did so acquiesce, or that, at all events, he is estopped by his conduct from denying that he acquiesced. 2. Assuming, then, that the author acquiesced in the assignment of the contract to the new company, it follows that he cannot object to the liquidator and receiver doing any act reasonably necessary for proper realisation of the assets of the company in liquidation. The receiver has, in my opinion, the right to sell any copies of the book which were in stock at the date of the petition, and probably also to bind up any quires printed at that date: but he may not, in my opinion, create any new copies by printing a fresh edition from stereos. 3. If any profit were made by the receiver selling the copies which were in type at the date of the petition, I incline to think that the author would be entitled to receive his share of the profits in full from that date; but I express no confident opinion on this. I fear the point will not arise. Should the receiver publish a fresh edition with the author's consent, then I am clear that the author would be entitled to receive his half of the profits of that edition in full. 4. The receiver is entitled, in my opinion, to go on selling the copies which were in type at the date of the petition, for such period as is properly occupied by the winding-up of the affairs of the company. 5. If the company were reconstructed, the new company thus constructed would, in my opinion, have no right to print any further copies of the book. The new company could buy the stock of the old company, and sell it to the public ; but could create no fresh copies without the permis- sion of the author. 6. The liquidator can sell the stock of the old company to anyone he pleases; he cannot convey to anyone any right to create new copies of the book. (Signed) W. BLAKE ODGERs, Q.C. 4, Elm-court, Temple, E.C. July, 3, 1894. s-ºr-º- ºr- III.—CANADIAN CoPYRIGHT. The following is a copy of counsel’s opinion on Canadian copyright from the fresh papers put before him. It will be seen that the position of affairs is very little altered from the English author's standpoint, as he is the person, coupled, perhaps, with the Canadian public generally, who will suffer most by the proposed change of law in Canada. • Counsel's Opinion. The new documents before me consist of (I.) A copy of a memorandum by Sir John Thompson dealing with the report of the Depart- mental Committee on Canadian Copyright, and (2.) A clause in the Canadian Tariff Bill which proposes, after March 27, 1895, to remove the ad valorem duty payable on foreign reprints payable under the Canadian Act of 1868. Sir John Thompson's memorandum does not deal with the details of the Canadian Act of 1889, but is an attempt to answer some of the objections to the principle of that Bill set forth in the departmental committee report, and to show that the Canadian Legislature ought to be allowed to repeal the Copyright Act of 1842 so far as regards Canada, and to deprive the British author of his rights in order to foster the Canadian printing and publishing interests. It does not appear to me that I can usefully follow all the arguments contained in the memo. randum on the above question, or that it is within the scope of my instructions to do so. They are all based on the fallacy that the Canadian publishers and printers have some inherent right to have the profit of publishing and printing the works of British authors, and that if the latter do not find it necessary or convenient to publish or print in Canada the Canadian Legislature has a right to make them do so, and that to deny them this right is to deprive them of the benefit of self-government. Such arguments (even when supported appa- rently by a threat of separation in case they are not yielded to, as stated in page 12 of the report) do not appear to require to be answered at length. The argument which does, perhaps, require special notice, is that drawn from the example of the United States. With regard to this it is to be observed that in the case of the United States the British author had under the circumstances to accept such terms as were offered, but that such acceptance did not in any way involve a recognition of the justice of these terms, and it would be most unfortunate if this exceptional case were to be drawn into a prece- dent. If it were, it might become necessary for a  ## p. 67 (#81) ############################################## TIII, 67 A UTIIOIR. work to be reprinted and published separately in every British colony. The Society will no doubt itself consider the memorandum, and will have no difficulty in drawing up a full reply if thought desirable, but I cannot see that the arguments contained in it were such as to require a detailed reply. All that it seems to me to be necessary for the Society to do at present is to submit to the Home Government that Sir John Thompson's memorandum affords no answer whatever to the reasons given in the report of the Departmental Committee against the passing of an Act to con- firm the Canadian Act, pointing out that the demand for legislation appears to come solely from the Canadian printer and publisher, and that it would be most unfair that their industries should be fostered and protected at the expense of the rights of authors as established by Impe- rial legislation and the Berne Convention. A protest should also be added against the case of the United States being turned into a precedent for Imperial or Colonial legislation ; the result of the system of protection insisted on there is no doubt unfortunate for the Canadian printer and publisher, but that is not, or ought not to be, a reason for extending it to Canada or elsewhere. The endeavour should rather be to induce the United States to abandon its present policy. There is no sign in the memorandum that Canada would be prepared to accept any such licensing system as that suggested in pars. 55 and 56 of the departmental report, and it there- fore does not seem necessary to deal with it at present. The objections to it would appear to be the difficulty in fixing the amount of the royalty, and in securing its collection when fixed; but if it would solve the present difficulty it might be worth acceptance. If the memorandum is dealt with shortly, as I have suggested, the Society should of course intimate that if there are any particular points on which further information is desired, or which are thought to require a further answer, it would be glad of an opportunity of considering them. With regard to the proposed repeal of the ad valorem duty on foreign reprints, it appears that the Colonial Office has already pointed out that repeal would or might be invalid as repugnant to the Order made under the Foreign Reprints Act, on the faith of such duty being imposed. The Society should, I think, consider whether there is any objection to that Order, so far as it affects Canada, being repealed, if the Canadian Government should insist on doing away with the duty. So far as I can see there is none; the only person who would have any reason to com- plain would be the Canadian reader, for whose especial benefit the Foreign Reprints Act was WOL. W. passed. I ought perhaps to point out that it is not at all clear that the repeal of the ad valorem duty would be invalid. - |Under the Foreign Reprints Act the Order in Council only authorises the admission of reprints so long as the Colonial Act affording protection to British authors is in force, from which it would seem that the colony is at liberty to repeal this protection if it is prepared to give up the benefit of the Order in Council. I think it would be as well for the Society to endeavour to find out what is the object of the Canadian Legislation in repealing a duty they do not appear to have even collected, except in very few cases, and in thereby depriving Canadian readers of the benefit of an Act supposed to have been passed for their special advantage. J. Rolt. 4, New-square, Lincoln’s-inn, June 18, 1894. On Monday, June 25, a meeting of the special committee on Canadian copyright was called at Mr. John Murray's offices, 50, Albemarle-street. The following is a list of the names of the committee, and the interests represented:— Sir John Lubbock, Bart., M.P. - Edward Ashdown, H. R. Clayton, Music Pub- lishers. s Frank Bishop, H. S. Mendelssohn, Photo- graphers. F. R. Daldy, T. N. Longman, the Copyright Association. - H. O. Arnold Foster, Edward Marston, Pub- lishers' sub-section of Chamber of Commerce. H. Rider Haggard, W. E. H. Lecky, Authors. Arthur Lucas, Alex. Tooth, Fine Arts. John Murray, Publisher. G. Herbert Thring, W. Oliver Hodges (Barris- ter-at-Law), Society of Authors. * W. Agnew, D. C. Thompson, Printsellers' Association. The business before the committee was “To consider the proposals received from Canada, respecting Anglo-Canadian copyright, and to agree as to what action should be taken thereon.” Mr. John Murray was voted into the chair. .. After some discussion, and considering the unwieldy size of the committee, it was decided to appoint a sub-committee as representative of the different sections as possible to consider carefully, and in detail, the Canadian proposals, and to draft an answer to lay before the Colonial Office, which answer would first, however, be submitted to the general committee for its approval. -- The members of the sub-committee elected for that purpose were: H. R. Clayton, Musical Publishers; F. R. Daldy, Copyright Association; EI  ## p. 68 (#82) ############################################## 68 TIIE A UTIIOIP. Arthur Lucas, Fine Arts; G. Herbert Thring, the Authors’ Society. The sub-committee was subsequently called together, and met on Monday, July 2, at 4, Portu- gal-street, the offices of the Society of Authors. Mr. Daldy took the chair, and before opening the discussion stated that he thought the plans of the sub-committee must be slightly altered, as he saw from the Times that the question of Canadian copyright was being brought before the meeting of colonial delegates at Ottawa. He proceeded to inform the sub-committee that he had con- sented, with the approval of Her Majesty’s Government, to attend the Canadian meeting, both to hear what the Canadians had to say and to keep the English authors' point of view pro- minently before the meeting. The sub-committee accordingly determined to adjourn its meeting until Mr. Daldy's return, but read through provisionally the Canadian sugges- tions, in order to put before Mr. Daldy the salient points of objection to the proposed legislation. IV.-Con TRIBUTORS AND CoPYRIGHT. A form of receipt issued by the Religious Tract Society is thus headed: COPYRIGHT. This receipt conveys the copyright to the trustees of the Religious Tract Society with liberty for them, at their discretion, to republish in any form. Republication by authors on their own account must be the subject of special arrangement. If this receipt is sent to the contributor with- out previous special agreement conveying not only the serial right, but also the copyright to the Society for the consideration of a certain sum paid, the contributor should refuse signature or he should strike his pen through the above words. If the Religious Tract Society refuses to pay without these words, he should then, unless his necessities compel him to endure everything, lace the business in the hands of the secretary of the Authors' Society. Nothing is more certain than that a paper offered to any magazine is offered, unless the contrary is stated, on the usual terms, under Section XVIII. of the Act, viz., the right for separate publication to be matter of separate agreement between author and proprietor of the magazine during the period prescribed by law of twenty-eight years, when the right to publish separately again reverts to the author. Unless, therefore, the copyright and the right to republish without the author's sanction are bought by special agreement, the author has the right to veto the republication by any other person during the term aforesaid. Observe that the condition above quoted indicates that the copyright may be valuable, and therefore the author should keep all his rights or make a sepa- rate contract. If it is valuable it must be bought, and not taken. - [The following is Section XVIII. of the Act above referred to :—“XVIII. And be it enacted, That when any publisher or other person shall, before or at the time of the passing of this Act, have projected, conducted, and carried on, or shall hereafter project, conduct, and carry on, or be the proprietor of any encyclopædia, review, magazine, periodical work, or work published in a series of books or parts, or any book whatsoever, and shall have employed or shall employ any persons to compose the same, or any volumes, parts, essays, articles, or portions thereof, for publica- tion in or as part of the same, and such work, Volumes, parts, essays, articles, or portions shall have been or shall hereafter be composed under such employment, on the terms that the copy- right therein shall belong to such proprietor, pro- jector, publisher, or conductor, and paid for by such proprietor, projector, publisher, or con- ductor, the copyright in every such encyclopædia, review, magazine, periodical work, and work published in a series of books or parts, and in every volume, part, essay, article, and portion so composed and paid for, shall be the property of Such proprietor, projector, publisher, or other conductor, who shall enjoy the same rights as if he were the actual author thereof, and shall have such term of copyright therein as is given to the authors of books by this Act; except only that in the case of essays, articles, or portions forming part of and first published in reviews, magazines, or other periodical works of a like nature, after the term of twenty-eight years from the first publication thereof respectively the right of pub- lishing the same in a separate form shall revert to the author for the remainder of the term given by this Act: Provided always, that during the term of twenty-eight years the said proprietor, projector, publisher, or conductor, shall not. publish any such essay, article, or portion separately or singly, without the consent previously obtained, of the author thereof, or his assigns: Provided, also, that nothing herein con- tained shall alter or affect the right of any person who shall have been or who shall be so employed. as aforesaid to publish any such his composition in a separate form who by any contract, express or implied, may have reserved or may hereafter reserve to himself such right; but every author reserving, retaining, or having such right shall be entitled to the copyright in such composition when published in a separate form, according to this Act, without prejudice to the right of such proprietor, projector, publisher, or conductor as aforesaid.] -  ## p. 69 (#83) ############################################## TIII. A UTIIOIR. 69 THE LAUREATESHIP. HERE seems an inclination, perhaps an in- tention, on the part of the Government to allow the office of Poet Laureate to fall into abeyance. This abeyance, if it continues, will certainly end in abolition, because an ancient thing may easily be destroyed, but is with great difficulty created alléW. Why should it be left in abeyance P There are two reasons which may influence the Premier : First, the impossibility of finding a successor to Tennyson of equal weight; and, next, the diffi- culty of selection, with the certainty of hostile criticism whatever appointment be made. It seems to some, however, highly desirable that the appointment should be filled up. Among other considerations the following are advanced : I. It is an office of considerable antiquity, honoured by the names of Spenser, Ben Jonson, Dryden, Southey, Wordsworth, and Tennyson. It has been continued and recognised as an office of the State for 300 years. 2. It is the only recognition of literature offered by the State. By no other office, appointment, or distinction, does the State take the least notice of literature. The question of the national distinctions in relation to literature has been frequently discussed in these columns. It is true that there are members of this Society whose position in the world of letters entitles them to the highest consideration, who do not think that the interests of literature would be advanced by the creation of distinctive honours or the granting to men of letters those distinctions and orders now reserved for the Services. But it is also true that there are other men of letters, also of position, who hold that for a State not to recognise literature is to teach the people that literature is not worthy of honour. Now the office of Poet Laureate is, to repeat, the only attempt made by the State to show that poetry is deserving the honour and recognition of the people. 3. The argument that, because Tennyson stood higher than his confrères there is to be no successor, if applied to other offices and titles of distinction would very soon lead to the abolition of all such offices. There would be left, in short, no distinctions at all. 4. The argument that hostile criticism would follow any appointment would, if applied to other distinctions, equally lead to their abolition. The king is dead; another king must follow. It is not at all a question whether the choice will please every one. Again, hostile criticism would WOL. W. - die away as quickly as it arose. However hostile,' it would hurt nobody; on the supposition that. the Premier had made the appointment without regard to Party, and with the sole object of nominating the man he considered best, he could suffer no possible harm; nor could the newly appointed Laureate, whose name and reputation must be already before us, suffer any harm. After all, the worst that can be said in such a case is that an anonymous critic considers A. a. very much better poet than B. Besides, it is surely unworthy of a Prime Minister to fear hostile criticism in matters of literature when he cannot escape it in politics. 5. The fact that such an appointment gives. great importance to a poet in the eyes of the world may also be considered. When a Regius Professor of Greek is appointed, the new Pro- fessor is lifted at once far above his fellow scholars. Yet there may be among these as good Greek scholars. Nobody doubts this. But nobody, in consequence, proposes that the Regius Pro- fessorship of Greek should be abolished for fear of giving him an importance above his fellow scholars. w 6. In such a case as this, public opinion— . meaning the opinion of the cultivated public— points out a certain number of living poets as the fittest for the appointment. It is not a question whether there are men of Tennyson’s stature, but solely who are the available men in poetry with- out reference to opinion, Party, or any other point whatever ? 7. There are, in the opinion of most literary men, whose opinion is not likely to be asked, poets who are entirely worthy to fill a post occupied by the Poets Laureate of the past; and there is so much promise in the work of the younger men, that, in their interests alone, the distinction ought to be preserved. - 8. There is no question of expense. It must be . allowed by all that this meagre national recogni- tion of Literature is made on the cheapest possible terms. If it be thought that the very modest income attached to the distinction has anything to do with the desire to retain this solitary honour, bestowed upon Poetry among those distributed on the Services and Law, not to speak of Physic and Art, it might be found desirable to deprive the Laureateship of its income. These considerations are advanced as a few of those which influence many of this body in their desire to maintain the office and to see it filled again as soon as possible. On the eve of the general holidays nothing can be done except to place on record these few notes. It may be added, however, that some of the members are desirous of bringing the matter - H 2  ## p. 70 (#84) ############################################## 70 TIII. A UTII.O.IP. before the council with an invitation to some public expression of opinion, if that should seem good to the collective wisdom of the Society. *-- * ~ * z-- ~s CIVIL LIST PENSIONS. I. HE list of pensions granted during the year ended June 20, 1894, and charged upon the Civil List, is as follows: Miss Adeline Amy Leech, only surviving sister of the late Mr. John Leech, in addition to pensions of £25 and £IO already granted to her, 335; Professor T. W. Rhys Davids, in recognition of his merits as a student of Oriental literature, 32do; Mrs. Sophia Eder- sheim, in recognition of the merits of her late husband, Dr. Edersheim, as a writer on theology and Biblical criticism, 375; Mrs. Elizabeth Baker Mozley, in recognition of the merits of her late husband, the Rev. Thomas Mozley, 375; the Rev. Wentworth Webster, in consideration of his researches into the language, literature, and archaeology, of the Basques, 3150 ; the Lady Alice Portal, in recognition of the distinguished services of her late husband, Sir Gerald Herbert Portal, 3150; Mr. T. H. S. Escott, in considera- tion of his merits as an author and journalist, 281 oo; Mr. John Beattie Crozier, in consideration of his philosophical writings and researches, 250; Dr. Thomas Gordon Hake, in recognition of his merits as a poet, 365; Mr. Samuel Alfred Warley, in consideration of his services to electrical science, 3850; Mrs. Amy Cameron, in considera- tion of the services rendered to geographical science by her late husband, Captain Werney Lovett Cameron, £50; Mrs. Ellis Margaret Hassall, in consideration of the services of her late husband, Dr. Arthur Hill Hassall, 3850; Miss Matilda Betham-Edwards, in con- sideration of her literary merits, £50; Mrs. Ratharine S. Macquoid, in consideration of her contributions to literature, 35o ; Miss Rosalind Hawker and Miss Juliet Hawker in consideration of the literary merits of their late father, the Rev. Stephen Hawker, 325 each. The total of the pensions amounts to £12Oo. II. “Mr. Bartley asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer a question concerning one of the names in this List. “The Chancellor of the Exchequer: Civil Lis; pensions are not intended, as the hon. Imember appears to suppose, for ‘literary men and women in necessitous circumstances.’ The sixth section of the Civil Trist Act (I Wict. cap. 2) provides that they may be granted to ‘such persons only as have just claims on the Royal beneficence, or who, by their personal services to the Crown, by the performance of duties to the public, or by their useful discoveries in science and attain- ments in literature and the arts, have merited the gracious consideration of their Sovereign and the gratitude of their country.” “Mr. Bartley asked whether it was a fact that practically this bounty had always been given to reward those who were in necessitous circum- stances; whether it had ever yet been given to persons who were fairly well off and did not require it ; and whether there were not a great number of necessitous persons in literature and science to whom this grant would have been of much greater service. “The Chancellor of the Exchequer: I must answer in the negative every one of these questions. I have never yet heard that the late Lord Tennyson was in necessitous circumstances.” — Times. *—- - -º * * *—s THE AMERICAN MEMORIAL TO KEATS, N Monday, July 17, the bust of Keats, executed by Miss Anne Whitney, of Boston, Mass., and given to the English nation by a small body of Americans, lovers of the poet, was unveiled at Hampstead parish church, in the presence of a very large assem- blage. The memorial was received by Mr. Edmund Gosse, on behalf of English men and women of letters. The bust was presented by Mr. J. Holland Day, the secretary of the American Memorial Committee. He stated in a brief address that it was by the wish of his committee that the monument should be erected in the church of the place where Keats spent his few happy days. The memorial itself was highly approved by the late Mr. Lowell. The bust was modelled twenty years ago by Miss Whitney, and the bracket supporting it was designed by Mr. Bertram Goodhue. Mr. Edmund Gosse replied as follows: It is with no small emotion that we receive to-day, from the hands of his American admirers, a monument inscribed to the memory of Keats. Those of us who may be best acquainted with the history of the poet will not be surprised that you have convened us to the church of Hamp- stead, although it was not here that he was born nor here that he died. Yet some who are present. to-day may desire to be reminded why it is that when we think of Keats we think of Hampstead. It is in his twenty-first year, in 1816, that we  ## p. 71 (#85) ############################################## TIII) A UTIIOIR. 7 I find the frst record of his ascent of this historic eminence. He appears, then, on the brow of Hampstead Hill as the visitor, as the disciple of Leigh Hunt, in his cottage in the Vale of Health. He comes, an ardent lad, with great flashing eyes and heavy auburn curls, carrying in his hand a wreath of ivy for the brows of Mr. Hunt. Nearly eighty years ago—this pilgrimage of boyish enthusiasm—but a few months after Waterloo. The last rumblings of the long European wars were dying away in the distance. Our unhappy contest with that great young republic which you, Sir, so gracefully represent to-day, just over and done with. How long ago it seems, this page of history, how dusty and shadowy ; and how fresh and near across the face of it the visit of the boyish poet to his friend and master on the hill of Hampstead | Such at all events was the earliest appearance of Keats in this place, and here the “prosperous opening” of his poetical career was made. Here he first met Shelley, Haydon, and perhaps Wordsworth ; hence in 1817, from under these “pleasant trees” and the “leafy luxury" of the Vale of Health, his earliest volume was sent forth to the world; here, in lodgings of his own at Well-walk, he settled in that same summer that he might devote himself to the composition of “Endymion.” Here his best friends clustered round him— Bailey find Cowden Clarke, Dilke and Armitage, Brown and Reynolds. Here it was that, in the autumn of 1818, he met, at Wentworth-place, that brisk and shapely lady whose fascination was to make the cup of his sorrows overflow ; hence it was that, on Sept. 18, 1820, he started for Italy, a dying man. All of Keats that is vivid and intelligent, all that is truly characteristic of his genius and his vitality, is centred around Hampstead, and you, his latest western friends, have shown a fine instinct in bringing here, and not elsewhere, the gifts and tributes of your love. If we find it easy to justify the locality which you have chosen for your monument to Keats, it is surely not less easy, although more serious and more elaborate, to bring forward reasons for the existence of that monument itself. In the first place, that you should so piously have prepaled, and that we so eagerly and so unanimously accept, a marble effigy of Keats, what does it signify, if not that we and you alike acknowledge the fame that it represents to be durable, stimulat- ing, and exalted P For, consider with me for a moment, how singularly unattached is the repu- tation of this our Hampstead poet. It rests upon no privilege of birth, no “stake in the country,” as we say ; it is fostered by no alliance of powerful friends or wide circle of personal influences; no one living to-day has seen Keats, or artificially preserves his memory for any private purpose. In all but verse, his name was, as he said, “writ on water.” He is identified with no progression of ideas, no religious or political or social propa- ganda. He is either a poet or absolutely nothing—we withdraw the poetical elements from our conception of him, and what is left P The palestphantom of a livery-stable-keeper's son, an unsuccessful medical student, an ineffectual consumptive lad who died in obscurity more than seventy years ago. . You will forgive me for reminding you of this absence of all secondary qualities, of all outer accomplishments of life in the career of that great man whom we celebrate to-day, because in so doing I exalt the one primary quality which raises him among the principali- ties and powers of the human race, and makes our celebration of him to-day perfectly rational and explicable to all instructed men and women. It is not every one who appreciates poetry; it may be that such appreciation is really a some- what rare and sequestered gift. But all practical men can understand that honour is due to those who have performed a difficult and noble task with superlative distinction. We may be no politicians, but we can comprehend the enthu- siasm excited by a consummate statesman. Be it a sport or a profession, an art or a discovery, all men and women can acquiesce in the praise which is due to him who has exercised it the best out of a thousand who have attempted it. This, then, would be your answer to any who should question the propriety of your zeal or of our gratitude to day. We are honouring John Reats—we should reply in unison—because he did with superlative charm and skill a thing which mankind has agreed to include among the noblest and most elevated occupations of the human intelligence. We honour in the lad who passed so long unobserved among the inhabitants of Hampstead, a poet, and nothing but a poet, but one of the very greatest poets that the modern world bas seen. The Professor of Poetry at Oxford reminds me that Tennyson was more than once heard to assert that Keats, had his life been prolonged, would have been our greatest poet since Milton. This conviction is one now open to discussion, of course, but fit to be propounded in any assem- 'blage of competent judges. It may be stated, at least, and yet the skies not fall upon our heads. Fifty years ago to have made such a proposition in public would have been thought ridiculous, and sixty years ago almost wicked. When I was myself a child, I remember that I met with the name of Keats for the first time in conjunction with that of Kirke White, an insipid poetaster  ## p. 72 (#86) ############################################## 72 - TIIE A UTIIOIP. whose almost only merit was his early death. When the late Lord Houghton—a name so dear to many present, a name never to be mentioned without sympathy in any collection of literary persons— when Monckton Milnes—as in 1848 he still was— published his delightful life of Keats, it was widely looked upon as a rash and fantastic act to concentrate so much attention on so imperfect a ‘Career. But all that is over now. Keats lives, as he modestly assured his friends would be the case, among the English poets. Nor among them merely, but in the first rank of them—among the very few of whom we instinctively think when- ever the characteristic versemen of our race are spoken of. To what does he owe this pre- eminence—he, the boy in this assemblage of strong men and venerable greybeards, he who had ceased to sing at an age when most of them were still practising their prosodical scales? To answer this adequately would take us much too far afield for a short address, the object of which is simply to acknowledge with decency your amiable gift. But some brief answer we must essay to make. - Originality of poetic style was not, it seems to me, the predominant characteristic of Keats. It might have come with ripening years, but it cannot be at all certain that it would. It never came to Pope or to Lamartine, to Virgil, or to Tennyson. It has come to poets infinitely the inferiors of these, infinitely the inferiors of Keats. They who strive after direct originality forget that to be unlike those who have preceded us, in all the forms and methods of expression, is not by any means certainly to be either felicitous or distinguished. There is hardly any excellent feature in the poetry of I(eats which is not super- ficially the feature of some well-recognised master of an age precedent to his own. He boldly takes down, as from some wardrobe of beautiful and diverse raiment, the dress of Spenser, of Milton, of Homer, of Ariosto, of Fletcher, and wears each in turn, thrown over shoulders which completely change its whole appearance and lºroportion. But, if he makes use of modes which are already familiar to us, in their broad outlines, as the modes invented by earlier masters, it is mainly because his temperament was one which impera- tively led him to select the best of all possible forms of expression. His excursions into other people's provinces were always undertaken with a view to the annexation of the richest and most fertile acres. It is comparatively vain to specu- late as to the future of a man whose work was all done between the ages of nineteen and four- and-twenty. Yet I think we may see that what Keats was rapidly progressing towards, until the moment when his health gave way, was a crystal- lisation into one fused and perfect style of all the best elements of the poetry of the ages. When we think of Byron, we see that he would pro- bably have become absorbed in the duties of the ruler of a nation ; in Shelley we conjecture that all was being merged in the politician and the humanitarian, but in Keats poetry was ever steadily and exclusively ascendant. Shall I say what will startle you if I confess that I sometimes fancy that we lost in the author of the five great odes the most masterly capacity for poetic expres- sion which the world has ever seen P |Be this as it may, without vain speculation we may agree that we possess even in this fragment of work, in this truncated performance, one of the most splendid inheritances of English literature. “I have loved the principle of beauty in all things,” Keats most truly said, “the mighty abstract idea of beauty in all things.” It is this passion for intellectual beauty—less disturbed, perhaps, by distracting aims in him than in any other writer of all time—that sets the crown on our conception of his poetry. When he set out upon his mission, as a boy of twenty, he entered that “Chamber of Maiden Thought” of which he speaks to Reynolds, where he became intoxicated with the light and the atmosphere. Many of his warmest admirers seem to have gone with him no further, to have stayed there among the rich colours and the Lydian melodies and the enchant- ing fresh perfumes. But the real Keats evades them if they pass no further. He had already risen to graver and austerer things, he had already bowed his shoulders under the Burden of the Mystery. But even in those darker galleries and up those harsher stairs he took one lamp with him, the light of harmonious thought. The pro- found and exquisite melancholy of his latest verse is permeated with this conception of the loftiest beauty as the only consolation in our jarring and bewildered world : - Beauty is truth, truth beauty—that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. And now, Sir, we turn again to you and to the gracious gift you bring us. In one of his gay moods, Keats wrote to his brother George in Rentucky, “If I had a prayer to make, it should be that one of your children should be the first American poet.” That wish was not realised; the “little child o' the western wild” remained, I believe, resolutely neglectful of the lyre its uncle offered to it. But the prophecies of great poets are fulfilled in divers ways, and in a broader sense all the recent poets of America. are of Keats' kith and kin. Not one but has felt his influence; not one but has been swayed by his passion for the ethereal beauty; not one  ## p. 73 (#87) ############################################## THE AUTIIOI8. 73 but is proud to recognise his authority and dignity. The ceremony of to-day, so touching and so significant, is really, therefore, the pilgrimage of long-exiled children to what was once the home of their father.” Mr. Gosse then read the following sonnet by Mr. Theodore Watts, which appeared in the Athenæum of July 14: Thy gardens bright with limbs of gods at play— Those bowers whose flowers are fruits, Hesperian sweets That light with heaven the soul of him who eats, And lend his veins Olympian blood of day— Were only lent, and, since thou couldst not stay, Better to die than wake in sorrow, Keats, Where even the Sirens' song no longer cheats— Where Love's long “Street of Tombs' still lengthens grey. IBotter to nestle there in arms of Flora, Ere Youth, the king of Earth and Beauty's heir, Drinking such breath in meadows of Aurora As bards of morning drank, AEgean air, Woke in Eld’s lonely caverns of Ellora, Carven with visions dead and sights that were ! Lord Houghton (Lord Lieutenant of Ireland) then addressed the meeting.” His Lordship remarked that it was as the son of Richard Monckton Milnes that he was present that day. He wished his father could have been spared to see that ceremony. The last occasion on which his father appeared in public was at the unveiling of the memorial to the poet Gray. He could not conceive anything which would have moved his father more profoundly than this graceful recog- nition of a poet of whose life and work he was so affectionate a student, by a number of dis- tinguished citizens of that great American Union which he so loved and honoured, and throughout the long breadth of which he owned so many valued friends. It was a most cherished belief of his that, in spite of the political separation which he supposed must be for ever, the unity between the two great countries should be, and was, preserved in the brotherhood of letters on the basis of a common great poetical ancestry. He (Lord Houghton) trusted that he might be allowed to express his own appreciation of the honour which was done to the English world of letters by the graceful homage of so many American ladies and gentlemen to the poet Reats, of whom in his day the world was not worthy, but who was uow regarded as one of the most beloved of English writers. Mr. Sidney Colvin said that these memorials of great men were none too frequent in this country. Here in Hampstead there were two sites especially connected with the memory of Keats, the beloved poet. One was Well-walk, which * The report which follows is taken from the Hampstead and Highgate Ea'press of July 21. still partly retained its ancient features. He believed that the house in which Keats lived with Bentley the postman no longer existed—that Well-walk had been shortened. The bench was pointed out where he sat, but that was not altogether satisfactory. However, lower down, in what was the village of Hampstead, but was now a town, in John-street, there was remarkably little change. The house in which he lived, the garden in which he wrote the famous “Address to the Nightingale,” still existed. He (Mr. Colvin) remembered going there, now ten years ago, with one who had looked upon the features of Adonaïs—a brother of Charles Wentworth Dilke —who showed him what the changes were, so that one could see at Lawn Bank what exactly were the two houses, in one of which Keats lived with the Browns. It had often occurred to him that a benefactor or benefactors might secure that house and make it a memorial to the poet who lived and wrote and suffered there. Perhaps that dream may be realised—perhaps not. In any case they could not be too grateful to those American friends who had brought this memorial now set up in that old parish church of Hamp- stead. Keats was bound to the American people by special ties. Several of his collateral descen- dants were citizens of the United States, and a great deal of what was warmest in his nature flowed out to that country in that invaluable series of charming, enthusiastic letters which he wrote to his brother and sister-in-law at Touis- ville. There could be no question that, of all places to choose for a memorial to Keats, Hamp- stead was the proper place. The best and almost the worst of his life were passed here; and it was in what was then Wentworth House that the first pangs of the illness from which he was never to recover laid him low. He (Mr. Colvin) hoped that here, in the enormously enlarged Hampstead of to-day, would be found, with its increase of homes, a proportionate increase of the readers and lovers of poetry, and that amongst the popu- lation of this place, as well as amongst the larger populations represented in that assembly, there would be found a unanimous sense and voice of gratitude to the English women and Englishmen from over the seas who had brought them that gift. Mr. Francis Turner Palgrave, Professor of Poetry at the University of Oxford, said that Rome, that city wherein were buried three illustrious, unhappy poets—Tasso, Shelley, and Keats, and he the youngest—already held two records of his memory; one the tablet on the house where he died, the other his gravestone in the cemetery where he was buried beneath the wall of Aurelian. Keats' short wandering life  ## p. 74 (#88) ############################################## 74 - THE AUTHOIR. made it difficult to find a decisively fit place for a memorial in his own country. But he thought it would be agreed that none better could have been chosen than Hampstead, where between 1816 and 1820, many of his brightest and also his saddest days were spent, where in early youth he met Hunt and Haydon, and Shelley, where afterwards, when just seemingly in sight of home and happiness the fatal signals of consumption constrained him to confess the terrible Lasciate ogni speranza, and bid farewell to her who was never to be his bride. In Hampstead also were partly written the poems published (1817) in the first of his three precious volumes, full of un- tutored fresh delight in nature and friendship and art, and here, but three years later, some of those splendid lyrical tales and odes which, as Alfred Tennyson more than once said to him (Mr. Palgrave), gave a secure promise that had life been spared Keats would have proved our greatest in poetry since Milton. “ By nothing,” said Matthew Arnold, “is England so glorious as by her poetry.” The place of Keats in that sphere was now established, and needed no words from him. They could read how this “half-schooled ” youth, the stablekeeper's son, the surgeon’s apprentice, not only by native force and inspiration, but by most careful devotion to his art, in some four years' work made himself worthy of the praise bestowed on him by Tennyson, while he also gave clear proof that human life in its deepest and highest sense, yet always under the law of beauty, would have been the subject of his maturer verse. Even more than is the usual fate of high genius, Keats, from his own day onwards, had been misunderstood. He was held sensuous in his life and in his poetry, a second Agathon, wanting in manliness and spirit, a feeble being in all ways. Yet, on the strength of his own Writings, his verse and his letters, and also of all trustworthy records, he ventured to call Keats not only one of the most profoundly interesting, but one of the most attractive and most lovable figures in literature. Manliness, magnanimity, unselfish devotedness, deep love of friends and family, chivalry to woman, sensitiveness too intense for peace of mind, were the dominant notes of his nature. Whilst wholly free from Vanity, Keats was personally self-respecting, and, in that laudable sense, proud, but as to his abilities and his own work almost pathetically humble-minded. Young as he was, he bore what Charles Lamb so truly defined as the surest sign of the highest genius—sanity. In all that there was even more promise of life than in his poetry itself. Thus “lovable and considerate to the last,” humbly after his wont, not (as misinterpreted) bitterly, he spoke of his work and name as “writ in water.” This was a noble soul, strangely and sorely tried, and let them only add there, Re- quiescat in pace. Mr. J. Willis Clark, Registrar of the University of Cambridge, observed that we were apt to accept our historic past too passively, and needed from time to time a gentle awakening by friendly hands to the duties which it entailed. The bust they had received that day would not only remind them of the past, but of those who remembered that Keats had been left without visible memorial in his own country. “A thing of beauty is a joy for ever,” and they rejoiced not only over their beautiful new possession, but over the graceful Kindness of those who had given it to them. Mr. F. H. Day then conducted Mr. Gosse to the bust, and the latter unveiled it. The “bust '' is placed on a square base or bracket, like the bust itself of white marble, against the right-hand side of the chancel, facing the congregation. A portrait of the poet, wrought fortunately in his life-time, has served and, perhaps, inspired the sculptor. On the bracket is inscribed, in gilt letters, “To the ever-living memory of John Reats this monument is erected by Americans, MDCCCXCIV.” Mendelssohn’s anthem, “Then shall the righteous shine forth in their heavenly Father's home,” was then sung, with the chorus, “He that shall endure to the end,” by the choir. A shortened form of evening prayer concluded the ceremony. *- ~ 2-’ ,-- * ~ * NOTES AND NEWS. S the three volume novel really ended ? I think not. A large number of popular novelists will in future publish in the single volume first ; a certain number of novels which have hitherto brought the authors a small sum will cease to appear, because it will not be worth the publisher’s trouble to go on producing them for his share, nor for the author to write them for his share, which we may be quite certain will in many cases be made to bear the whole loss. There will remain a remnant; it will consist chiefly of those books which, if 200 or so are taken by the libraries at I Is. a copy, will pay th ir expenses and something over for the publisher. The author will receive the glory which awaits the writer of such a work. One or two writers of repute will perhaps remain, but not many; the three volume novel will not be ended all at once, but it is doomed; it will die, but perhaps more slowly than we think.  ## p. 75 (#89) ############################################## TIIE A UTIIOR. 75 Should the three-volume novel perish without its farewell hymn P Should there be found no bard in all this land who would be moved to say a word of praise and lamentation ? Not so, The Saturday Review has produced its poet. The old Three-Decker will not vanish without its funeral hymn. He is a worthy poet; his numbers are worthy of the subject. Every writer of three- volume novels should cut out the poem and frame it and hang it up. Anonymous (P) singer, we thank thee! For those who have not read that dirge here is a sample of its quality. Rair held the Trade behind us; ’twas warm with lovers' prayers ; We’d stolen wills for ballast and a crew of missing heirs. They shipped as Able Bastards till the Wicked Nurse con- fessed. And they worked the old Three-Decker to the Islands of the Blest. We asked no social questions, we pumped no hidden shame; - We never talked obstetrics when the Little Stranger came ; We left the Lord in Heaven ; we left the fiends in Hell; We weren't exactly Yusufs but—Zuleika didn’t tell! And through the maddest welter and 'neath the wildest skies, We'd pipe all hands to listen to the skipper's homilies; For oft he’d back his topsle or moor in open Sea. To draw a just reflextion from a pirate on the lee. No moral doubt assailed us, so when the port we neared The Villain took his flogging at the gangway, and we cheered. 'Twas fiddle on the foc'sle—’twas garlands at the mast, For every one got married, and I went ashore at last. I left 'em all in couples a-kissing on the decks; I left the lovers loving and the parents signing cheques— In endless English comfort, by county-folk caressed, I left the old Three-Decker at the Islands of the Blest. IN our notice on the Three Volume Nove] of last number it was assumed that the Cost of Production of a small edition was about £I2O. It is, however, well to consider that there are cheaper methods. Those novels which are issued with a view to a short run in the circulating libraries only, and are not, practically, offered to the public at all, require little or no advertising. Agreat saving is therefore effected under that head. But they are also printed at a much cheaper rate than that contemplated in the Society’s pamphlet. The page is smaller, to begin with ; it contains, as a general rule, about twenty-two lines and 17O words to a page. There are generally 900 pages in the three volumes, or fifty-six sheets, as in our estimate. The work is given out to a cheap printer, who does not employ union men, and pays his compositors less than 9s. a sheet for setting up. It will be understood that with such wages our estimate of 19s. 6d. a sheet for com- position may be very considerably reduced. If the work is also given out by a yearly contract, still further reductions may be made on every item. In fact such a novel can be produced in this manner for something like 38o, or even less. If, therefore, only 250 copies are taken by the libraries—it is a very common thing for a novel not to exceed this circulation—we have at I4S., a return of £175 on an expenditure of £80. It is clearly therefore in the interests of those who have hitherto produced these three volume novels to continue them as long as they possibly cun. Even with the reduction to IIs. a copy will yield a return of £1 17 against an expenditure of £80. The bistory of the novel, when it comes to be written, will show how it has been issued, at different times, in three volumes, four volumes, and even more, for the convenience of the reader, and to avoid holding a heavy volume; the price varied in amount, but was always high ; the people who read them were a small minority, but they bought books. There was no cheap edition thought of, because there was no public outside this small circle of readers. Gradually the circle widened ; there grew up in many places, such as Norwich, Lichfield, and other cathedral towns, circles of readers who wanted to read more than they could afford to buy. Already in London the circulating library had been started. In the country towns book clubs were established—in many respects much more convenient than the circulating library. There were so many book clubs in the country sixty years ago that any publisher of repute could place at once a thousand copies of a new work. This fact explains the great output of nove's about that time; it was s) easy to place them that publishers very naturally thought little of the quality, and sent out so much rubbish that the book clubs refused to take them, and preferred extinction. The English novel during the Thirties and Forties fell into profound dis- repute except for one or two writers—Dickens, Lytton, Ainsworth, for example—who kept the lamp from extinguishing. The cheap edition was introduced about thirty years ago. It was not customary until twenty-five years ago to reprint a serial novel from a magazine. The critics in those days used to be very angry with one who did not acknowledge that his book had appeared in a serial form ; they spoke of it as a deception played upon the public. The appearance of the cheap form began with the two shilling or railway novel; it was at first called contemptuously the “sensation ” novel; people were a little ashamed of liking a good story: the rest we know. Knight, Chambers, Bohn,  ## p. 76 (#90) ############################################## 76 THE AUTHOR. began and carried on the issue of cheap literature; but I believe the only form which proved very successful was that of the novel. The form and price of the novel, as it has varied during the last century, could easily be learned by following the advertisements in the Gentleman’s Magazine, Blackwood’s, the Quarterly, the Edinburgh, and the Athenæum. The last named paper did not begin till, I believe, 1834, but sixty years carries one back a long way in the history of a novel. The advertisement sheets in books would also be of some use. Here is a difficulty not uncommon with us. The young aspirant sends a MS. to the Society to be read. He receives a critical opinion, in which the faults of construction, of style, and everything else are pointed out and explained. His manner of receiving this opinion varies; in many cases he acknowledges the justice of the opinion and the value of the advice; in other cases he falls into wrath. Sometimes he returns his MS. after an interval, saying that he has now altered everything in obedi- ence to his critic, and asks where his work can be placed. Altered the MS. has been, and yet it will not do. How can one make the young aspirant understand that a mere alteration here and there is not enough; that he must change himself so that such defects are impossible P How, again, can one make a young man learn that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred he who succeeds has to work his way upwards P Here and there a Keats blazes out in poetry; here and there a Kipling strikes the right note in early manhood; here and there a Dickens; more often it is the slow growth and the continued work which produced a Fielding, a Thackeray, a Balzac. The mention in Mr. Gosse's address of Henry Kirke White was doubtless suggested by Byron's exaggerated praise and regret for that now neglected and forgotten poet. His early promise, his untimely death, his gallant struggle with adverse fortune, his sincere piety, his simple and beautiful letters procured for him a far greater name than his poetical achievement deserved. He wrote verses with ease, sometimes with grace, and never with any real power or originality. He was born in the greatest poverty, he taught himself, he published a volume of verse in his eighteenth year, he was sent to Cambridge by the Rev. Dr. Simeon, he showed great mathe- matical ability, and would certainly have dis- tinguished himself very highly in mathematical honours; he published another volume of verse —or was it posthumous P-and he died of con- sumption at the age of twenty-one. Had he lived he would have been, probably, Senior Wrangler, First Smith's Prizeman, Fellow of St. John's, lecturer, tutor, leader in the evangelical world, and successor in that position to Dr. Simeon ; Master of his college, and, in due course, perhaps a Bishop. He would also, most certainly, have indited many hymns, some of which we should now be singing out of “Hymns Ancient and Modern,” and there would have been portraits of Him in steel engravings, with a light not of this world in his eyes, sleek and wavy hair, straight whiskers, a silk gown, and Geneva bands. Forty or fifty years ago it was the custom to present boys with an edition of Henry Kirke White, con- taining his poems, a memoir, and selections from his letters. There is a tablet to his memory in one of the Cambridge churches, placed there by an American, like that of Keats at Hampstead, with some memorial lines by Professor Smyth. The Professor meant well, and, indeed, in such verse one cannot very well explain that “un- conquered powers” must be taken poetically. Warm with fond hope and learning's sacred fame, To Granta's bowers the youthful poet came, TJnconquered powers th’ immortal mind displayed; But, worn with anxious thought, the frame decayed. Bale o'er his lamp, and in his cell retired, The martyr student faded and expired— Oh! genius, taste, and piety sincere, Too early lost, 'midst studies too severe ! A letter from Dr. C. J. Wills, on p. 81, calls attention to the use of books in the compilation of articles for the press. In an article to which he refers there were, in all, 759 words, of which 577, or by far the greater part, were, word for word, taken from his book. The writer of the article, it appears—though he denied having seen the book—acknowledged his indebtedness to the “Encyclopædia Britannica,” in which Dr. Wills's book had been quoted, and properly acknowledged. To quote without acknowledgment is, however, a very different thing. Such a case as this is one which may happen to any editor. A contributor, believed to have special knowledge on a certain subject, is invited, or offers, to write upon that subject. Who can suppose that the man of special knowledge is going to consult the “Encyclopædia Britannica?” Why employ the specialist if the Encyclopædia will answer the purpose? An intelligent boy, to select and to copy, would do perfectly well, and be a good deal cheaper. One thing is quite certain, that when a man submits an article, it is understood that it is an original article, wholly written by him from knowledge specially obtained and possessed by him. Any one, for instance, with the aid of  ## p. 77 (#91) ############################################## TILE AUTIOR. .77 “Cook's Voyages,” could write on the manners and customs of the natives of Terra Del Fuego. But only one who has been among this interesting people can write an account containing the results of personal observation. The custom of journalism is that he who com- ments on things—atticles, books, arguments speeches—that is, the leader writer—may use freely whatever he finds in the book or the speech which may assist or advance his own contention. Thus a leader writer on “Fashion among Persian Women’’ would naturally turn to Dr. Wills for the facts; he would freely use the book; but even then he would probably acknowledge his autho- rity. On the other hand, one who communicates a paper on “Fashion among Persian Women” is expected at least to write an original paper. It may be taken for granted that such was the expectation of the editor in this case when he accepted and published the paper on “Persian Women.” Dr. Wills asks how much of an article tendered and accepted as original can be copied, borrowed, or extracted from books or papers on the subject. The answer, of course, is plain—without acknow- ledgment, nothing. How much with acknow- ledgment P That depends upon the editor. It does seem, however, as if a special tariff might with advantage be adopted for such cases. Borrowed work Imight be paid for at the rate of, say, a penny a folio—the price given to a law st itioner for copying documents. The Westminster Budget has called attention to the great age often attained by literary men of distinction. Crébillon died at 88; Voltaire, at 83, superintended the arrangements for the per- formance of “Irene”; Madame d’Arblay died at 88; Herrick at 83; Izaak Walton at 90; John Evelyn at 83; Charles Macklin at 107; Colley Cibber at 86; Wordsworth and Tennyson at over 80; Browning close on 8o; Victor Hugo over 80; Walter Savage Landor at 90. Activity of brain clearly does not hurt the body ; is it not generally attended with physical strength P. On the other hand, Shakespeare died comparatively oung; so did Spenser, Ben Jonson, Pope, Addison, Chatterton, Keats, Byron, and Shelley; a consumptive frame, a weakly constitution, a malarious fever, an accident, account for these early deaths. If we consider, again, the long lives of theologians, lawyers, and men of science, it certainly seems as if long life, as well as honour, success, and all the other things desired by men, was given with intellectual activity. Many years ago I made a table of comparative longevity, using Hole's little Biographical Dictionary, I forget how many names it contained, but there were many hundreds. The result was that divines live longest, then lawyers, then men of letters. The pensions of the year under the Civil List show a greater amount of conscience in the appoint- ment and the distributions than has ever before, any previous year, been exhibited. There is only one appointment which ought not to appear in the list. It is a national disgrace that there is no place for the widow of a distinguished officer except in a list devoted to literature, science, and art. One is far from grudging the meagre pen- sion granted to such a lady, but it is shameful to take it from the slender provision made to litera- ture, science, and art. Elsewhere will be found a question or two asked, and answered, in the House. Mr. Bartley was quite right, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer was quite wrong. The Resolution on which the grant is made, loosely worded as it is, has always been inter- preted to mean that the pensions shall be given to literature, science, and art; unfortunately, personal service to the Crown was included, and meant provision for Her Majesty's teachers and tutors, while “performance of duties to the public ’’ never did mean naval, military, or civil services. Further, though the resolution did not say that persons were to be in necessitous circum- stances, it implied that condition, because no one in affluent circumstances would accept a pension of £75 a year. Tennyson, when he received his pension, was certainly not in affluence. Lastly, the Resolution has been of late interpreted to in- clude widows and daughters of distinguished men which it did not at first contemplate. Thus, in the list before us, eight persons out of sixteen who are on the list, are widows, sisters, or daughters of distinguished men. It is greatly to be wished that Mr. Bartley will continue to watch over the distribution of this grant. But is it not time to alter the wording of the Resolution, and to restrict the grant expressly to persons, or to the widows, children, or sisters of persons, distin- guished in literature, science, and art, who are in distressed circumstances P The book of the month is Lord Dufferin's filial tribute to the memory of his mother. Is not the Sheridan family the only family on record which has continued to hand down its best charac- teristics from one generation to another P Wit, beauty, charm, grace, genius—all these gifts seem born with the descendants of Richard Brinsley Sheridan and Elizabeth Linley. Genius, at least, not to speak of the other qualities, has  ## p. 78 (#92) ############################################## 78 TIII) A UTHOR. never before shown itself to be hereditary. Which of the numerous descendants—nephews and cousins—of Milton, Shakespeare, Dryden, Addison, Swift—what other member of the family of Shelley, Byron, Keats, Wordsworth, Lamb, has shown in his own case that poetical genius may belong to a family P I know not one case at all resembling this of the continuance ºf genius in the children and grandchildren of Sheridan. WALTER BESANT. *- a -º 4- ºr -º LONDON FREE LIBRARIES, E have already (June, 1894) referred to the Report on the Free Libraries of London contained in London, of April 19, 1894. The subject is so important that I have made a more careful analysis of the report, and present here more detailed notes upon the books read and the people who read them. We cannot give too much information to our readers, who should be more interested than any other class in the success and the spread of the free library movement, upon the literary tastes of the people, their standards, the prospects of future advance. For my own part I see nothing to change the opinion I had already formed from independent research on a much more limited scale than that of London ; it is that the taste of the people in literature is sound ; that they do not willingly choose what is called by some “slush,” and by others “truck"—meaning low and worthless works. I am, indeed, persuaded that if a book becomes popular there must be in it some quality of strength, “grip,” or interest out of the common to account for its popularity. This does not mean that a book admirable for its style or for its matter will, on that account, become popular; but that style does not, as some would pretend, make popularity impossible. Thus, among the writers who are most frequently called for are—in history, Green, Froude, Macaulay, Carlyle, and Gardner; in addition to these are mentioned, as in continual demand, Gibbon’s “Decline and Fall,” McCarthy’s “History of our own Times,” Grant’s “British Battles,” Cassell’s “Franco-German War,” Kinglake, Hallam, Malleson, Thornbury, and Strickland. In theo- logy, Farrar, Drummond, Gore, Stanley, Liddon, Newman, Geikie, Milman, Martineau, and Stop- ford Brooke, are most in demand. In art, John Ruskin is easily first, and Miss Jane Harrison and Walter Crane are also wanted. In poetry, Shakespeare, Tennyson, Byron, Goethe, Long- fellow, Kipling, Browning, and Matthew Arnold are the favourites. In science, Darwin, Ball, demand. Huxley, Spencer, and Sir John Lubbock are in In sociology, Ruskin, again, Charles Booth, Thorold Rogers, Karl Marx, are favourites. To these must be added the current and contem- porary books on socialism. In biography, the favourites seem to be the reminiscences and autobiographies so much in vogue at the present. In travel, it is always the newest book that is in demand. We come next to fiction, which presents such an enormous demand as compared with other branches. And here let us consider the warning of the writer in London. He says: Reading the above tables one might come to the conclu- sion that the public libraries are mainly used for the dis- semination of fiction. But without some explanation, tables of percentages prove misleading, and deductions drawn from them entirely erroneous. The percentages of fiction read is artificially raised to the disadvantage of other works. The student of reading in public libraries should bear in mind the following points :— I. That libraries possess more novels than other works, quite as much because they are cheap as that they are often asked for. 2. Novels take a much shorter time to read than serious works. 3. Many novels borrowed and recorded in the percent- ages are not read at all. They are only dipped into —tasted—and returned unread as unsatisfactory. 4. Juvenile literature which does not consist entirely of fiction is often included in that department, and in some cases other non-fictional works. 5. Reading in reference libraries—where there is little or no fiction—is never included in the percentages. . A large number of new readers cultivate a taste for reading fiction, and graduate to more solid fare. N.B.-As only four of the London public libraries have been in full working order for more than two or three years, there has not yet been much time to elevate the taste of the readers. Bearing these guiding facts in mind, it will be seen that the high percentage of fiction is fallacious. In the private subscription libraries—Mudie’s, W. H. Smith and Sons, and the Grosvenor Library—patronised by the middle and upper classes, about 90 per cent. of fiction is read. They read tho latest topical favourite, follow the craze of Society, must be up to date with the latest neurotic story, simply because it is the fashion to read such books in such circles. The reading in the popular public libraries is not regulated by fashion. They are a much better test of the permanent literary qualities of a book. We must never forget that most readers, whether at the free libraries or at home, read for amusement; they therefore read fiction. And one would add that the great mass of people, leading dull and monotonous lives, and not parti- cularly anxious to advance their knowledge or cultivate their intellect, cannot do better than read fiction. It fills their minds with new thoughts; it introduces them to a society which they are not likely to enter; it widens their minds; it teaches them manners, ideas, history, everything. Let the majority read fiction by all IIlêa, Il S. Who are the most popular of novelists P 6  ## p. 79 (#93) ############################################## TIII. A UTIIOIP. 79 Dickens, Scott, Thackeray, Marryatt—among dead authors; and among living authors all those whom we recognise at Mudie's or Smith's as being the most popular. Since the taste of the masses at the free libraries exactly agrees as to fiction with that of the classes at Mudie’s and Smith's, the less we listen to talk about “slush ’’ the better. Who are the people who use these libraries? Clerks head the list; then come governesses and teachers; then every kind of trade that can be enumerated. There are also representatives of every profession; but, of course, trades far out- number professions, and the readers, with the exception of clerks and teachers, are practically of the working class. In short, what is clearly demonstrated by this investigation are the broad facts that the popular taste in literature is sound and wholesome ; that the books read by the crafts are the same as those read by their “betters,” to use the old word, and that from 60 to 90 per cent., that is to say a proportion about the same for the free libraries as for Mudie’s, read for amusement, and therefore read fiction. For whom, then, are there printed the thou- sands upon thousands of penny novelettes, stories of highwaymen and bold defiers of the man in blue, the hero schoolboy, the romantic adventures of the young lady depicted outside P These things are not bought or read by those who frequent the libraries; they are read and bought by school-bows, school-girls, rough lads, who do the lowest kind of work, and servant girls, who have a good deal of time for reading. We do not think of these when we speak of the public or of the popular taste. Must we think of them P Then our conclusions must be taken with ex- ceptions and deductions. Meantime, there are not half enough libraries in London. Outside the city there are only thirty-one which have adopted the Act. Those who desire to know what the Act is, how it should be set in force, what arguments may be used to persuade the unwilling and the prejudiced voter, may consult Thomas Greenwood’s admirable work on “Public Libraries” (Cassell and Co.). There are those who think that the working man should be left to buy his own books, and to advance himself, teach himself, cultivate himself, if he likes. But, left to himself, the working man will not like. only because necessity, self-interest, prudence, self-preservation, desire for greater comfort, longer life, and other reasons of the kind, lead him, pull him, drag him, shove him, and flog him. Give the working man his library, by all means, Nothing is more certain than that the man achieves these fine things for himself but you must lead him into it. He acquires the taste for reading ; he returns; if he is intellectu- ally active he is stimulated to learn; if not he reads fiction, and finds what the world is like outside his own. Leave him quite alone and he will become—what the working man of London was a hundred years ago, when he had been left alone for two hundred years. You will find in the pages of the late Mr. Patrick Colquhoun, Magistrate, what was the consequence of leaving him alone. W. B. > ºr: WANTED TO PUBLISH. T is suggested by a correspondent, that under this heading might be advertised MSS. ready for publication, or subjects on which it is proposed to write articles. It would be a new departure. Editors and publishers are accustomed to receive MSS., not to answer advertisements offering them. It might happen, however, that the subject or the name of the author, if that is advertised as well, might cause a desire to see the MS. We are quite ready to act upon the suggestion and to advertise for our members or others such particulars of their works as they may think enough to make known the scope and general contents. Our correspon- dent points out that if this plan were taken up it might save a great deal of worry and needless trouble in sending MSS. around. The secretary is constantly asked to suggest the most likely maga- zines for papers. He can only advise on this point in general terms, e.g., an anecdotal paper on some well-known literary person, especially if the stories are derived from letters unpublished, is welcome in most magazines. A popular paper on travel is also generally welcome. But each case stands by itself. It seems possible that a man who has written a paper of special interest might get an answer to his advertisement. However that may be, we are willing at least to try the experiment. For terms address the advertisement agent of the Author, 4, Portugal-street. Members of the Society will pay half the price charged to those, who are not members. - - * - a 2-º r = w -s CORRESPONDENCE T.—ENGLISII AND AMERICAN MAGAZINEs. HAVE long been thinking over the causes of the apparent decay of the English maga- zine and the undoubted prosperity of the American magazine. It is quite true, as was said in the article on the subject in last month's  ## p. 80 (#94) ############################################## 8O T/IE A UTII () [". Author, that one never sees English magazines in America, and that one does everywhere see American magazines in England. I believe the reasons of the decay of the one and the popu- larity of the other to be chiefly those pointed out in the article, viz., that the American magazine is carefully thought out and planned beforehand, while its English rival depends mainly on the casual contributor ; that the American editor gives to his journal all his time, all his thoughts, all his energies, while the English editor sits in his room, receives casual contributions, selects from them, and does his editing, say, while he takes his lunch. Again, there are four or five highly priced magazines which desire to be the recognised exponents of the best wisdom and experience of the time. Their high price keeps down their circulation, while the subjects of their papers are generally those of which people have been reading every day in the newspapers for the last month. Is it impossible for our magazines to learn a lesson from the Americans? Are we too proud to be taught that if we would lead the people, we must write on lines that please the people P This truth is understood by the daily papers: why not by the magazines P. One would not exclude the casual contributor, who is most useful in his way; but we must not absolutely depend upon him. Fiction is all very well, but we must not have too much of it. Laboured essays are all very well, but we do not want many of them. Literary papers, estimates of dead men, “slatings ’’ of living men, we do not want in any large quantities—“slatings,” not at all. Nothing damages a magazine or a journal more effectively than the bludgeon. Papers on art we want, if they are by artists; poetry we want, if it is good. I venture to submit a pro- gramme for the year 1895, which, I think, would raise even the decaying Cheapside, or the fallen Bungay’s, to a level with Harper, the Century, or the Cosmopolitan. (1) Recent British Conquest in Africa. By H. C. Selous. (2) Fleet Street Idylls. John Davidson. (3) Short Stories by various writers. two in each number. (4) Manners, Customs, and Religions in South India. By * * * * late judge in Muckampore. (5) A New and Original Play. By one of the half dozen who can write plays. (6) Proverbes. By Anthony Hope. (7) Acts unrepealed. By a Barrister. (8) Twelve Old Books. By Edmund Gosse. . (9) A new Novel. By any good writer. (10) The History of the Isle of Man. By Hall Caine. One or Second series. By (II) The Highlands as they are. By William Black. (I.2) Art of the Day, from month to month. By * * * (painter and writer). (13) The House of Commons : Its procedure, laws, and customs. By * * * M.P. This is a programme which I imagine would “catch on.” The magazine must be illustrated. Nearly all these things would be serials, running for six months or more, to be published by the house which owns the magazine after its run. I am not a philanthropist, nor do I desire very much to put money into the pockets of any London publisher. But I do desire to see our English magazines rise out of the slough into which they seem rapidly sinking, and take their place once more in the front, and this can only be effected by doing exactly what the American magazines are doing. I am quite convinced that the reign of the casual contributor is long since over and done, and that editing cannot be done while one eats his lunch, nor even over a cup of afternoon tea. CoNTRIBUTOR. II.-GRAMMATICAL USE OF “NOR.” Mr. Skeat's sentiments about grammar seem to me somewhat anarchical. No doubt grammar has grown up out of usage; but it has rules, which cannot be infringed with impunity. Good writers often permit themselves to fall into slip- shod English, but that does not make slipshod writing good style. I should like to know why it is logically correct to say, “It did not rain nor blow.” It seems to me to involve a double nega- tive. And the length of a sentence cannot, surely, make any difference. In the sentence given by Mr. Skeat as a lengthened one, there is another verb, which does make a difference. It would, I think, be quite correct to say, “It did not rain nor did it biow,” but it seems to me both more correct and more elegant to say, “It did not rain or blow,” than “It did not rain nor blow.” The sentence is equivalent to “It did. not either rain or blow.” If “Mätzner shows that even good authors occasionally use neither— or instead of neither—nor,” he shows, I think, simply that good authors are sometimes careless; no good author could intentionally write such abominable grammar. H. A. FEILDEN. Surely Professor Skeat's lengthened sentence has nothing to do with the first. He has lengthened “It did not rain nor did it blow,” where “or,” would be obviously wrong. The repetition of “did it’ disjoins rain and blow, connected in “It did not rain or blow.” If “did '' relates to “blow,” “nor’’ is a double negative. Every one who wishes to “appreciate’”  ## p. 81 (#95) ############################################## TILE AUTIIOR. 8 I mistakes should study the rather hypercritical, but invaluable, “Hodgson's Errors in the Use of English.” G. III–WHAT is PERMIssible? On reading an article in the Pall Mall Gazette, “The Wares of Autolycus,” on Persian Women, July 3, 1894, the language seemed strangely familiar to me. On comparing the article with my book, “The Land of the Lion and Sun” (Macmillan's 1883, p. 322), I discovered that out of 759 words of which the article was com- posed, 577 were mine, and 182 those of the inge- nious author. I saw the editor of the Pall Mall Gazette, who expressed his surprise, and promised that I should hear from the author. I did so, and was some- what astonished to learn that the author had never read my book, though he had heard it quoted. But on turning to the “Encyclopædia Britannica,” article Persia, I find my description of costume given (and acknowledged), which might account for this statement. But what I want to know from you, Mr. Editor, is, what is the exact amount that can be “extracted” without acknowledgment, and how little can be added to constitute an original article? What must be the ratio of sack to the half-penny- worth of bread P Is it, as in the present case— sack, one part ; extract, three-fourth parts. C. J. WILLs, Author “Land of the Lion and Sun.” P.S.—Since writing the above I have again seen the editor P. M. G., who handed me a letter from the writer of the article, in which he acknow- ledges his indebtedness to the “Encyclopædia Britannica,” a foot-note in which would have told him that the information as to Persian costume was obtained from me. I inclose the article, and with the editor's P. M. G. consent I write you. IV.-CorrecTIONs. A correspondent writes: “In Professor Skeat's interesting grammatical note on the use of ‘nor,” in the last number of The Author, the name of the translator of Mätzner's ‘English Grammar’ is given as Grice ; this is a misprint, it should be Grece. The learned work, published in 1874 by Murray, has long been out of print, I believe, and a new revised edition, undertaken by Dr. Grece—who now practises as a lawyer—in conjunc- tion with a professed English philologist, would be of great advantage to students of English. “The second correction refers to the name of the editor of Halm’s ‘Griseldis,’ published at the Oxford University Press, which should read: Buchheim.” - W.—REMAINDERs. º With regard to par. 4, on pp. 429-30, concern- ing publishers' agreements and remainder sales, the following suggestion may be useful: A printed agreement form sent me by a pub- lishing firm contained this clause : “As to copies sold in the United Kingdom or elsewhere by auction or privately to a dealer at reduced prices, or by way of “remainder,” at the amounts actually received in respect thereof.” This clause I naturally objected to, since it left my affairs entirely to the publishers’ discretion, and abrogated entirely any claim of mine to have a voice in such sales at reduced prices. I there- fore struck out the whole clause, and inserted the following:} - “That no sale shall be made at reduced prices in any way unless by the author's written con- sent.” This alteration, which was at once accepted by the publishers without any demur or difficulty, appears to me to safeguard the author very effectually. - A FREE LANCE. *-* -º r- - - B00K TALK. M [* ULICK R. BURRE has written a life of Benito Juarez, which necessarily brings before us once more the modern history of Mexico and its relations with European policy. Juarez, it will be remembered, was the Constitutional President of the Mexican Republic, an office to which he properly passed from the post of Vice-President. This is a point which Mr. Burke considers of great importance, because it shows the strength of Juarez's position, and also the illegality of the attempts to remove him made by monarchical and other pretenders. Mr. Burke persists in calling Juarez an Indian, though he is careful to say that he was of the “pure blood of the Zapotecs; ” that is, he was not a Toltec, or a Chichinec, or even an Aztec. But when one has been at some pains carefully to distinguish these tribes, surely it is lost labour to put them altogether again and call one’s hero an Indian. Benito Juarez then, was a Zapotec, for his father and mother were of the pure blood of the Zapotecs; he was born in 1806, entered the Mexican Congress in 1832, and became President in 1857. The leading features of the new constitution chiefly due to him, and which was promulgated in that year, were, Mr. Burke says: A free press, freedom of meeting, equal civil rights, com- plete religious toleration, the abolition of special tribunals, of heriditary honours, of monopolies of all unjust privileges.  ## p. 82 (#96) ############################################## 82 TIII) A UTIIOIR. By which it will appear that Juarez deserved to succeed—he represented the cause of freedom just as much as his opponents represented the cause of slavery. Mr. Burke retells the story of the ill-fated Maximilian—a prince who was never able to distinguish the regulation of a court and the duties of courtiers from the governing of a country and the duties of citizenship—and shows how he was the tool of the clerical and absolutist faction, and that between the schemes of the Jesuits and the schemes of Napoleon III., it is no wonder a weak man became a criminal. So that, apart from the interesting story Mr. Burke has to tell, his volume becomes one of general utility as a warning against the kind of Government or want of government which is sure to obtain where ministers of religion are permitted to influence ministers of State. Burke's book has received praise from the financial press, and those interested will find the history of the Mexican debt carefully told. It is not very long ago that an evening contemporary, interviewing the editor of the Intransigeant, drew from him the remark that la haute politique was becoming nothing more than la haute finance. If that be so, it is instructive to read in these pages how the worn-out Statecraft of Europe over- reached itself in its dreams of manipulating the supposed wealth of a comparatively new country. Indeed, there seems to have been no end to the attempts made to exploit Mexico for the benefit of the Emperor and the Church. Of the three, Napoleon III., Pius IX., and Maxi- milian, so far as Mexico is concerned, only one got his deserts. As for Juarez, he remains the “great President’’ in the memory of his people. - Mr. John Willis Clark, F.S.A., has published his Rede Lecture of this year, on Libraries in the Mediaeval and Renaissance Periods (Macmillan and Co.). He traces the growth of the library, especially, in churches and monasteries, from the earliest beginnings to the Renaissance. It does not appear that the custom of giving books to churches, which began the Christian Library, was long maintained. Augustine gave his books to the church of Hippo to form a library. Althousand years later Caxton bequeathed books to St. Mar- garet's, but to be sold. An occasional king, an occasional bishop, formed libraries, but the real home of the Mediaeval library was the monastery. his was not a stately room, but simply a wooden press set up in a recess in the cloisters in which the books were kept, vertical as well as horizontal partitions being set up, so that the books should not get damp or be packed close to each other. At Christ Church, Canterbury, at the beginning of the fourteenth century there were 698 volumes. We may also note that Mr. all kept in presses put up wherever room could be found for them. As the books increased in number, a room became necessary. The Canter- bury library was built between 1414 and 1443; that of Durham about the same time. The monks were enjoined to spend a part of their time in reading. Benedict's Rule orders that at the beginning of Lent every monk was to have a book given him, which he was to read through before the end of Lent. The nature of the work, or its length, seems to have been unconsidered. The arrangement of desks, seats, and books, the chain- ing of books, and the lending of books, are treated in this little volume, which is a valuable con- tribution to the history and the literature of the library, whether regarded as a museum, i.e., the temple or haunt of the Muses, a place which is haunted by the men of the past, or as a modern workshop; a place where things are to be found and learned, or “as a gigantic mincing machine, into which the labours of the past are flung, to be turned out again in a slightly altered form as the literature of the present.” Mr. Mackenzie Bell’s monograph on “Charles Whitehead,” a forgotten genius, has been re- issued as a new edition, if edition it can properly be called. There is new matter in the volume in the shape of an appreciation of Whitehead by Mr. Hall Caine, and there is a new preface in which the author recounts certain circumstances which he writes “have rendered a re-issue of the unbound * remainder “ of my volume desirable.” Of the book itself it may be said that Mr. Bell has executed his task with excellent taste, for he has made it clear that the story of the author's life must not be taken into account in judging his literary merit. Note is taken of the high opinion in which Whitehead was held by Rossetti, Professor Wilson, Lord Lytton, and Douglas Jerrold, chiefly as the author of “Richard Savage.” - Miss Eleanor Tee has written a book for young women and girls entitled “This Everyday Life.” It has a preface by the Rev. C. Pickering Clarke, in which the object of the work is thus described: “The book is designed to give working women and girls a true insight into the meaning of that life here, which seems so heavily weighted by the obligation to work.” Miss Tee has set herself the difficult task of bringing home the idea of the “dignity of labour to some of the workers whose duties are styled service.” Mr. Thomas McCarthy, instructor in gymnas- tics, has written for the “use of public elementary schools,” in accordance with the new code, “An Easy System of Physical Exercises and Drill.” The directions given are intended for those other  ## p. 83 (#97) ############################################## TIIE. A UTIIOIR. 83 than drill serjeants who wish to learn how to drill school boys and school girls. From the great number of the directions and their complex nature it is clear the new code must demand a very comprehensive system of muscular training. We are aware that many parents are not entirely satisfied with the reasons given for the compulsory drilling of their children, and, if they are at all in ignorance of what that system is, Mr. McCarthy’s book can teach them. English people other than yeomanry cavalry and militia have been drilled for years, but it is a common remark that if they have to march in procession—unfortunately a growing custom—they do it very badly. Perhaps Mr. McCarthy’s book will help to change that. It is published by W. H. Allen and Co. Mr. Robert Bingley’s “Borderlands,” a volume of poems, religious and secular, including some translations, has passed into a second edition. It is published by the Oxford University Press. Every Saturday evening for a good many weeks —or months—the readers of the JWestminster Gazette were invited to read a most charming little dialogue, full of cleverness, epigram. The epigrams were not barbed, nor were they intended to wound, nor was the cleverness obtruded. These delicate and sprightly things were signed A. H. They are now collected and published at the office of the JWestminster Gazette. And they are the work of Mr. Anthony Hope, author of the “Prisoner of Zenda.” Mr. Julian Sturgis has issued a volume of poems (Longman and Co.), in which he proves that his power as a writer of verse is equal to that of a writer of prose. Mr. R. E. Salwey has completed a new novel, called “Ventured in Wain,” which will be pub- lished in September by Messrs. Hurst and Blackett in two-volume form. Miss Frances Mary Peard's novel, “An Interloper,” which has been running as a serial in Temple Bar, will be published in two-volume form by Messrs. Bentley and Son, and simul- taneously by Messrs. Harpers in America. Mr. Anthony C. Deane will publish, in the early autumn, a volume of light verse, reprinted from the magazines and journals in which it first appeared. Among them are Punch, where the larger part was first produced, the Cornhill, Longman's, Temple Bar, St. James's Gazette, the Globe, the Westminster Gazette, the Pall Mall Gazette, the Granta, and Vanity Fair. The publishers are Messrs. Henry and Co. Mr. R. Thistlethwaite Casson, author of “Bonnie Mary,” “A Modern Ishmael,” “The Doctor's Doom,” and many other successful serials, has been commissioned by Mr. George Newnes, M.P., to write a series of novelettes for the “Illustrated Penny Tales,” now being published by George Newnes Limited. - - Mrs. Preston has translated some of the poems of Friedrich von Bodenstedt, which will be pub- lished by the Roxburghe Press early in August under the title of “The Mountain Lake.” Mrs. Stevenson, the author of “Mrs. Severn,” published by Messrs. R. Bentley and Son, and which the Guardian compared for power with “Janet's Repentance,” has another story on intemperance now in the press. It is appearing first in the Temperance Chronicle, whose critic judged “Mrs. Severn " as “the most powerful temperance story that has ever been written,” and later it will form one of the C.E.T.S. Azalea series. Its title is “Helena Hadley.” Last year Messrs. R. Bentley and Son published “Mrs. Elphinstone of Drum ” for the same writer. A second edition of “A Girl’s Ride in Iceland,” by Mrs. Alec Tweedie, will appear in a few days. It will be published by Horace Cox. Mrs. James Suisted sends us a lively little volume, published at Dunedin (Otago Daily Times Office), New Zealand. It is a record of travel, and is called “From New Zealand to Norway.” It is, perhaps, useless to wish for a book published only in a colony success in the English book market. Mr. E. St. John Fairman, 66, Southampton- row, W.C., publishes his new book himself. It is called “An Electric Flash on the Egyptian Question.” A copy of Mrs. Dixon's book on “Columbia.” has been graciously accepted by the Queen. It was presented by Sir Henry Ponsonby. By the publication of “A Seventh Child” (F. W. White and Co.) in one volume instead of two, John Strange Winter has been the first among popular authors to adapt herself to the new state of things brought about by the circulars issued by Smith and Mudie on special library editions. “A Seventh Child” deals with the subject of clairvoyance, and derives its title from the super- stition that “the seventh child of a seventh child is gifted with the second sight.” The story, which records the experiences of such child, has been running as a serial in Mrs. Stannard's magazine Winter’s Weekly. Professor Raleigh has written a book for Murray’s “University Extension Manuals” on the history of the English novel, from its origin to Sir Walter Scott. Could not the history be  ## p. 84 (#98) ############################################## 84 TIIE AUTHOR. extended, so as to include Thackeray, Dickens, Reade, Collins, Kingsley, George Eliot, the Brontës, and Mrs. Gaskell? ... The papers have been full of discussions, letters, and leaders on the subject of the three-volume novel. A collection of cuttings has been made by Mr. Thring, on which we may find an opportunity of speaking in the next number. Some of the papers speak as if the novel must be killed when the three-volume form is abandoned. Will not the libraries, then, take any of the one- volume form P. The following remarks are taken from the St. James's Gazette. In the second line, for the “Incorporated Society of Authors” read “those who are novelists in the Society of Authors,” the resolution of the council having been adopted mainly in consequence of their singular unanimity. The novelists on our list form perhaps one-fourth of the whole number. Nor have the “Authors”—meaning the society —said a word in their resolution on the subject of the libraries. “The three-volume novel seems to be in the painful position of Mr. Pickwick in the Pound— of having no friends. The Incorporated Society of Authors has, with only a single dissentient, pronounced against it ; and that society has been generally regarded as having especially at heart the interests of young novelists, in whose favour chiefly the three-volume system has been supposed to operate. The Authors argue that the only possible persons to profit by the plan were the libraries, who under it became monopolist middle- men between the producers and consumers of all new novels for the most profitable period. Yet the late M. Mudie protested that he hated it; and it is the libraries whose present action has threatened its continued existence. The three- volume novel looks as if it were going to die without any mourner to drop the sympathetic tear —except, perhaps, the Bishop of London, who will be unable henceforward to begin his fiction with the third volume. “When it is gone we shall all begin to regret the easy print and ample margin; for, after all, for the really long novel it is the most agreeable form. ‘Middlemarch' and ‘Daniel Deronda,” are disagreeable enough in the single volumes, and without perseverance and good eyesight it needs faith or fashion to get one through the new ‘Marcella.' But the price of the three volumes was prohibitive, and the generality of the old custom of a first appearance in this form not easily defensible.” WHAT THE PAPERS SAY. CERTAIN REMEDIES. R. JOHNSTON'S remark that ‘ the books & 4 M of certain novelists had had a more potent effect on him than all the quinine and drugs he had introduced into Africa’ suggests a new vein for publishers' advertise- ments. Why not work the hygienic motive on which so many other advertisements rely with such success? As thus:— BESANT's World-FAMED CURE.-Unrivalled for Head- ache, Lassitude, and a Sluggish Liver. Worth a Guinea. a Volume. A Circulating Librarian writes:– “I take them regularly, and am now sensible of a marked improvement in my whole system.’ BLACK's Soot HING SYRUP (Highland Blend).-Indis- pensable when yachting. A sure preventive of mal de mer. Should be taken (on subscription) in all Climates. Put up in Uniform Doses; one quality throughout. An Analyst writes:—‘I have examined Mr. William Black's various Preparations. All the samples seem to be com- pounded of the same well-tried ingredients in various pro- portions, and can be warranted absolutely harmless, even for the most delicate. A Sound Family Medicine. Have you a nasty taste in your mouth on waking up in the morning (after reading Latter-day Fiction overnight) P Then TRY BLACK's Soo THING SYRUI”. For ANZEMIA : TRY RIDER HAGGARD.—From an African Recipe. Unrivalled for the Blood. The Young like it ; Children take it readily. PLAIN PILLS FROM THE HILLS.–(Registered Title.) Put up in Small Doses. An Anglo-Indian writes: “Please send me a fresh consignment.” Caution.—Insist on seeing R. Kipling’s Name on Label. DR. ConAN DOYLE's PRESCRIPTION.—A Certain Solu- tion. Equal to the most Obscure Cases. Does not fool about the place, but quickly finds out what is wrong, and puts it right. No Holmes without it.” JWestminster Gazette. Our Paris correspondent telegraphs: “M. Leconte de Lisle, Victor Hugo’s successor in the Academy, and since his death the chief French poet, died on Tuesday night from heart disease. He had an attack of pneumonia on Friday, from which he never rallied. He was born in 1820 in the island of Réunion, whither his parent had emigrated from Brittany. He was sent to Rennes to be educated, and in 1853 published “Poèmes Antiques.” A second volume, ‘Poèmes Bar- bares,” appeared in 1862, and in 1882 he issued * Poèmes Tragiques.’ These works made no bid for general popularity, but were addressed to the cultured few capable of appreciating artistic per- fection. He was, as it were, a sculptor in poetry. His love of the classics was shown by numerous translations, sometimes rugged, but admirably chiselled. In 1873 his tragedy “Les Erynnies’ was played at the Odéon, and in 1888 he published a second tragedy, “L’Apollonide,” which was  ## p. 85 (#99) ############################################## TIIE AUTIIOI?. 85 never acted. M. Gaston Deschamps, in the Temps, after dwelling on his superiority to all vulgar ambitions and artifices, says:—" He closes, or nearly so, the series of great poets who have given a voice to our century. His verses will long resound in our charmed and faithful memory. But we also lose in him a consoling example, an intellectual and moral authority, not easily re- placed. Fate would almost seem bent on un- crowning France. To lose in two years Taine, Renan, Leconte de Lisle are too many bereave- ments at once. Who will console us P Who will guide us on the uncertain road to truth and beauty P I see, indeed, in the throng of young contemporaries, admirers, disciples, and especially detractors of these illustrious men. I do not see their successors.’”—Times, July 19. *~ * ~ * LITERATURE AT OXFORD, D" LENTZNER will deliver five Free Public Lectures in Comparative Literature at Oxford, during the Michaelmas Term, 1894, viz., one in English, called “Some Aspects of Literature,” on Monday, Oct. 22, at noon ; two in English, on Björnstjerne Björnson, on Mondays, Oct. 29 and Nov. 5, at noon ; and two in German, on “Richard Wagner als Dichter,” on Mondays, Nov. I 2 and 19, at noon. >ec: NEW BOOKS AND NEW EDITIONS, Theology. BEECHING, REv. H. C. Seven Sermons to Schoolboys. With a Preface by Canon Scott Holland. Methuen. 2s. 6d. CANTERBURY, ARCHBISHOP OF. Echoes from the Choir of Norwich Cathedral, being the sermons preached when it was reopened after reparation. With an Introduction by the Dean of Norwich. Jarrold. 2s. 6d. CUST, ROBERT N., LL.D. Essay on the Prevailing Methods of the Evangelisation of the non-Christian World. Luzac and Co. GRAY, REv. DR. H. B. Men of Like Passions. Being sermons preached to Bradfield Boys. Longmans. 5s. HARTE, RICHARD. The New Theology. E. W. Allen. 2s. 6d. MACLAREN, A. Illustrations from Sermons of, edited and selected by J. H. Martyn. 3s. 6d. MALDONATUS, JoHN. A Commentary on the Holy Gospels —St. Matthew’s Gospel. Translated and edited from the original Latin by George J. Davie. Part II. John Hodges. Is. PRINCE, B. The World’s Malady: Its Root and Remedy. To which is added the Basis of Religion presented to us by the Parliament of Religions assembled at Chicago. Simpkin, Marshall. 38, 6d. - CAMPBELL, LORD ARCHIBAL.D. ScHoDEER, L. W. A Chapter of Church's History from South Germany. Translated by W. Wallis. Longmans. 38. 6d. SINCLAIR, ARCHDEACON. The English Church and the Canon Law. Fourth Charge. Elliot Stock. 6d. STRACEY, REv. W. J. Short Sermons on the Psalms. Fourth series, including Psalms lxxiii-cvi. Skeffingtons. SS. STUDIA SINAITICA, No. I. : Catalogues of the Syriac MSS. in the Convent of St. JKatharine on Mount Sinai, com- piled by Agnes Smith Lewis (Ios. 6d. net); STUDIA SINAITICA, NO. II., an Arabic version of the Epistles of St. Paul to the Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, with part of the Epistle to the Ephesians, from a 19th century MS. in the Convent of St. Katharine on Mount Sinai, edited by Margaret Dunlop Gibson (58. net). C. J. Clay. SweTE, PROFESSOR. The Apostle's Creed. C. J. Clay. 3s. TEE, ELEANOR. This Everyday Life. With a preface by the Rev. C. Pickering Clarke. George Bell. 2s. net. 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Title A name given to the resource The Author, Vol. 05 Issue 03 (August 1894) Subject The topic of the resource <em>The Author</em>, Vol. 05 Issue 03 (August 1894) Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015013732253" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015013732253</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Publication Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1894-08-01-The-Author-5-3 publication The Author https://historysoa.com/files/original/5/268/1894-09-01-The-Author-5-4.pdf 25c4ae48df80d2b12eb82afc5ae0a01e PDF Text Text ������������������������ Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Author Subject The topic of the resource <em>The Author</em> Description An account of the resource A digitised run of the Society of Authors' monthly periodical, <em>The Author</em>, 1890<span>–</span>1914, made available together for the first time.<br /><br />Currently users can browse issues and <a href="https://historysoa.com/items/browse?search=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Index&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;tags=&amp;exhibit=&amp;date_search_term=&amp;submit_search=Search+For+Items&amp;sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CTitle">indices</a> (not available for all volumes). Full text search for all issues, and other additional search functionality, will be added in 2022. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1890–1914 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context The-Author-Issues Publication Date The date of an event (in YYYY, YYYY-MM or YYYY-MM-DD format) 1894-09-01 Volume 5 Issue 4 Pages Page range in volume 89–112 Ngram Date Version of the date in YYYYMMDD format for use by the Ngram plugin 18940901 Ngram Text Version of the text with no HTML formatting for use by the Ngram plugin C be El u t b or, (The Organ of the Incorporated Society of Authors. Monthly.) CONDUCTED BY WALTER BES.A.N.T. WOL. W.-No. 4.] SEPTEMBER 1, 1894. [PRICE SIXPENCE. For the Opinions eaſpressed in papers that are signed or initialled the Authors alone are responsible. None of the papers or para- graphs must be taken as eaſpressing the collective opinions of the committee unless they are officially signed by G. Herbert Thring, Sec. HE Secretary of the Society begs to give notice that all remittances are acknowledged by return of post, and requests that all members not receiving an answer to important communications within two days will write to him without delay. All remittances showld be crossed Union. Bank of London, Chancery-lame, 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. *~ * ~ * g- - -—s WARNINGS AND ADVICE, I. RAWING THE AGREEMENT.-It is not generally . understood that the author, as the vendor, has the absolute right of drafting the agreement upon whatever terms the transaction is to be carried out. Authors are strongly advised to exercise that right. 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That the Authors' Syndicate does not invite MSS. without previous correspondence, and does not hold itself responsible for MSS. forwarded without notice. 8. That the Syndicate undertakes arrangements for lectures by some of the leading members of the Society; that it has a “Transfer Department” for the sale and purchase of journals and periodicals; and that a “Register of Wants and Wanted ” has been opened. Members anxious to obtain literary or artistic work are invited to com- municate 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. *~ * → NOTICES, HE Editor of the Author begs to remind members of the Society that, although the paper is sent to them free of charge, the cost of producing it would be a very heavy charge on the resources of the Society if a great many members did not forward to the Secretary the modest 6s. 6d. subscription for the year. The Editor is always glad to receive short papers and communications on all subjects connected with literature from members and others. Nothing can do more good to the Society than to make the Awthor complete, attractive, and interesting. Will those who are willing to aid in this work send their names and the special subjects on which they are willing to write P Communications for the Author should reach the Editor not later than the 21st of each month. All persons engaged in literary work of any kind, whether members of the Society or not, are invited to communicate to the Editor any points connected with their work which it would be advisable in the general interest to publish. Members and others who wish their MSS. read are requested not to send them to the Office without previously communicating with the Secretary. The utmost practicable despatch is aimed at, and MSS. are read in the order in which they are received. It must also be distinctly under- stood that the Society does not, under any circumstances, undertake the publication of MSS. The Authors’ Club is now open in its new premises, at 3, Whitehall-court, Charing Cross. Address the Secretary for information, rules of admission, &c. Will members take the trouble to ascertain whether they have paid their subscriptions for the year P. If they will do this, and remit the amount, if still unpaid, or a banker's order, it will greatly assist the Secretary, and save him the trouble of sending out a reminder. Members are most earnestly entreated to attend to the warning numbered (8). It is a most foolish and may be a most disastrous thing to enter into an agreement binding for a term of years. Let them ask themselves if they would give a solicitor the collection of their rents for five years to come, whatever his conduct, whether he was honest or dishonest? Of course they would not. Why then hesitate for a moment when they are asked to sign them- selves into literary bondage for three or five years P Those who possess the “Cost of Production ” are requested to note that the cost of binding has advanced 15 per cent. This means, for those who do not like the trouble of “doing sums,” the addition of three shillings in the pound on this head. In other words, if the cost of binding is set down in our book at eight pounds, to this must now be added twenty-four shillings more, so that it now stands at 489 48. The figures in our book are as near the exact truth  ## p. 91 (#105) ############################################# THE AUTHOR. 9 I 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. *-* -º * * * LITERARY PROPERTY, I.—Fox-Bourn E v. WERNoN AND Co. HIS case, finished on Aug. 3, heard before T the Lord Chief Justice and a special jury, was one in which an editor claimed twelve months' notice of dismissal, whereas he had only received six months' notice. The jury found a verdict for the defendants. The case would have little interest for this paper but for the words of the judge in defining what is meant by “custom '' (see the Times, Aug. 4, 1894). “Custom,” he said, “in its strict legal sense, was a uniform and universal practice so well defined and recognised that contracting parties must be assumed to have had it in their minds when they contracted.” Contracting parties, that is, on both sides. If, for instance, one side intends to falsify accounts, and excuses himself on the ground that it is a trade custom, while the other side know nothing of his intention, and had never heard of the alleged “custom,” the excuse, according to this judge's definition, would not be allowed. This definition agrees with the opinion of Mr. Cozens-Hardy, Q.C., and Mr. Rolt, published in the Author of March last. Of course the fact that such a practice was common, not to say universal, would have to be proved. The warning which the Lord Chief Justice addresses to journalists equally applies to writers of books, writers in magazines, dramatists, and every kind of literary worker. The following is the summing-up referred to (Times, Aug. 4):— The Lord Chief Justice, in summing-up, said the plaintiff was a journalist of good position and long experience, who had been employed by the defendants as their editor, and had received from them a six months' notice. The question for the jury was whether plaintiff was entitled to twelve months' notice or whether six months’ notice was such a notice as the defendants were legally entitled to give plaintiff. Although the case seemed to have excited a good deal of feeling between journalists and proprietors, it had no general importance, as in the future journalists would only have themselves to blame if they had not insisted upon having an agreement. The jury had no question of “custom" to consider, for “custom,” in its strict legal sense, was a uniform and universal practice, so well defined and recognised that contracting parties must be assumed to have had it in their minds when they contracted. The fact that in a large percentage of cases there were special agreements showed that no such universal custom existed. But on plaintiff's behalf it was sought to establish the existence of a “practice” regulating the relations between editors and proprietors. What that practice was would be some guide to the jury in coming to a conclusion as to what Was or was not a reasonable notice in this case. The case of Bremon v. Gilbart-Smith, which had been cited, was really not in point at all, for in that case no notice was given, and the question of twelve months' notice only arose incidentally with a view of fixing the amount of damages plaintiff was entitled to. II.-MUSICAL COPYRIGHT IN AMERICA. Mr. G. Dixey, secretary of the Music Pub- lishers' Association, writes from 9, Air-street, Regent-street, W., Aug. 4:—“I am instructed by this association to inform you that the plain- tiffs in the celebrated American test action of Novello and Co. v. The Oliver Ditson Company and others, have just received a telegram from their counsel, Mr. L. L. Scaife, of Boston, to the effect that the judge who tried the action has decided in the plaintiffs' favour on all points. The action, as you are aware, relates to the correct construction of what is known as the manufacturing clause in the American Copyright Act of 1891, and it was brought to test the ques- tion whether ‘a book' within the meaning of that clause includes “musical composition,’ which, in an earlier part of the Act is mentioned, together with “book’ and other subjects of copyright, as being entitled to protection under that Act. The judgment just delivered has settled the point for the present, and until that judgment is upset or varied it must be accepted that the law of the United States of America is, that the expression ‘book’ in the Act of 1891 does not include ‘musical composition,’ and that consequently it is not necessary that such compositions should be printed in America as a condition of obtaining copyright there.”—Times, Aug. 7. III.--ARTISTS PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT. (From an American Correspondent.) Boston, Mass., Aug. 8.-A decision by Judge Putnam in the United States Circuit Court, filed to-day, holds that an artist having copyrighted a painting may restrain reproductions of the paint- ing, and that a bill in equity for an injunction may be maintained by one to whom the artist has sold the right and who has taken out a copyright in his name. - The decision was given in the case of Emil Werckmeister v. The Pierce and Bushnell Manu-  ## p. 92 (#106) ############################################# 92 THE AUTHOR. facturing Company. G. Naujok, a resident of Germany, painted a picture called “Die Heilige Cecilia,” and later executed an instrument con- veying to the complainant the exclusive right of reproduction. The painting was publicly exhi- bited at Munich, and afterwards sold, and its present location is unknown. The complainant secured a copyright and filed a photograph of the painting at Washington. The defendant subse- quently sold in this country a photograph, which, it was claimed, is an infringement. The court ordered a decree for the complainant. IV.--THREE YEARS OF AMERICAN CoPYRIGHT. The Daily Chronicle (Aug. 14) publishes an instructive “interview º' with Professor Brander Matthews, of Columbia College, New York, on the result of three years' working of the American Copyright Act. In the first place, the pirates are nearly all “knocked out.” The pirate chief, Lovell, is bankrupt, and his stock of several millions is being sold at “dry good stores” at 4d. and 5d. a volume. When these have been worked through the book market will improve. Meantime, we must note the necessity of copyrighting everything. Mr. Matthews points out how three notable books of last season—“Dodo,” “The Yellow Aster,” and “Ships that Pass”— through neglect of this precaution were pirated and sold for 8 cents. Next, the effect on American literature is that American authors no longer have to compete with stolen goods. The publishers already show a very large increase of American books in proportion to British books. Harper Brothers show British books in their lists numbering 25 per cent. of the whole, as against 75 per cent. thirty years ago. Houghton, Mifflin, and Co. have reduced the percentage of British books to Io per cent. London houses in New York are putting out American books in excess of English books. - As to the price of books; novels, as a rule, appear in One volume, at four, five, or six shillings. The Americans are, as a rule, a book- buying, not a book-borrowing, people. The effect of free libraries tends in America, he thinks, first to beget and encourage the habit of reading, and next to develop the desire to possess books. They make people buyers of books. Mr. Matthews further gave his views as to the difference between the circulation of English and American magazines. He said: The main fact is, no doubt, that our reading public is so much larger than yours, and that for that very reason our I can learn, magazine proprietors are enabled to pursue a much more systematic and spirited policy than is possible with you. We have made magazine editing at once a fine art and a science. Each of our great magazines occupies the whole time and thoughts of a very large editorial staff, consisting in one case of an editor-in-chief, an associate editor, an assistant editor, two editorial assistants, and four or five editorial clerks, to say nothing of two or three art editors. Every manuscript that is sent in is examined, and articles and drawings are always paid for on acceptance, instead of, as with you, on publication. Harper's or the Century will often have £10,000 worth of stock in hand, paid for, and ready for use as occasion offers. The policy of these magazines is mapped out for years beforehand by experts in the art of meeting the public taste. But such a policy, it is clear, can be pursued only when a very large sale is assured. The circulation of the magazines I have named runs to something like 200,000 copies a month. From all no high-priced illustrated magazine on your side commands more than one-fourth of that sale. It is a noteworthy fact that not a single English magazine is to be seen on the American bookstalls, as our magazines are seen on yours. In the days of piracy your lead- ing reviews used to be reprinted every month and sold at low rates, but even before the passing of the Copyright Act that practice was found unremunerative, and was accordingly dropped. Now, a few sets of your leading reviews are sent over in sheets, stitched, and sold to clubs and libraries. They have practically no general sale whatever. “And our cheap magazines, such as the Strand—have you any periodicals of that class P” - “No,” replied Mr. Matthews, “and why P. Because their place is almost precisely occupied by the Sunday editions published by all our leading daily papers. These contain serial novels, short stories, and general articles, of exactly the same class as those which appear in your cheaper magazines, and illustrated in much the same style. In fact, the same stories and articles are often supplied by syndicates to your cheap magazines and to our Sunday papers.” W.—THE THREE-VoI,UME Nov EL. The fate of the three-volume novel still con- tinues to furnish matter for discussion. The Publisher's Circular naturally takes the keenest interest in the subject. The writer of an article in the August number on the Resolution of our council, puts forward certain statements and opinions which we can hardly accept. Thus he says: “We do not know how far this Resolution repre- sents, the mind of the great body of English novelists. . The opinion of writers in general, or even of the majority of the members of the Authors’ Society, was not, we believe, taken before the council passed its sweeping motion, and there are, we fancy, many writers of fiction who would repudiate this official declaration.” Now, the great body of English novelists are members of this Society. With a very few exceptions all novelists of standing are members. The Secretary received instructions to ask the opinions of all those members who are novelists, but not of other members. A “private and  ## p. 93 (#107) ############################################# THE AUTHOR. 93 confidential” circular was drawn up giving the facts of the case : and the opinions which were sent in were practically unanimous. Of course there may be, as the writer of the article thinks, some who would not agree with the Reso- lution, but they did not come forward. He says, further, that the “mass of the people does not read fiction.” The general opinion is that fiction is all that the mass does read— that part of the mass which reads anything besides the daily paper. He goes on to say, “Possibly the Council did not see that its resolution, if carried into effect, would deprive three-fourths of the members of the Society of their occupation and means of living.” - Let us, once more, take refuge in those figures which do so seriously annoy those who love a good broad general statement. There are between 1300 and 1400 members of the Society. Three-fourths of this number means about a thousand. It has been pretty conclusively proved in back numbers of the Author that the number of novelists whose works possess any commercial value at all with Mudie and Smith is under 300, of whom about one hundred are likely to be affected by the abolition of the three- volume system. It is a great mistake to suppose that the members of the Society are nearly all novelists. Statements to this effect have been made, over and over again, with intent to injure, but not in the Publisher's Circular, whose attitude towards the Society is generally fair. The writer probably reveals the truth when he says that depression in trade has brought about the present crisis. It is certainly more than twenty years since the three-volume novel was fiercely denounced; but it survived. Times were good; libraries took large numbers; cheap editions could wait. Now, smaller numbers must be taken at a less price; that is what the libraries say. Let us, therefore, go straight to the general public. That is what the majority of novelists say ; that is what many of the best novelists have already begun to do; that is what many publishers have declared their intention to do for the future. It is a significant commen- tory on this article, written clearly in favour of the old system, that the back page of the JPublisher's Circular contains an announcement that Messrs. Sampson Low, Marston, and Co. will no longer issue three-volume novels, except under special circumstances. The three-volume novel, however, is not yet dead. WI.--THE COPYRIGHT Congress AT ANTWERP. The Association Littéraire et Artistique Inter- nationale informed us that a copyright congress would be held at Antwerp from the 18th to the 25th of Aug., and invited this Society to send delegates. We regret extremely that the invita- tion should not have come into our hands until after the last committee meeting, so that, our members having dispersed, there was no oppor- tunity of arranging for the proper representation of the Society. We wait for a report of the proceedings. The following is the official pro- gramme :- PROGRAMME Gână RAL DEs TRAvAUx. Du contrat d'édition, en matières littéraires, artistiques et musicales. Rapportewrs: MM. Pouillet et Ocampo. De l'arbitrage en matière de contestation relative à la pro- priété intellectuelle. Rapportewr: M. Maunery. De la propriété littéraire en fait de noms individuels. Rapportewr: M. Georges Maillard. De la propriété littéraire en fait de titres. Rapportew": Dr. Max Nordau. De la collaboration. Rapporteur : M. Harmand. De la propriété artistique en matière de portrait. De la propriété des types (clichés) de reproduction. Rapportewr: M. Davaune. - De la création d'un répertoire universel au bureau inter- national de Berne. De l'obligation du dépôt. De l'enregistrement. Rapportewr: M. Jules Lermina. De la traduction. De la caution Judicatwm Solvi. De la photographie. Rapportewr: M. Eugène Pouillet. Des droits des auteurs en matière de représentation gratuite. Rapportewr: M. Wauwermans. De la clause de la nation la plus favorisée. Rapporteur: M. A. Darras. *- 2-º -- w - A POET'S LOWE, [Imitated from a poem by Felix d'Anvers, quoted by Ste. Beuve Nouv. Lundis. III., 351.] Love leaped like instant lightning to my breast And made himself therein a secret throne : The hopeless slavery I bear unknown, By her who caused it least of all is guessed. I pass her often, as in darkness dressed, And even when by her side am still alone; Nor when I lie beneath my burial-stone Will prayer of mine have ever marred her rest. She whom God made so tender and so kind Perceives not, bent upon her daily task, The sighs of love that round her presence go; But wrapped in duty, innocently blind, - Reading the words I write of her, will ask— “Who was the woman that he worshipped so H. G. R.  ## p. 94 (#108) ############################################# 94 THE AUTHOR. THE PRICE OF THE NOVEL–1750-1894. HE following is a table of the prices at which the English novel has been issued from the year 1750 to the year 1860. It has been compiled from catalogues and lists published at the end of books, from magazines, and from advertisements. The compiler, Mr. R. English, of the British Museum, made no choice, but wrote down selections from the lists at random, three or four for each year. Some of the novels whose authorship was subsequently acknow- ledged appeared at first anonymously. Year. Author. Title, Vols. Price. I750 Fielding ........................ Tom Jones ...................................................... 4. 3o 12 O 35 Paltock ........................ Peter Wilkins........... © tº 4 tº e s tº a 4 º' s s º is a t t e º e º tº e º a s - e s a e s is s a e s & 8 2 o 6 O I75I Smollett ........................ Peregrine Pickle ............................................. 4. O I2 O 33 Anonymous..................... Adventures of Lucy Frail.................................... I O 3 O 1760 35 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Adventures of Sylvia Hughes .............................. I O 3 O 1761 25 - - - - - - - - - . . . . . . . . . . . . Memoirs of Miss Sidney Biddulph ........................ 2 o 7 6 1762 Author of Roderick Random Sir Launcelot Greaves ....................................... 2 O 6 O 25 Anonymous..................... Longwood, Earl of Salisbury .............................. 2 o 6 o 1770 3 * . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Adventures of a Bank Note ................................. 4 O I 2 O 33 33 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Constantia ...................................................... I O 3 O 1771 33 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Captive; or, the History of Mr. Clifford ......... 2 o 6 O 1772 Author of Roderick Random Expedition of Humphrey Clinker................. ......... I O 3 O 1780 Anonymous..................... Alwyn ; or, the Gentleman Comedian..................... 2 o 6 O 1782 33 • - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - George Bateman ............................................. 3 o 7 6 1784 23 - . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Barnham Downs ............................................. 2 o 7 o 1789 L. Lewis ........................ Lord Walford................................................... 2 O 6 O I790 Mrs Bonhote .................. Darnley Wale; or, Emilia Fitzroy ........................ 3 o 7 6 32 Anonymous..................... History of Miss Meredith.................................... 2 O 6 O 35 35 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Man of Feeling .......................................... 2 O 5 O 33 33 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Recluse ................................................... 2 O 5 O 99 35 - . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Maid of Kent ............................................. 3 O 9 O 35 23 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Louisa Forester................................................ 3 7 6 o 33 Charlotte Lennox ............ Euphemia. ...................................................... 4. O I 2 O I79I Jane Timbury.................. The Philanthropic Rambler ................................. I O 3 O 33 Anonymous..................... St. Julian's Abbey............................................. 2 O 5 O 33 35 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Charles Henley ................................................ 2 O 5 O 33 35 - - - - - - - - * * * * * * * * * * * * * Sempronia ...................................................... 3 O 9 O 33 Clara Reeve .................. School for Widows............................................. 3 O 9 O 33 J. White ........................ - The Adventures of Richard Coeur de Lion.............., 3 O 9 O I792 Anonymous..................... Dinabas ......................................................... I O 3 O 33 By a Lady ..................... The Baroness of Beaumont ................................. 2 O 6 O 33 Anonymous..................... Modern Miniature ............................................. 2 O 6 O 33 33 • . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Delineations of the Heart.................................... 3 O 9 O 33 Charlotte Smith ............... Desmond, a Novel............................................. 3 O 9 O I793 35 • * * * * * * * * * * * * Wanderings of Warwick .................................... I O 4 O 33 Anonymous..................... Siavery; or, the Times....................................... 2 O 6 O 33 23 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . History of Philip Waldegrave .............................. 2 O 6 O 33 35 - " . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Dupe ...................................................... 2 O 5 O 33 33 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Selinor............................................................ 6 O 18 O I794 Geo. Hutton .................. Amantus and Elmore ....................................... I O 3 O 35 Anonymous..................... Ivey Castle ...................................................... 2 O 6 O 33 33 s = < * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * The Tales of Elam............................................. 2 o 6 o 35 S. Pearson ..................... The Medallion ................................................ 3 O 9 O 32 55 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Ellen, Countess of Castle Howell ........................ 4 O I 2 O I795 Anonymous..................... The Ghost-Seer ................................................ I O 3 O 35 Geo. Brewer ... ............... The Motto ...................................................... 2 O 6 O 33 Anonymous..................... Elisa Powell ................................................... 2 o 7 o 33 Mary E. Parker ............... Orwell Manor................................................... 3 O 9 O 33 Anonymous..................... Secrecy, a Novel ............................................. 3 O 9 O 53 35 - . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Henry, a Novel ................................................ 4. O I 2 O 1796 J. Palmer ..................... The Haunted Cavern.......................................... I O 3 O 3? Anonymous..................... Arville Castle................................................... 2 O 6 O 93 IRichard Hey .................. Edington, a Novel............................................. 2 o 6 o 33 Mary Robinson ............... Angelina, a Novel ............................................. 3 O I3 O 33 Mrs. Meeke..................... The Abbey of Clugny ....................................... 3 O 9 O 35 Anonymous..................... Agatha, a Novel ...... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 O I 2 O 1797 93 s = < * * * * * & 2 e º e º 'º e s tº a c is The Village Curate ...... a 2 & º º ſº tº is º f tº 6 s is tº 4 e º a tº 9 s s a s s a tº e s s s a s a I o 3 6  ## p. 95 (#109) ############################################# THE AUTHOR. Year. Author. Title. Wols. Price. 1797 Anonymous..................... The Inquisition ................................................ 2 O 6 O 25 23 ° e º • * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * The Nun......................................................... 2 O 8 O 35 M. G. Lewis .................. The Monk ...................................................... 3 o IO 6 23 J. Fox ........................... Santa Maria ................................................... 3 O 1 o 6 33 Anonymous..................... The Church of St. Sifford.................................... 4. O I4. O 1798 33 s = * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Statira ; or, the Mother....................................... I o 3 6 33 33 - " - e s • * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Henry Willoughby............................................. 2 o 7 o 23 Anna Plumtree ............... The Rector's Son ............................................. 3 O IO 6 35 Mrs. Tomlins ................. Rosalind de Tracy............................................. 3 O IO 6 33 Geo. Walker .................. Cinthelia ...................................................... - - - 4. O I4. O I799 Anonymous.......... .* * * * * * * * * * * The Orphan Heiress of St. Gregory........................ I O 4 O 23 33 - - - - - - - * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Helen Sinclair ................................................ 2 O 7 o 25 3) - - - - - - - - - * * * * * * * * * * * * Sketches of Modern Life .................................... 2 O 7 o 25 33 - " " " - s • * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Tale of the Times ............................................. 3 O I 2 O 53 3 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Castle of St. Donats.......................................... 3 O IO 6 33 E. Helme........................ Albert, a Novel ................................................ 4 O I4. O I8OO A. Thicknesse.................. The School of Fashion ....................................... 2 O I2 O 33 Anonymous...................... A Northumbrian Tale ....................................... I o 4 6 33 Mrs. Robinson ſº tº e s : s a The Natural Daughter ....................................... 2 O 7 O 32 Anonymous..................... Selina, a Novel ................................................ 3 O IO 6 33 Miss Gunning .................. The Gipsey Countess.......................................... 4. O I4. O 33 Anonymous..................... Exhibitions of the Heart .................................... 4 I I O 33 C. Selden........................ Serena ............................................................ 3 o Io 6 18OI Anonymous..................... The Castle of Eridan.......................................... I O 4 6 23 33 - * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * The Picture of the Age ....................................... 2 o 6 O 22 Mrs. Burke ..................... Elliot, a Novel ................................................ 2 o 8 O 25 P. Littlejohn .................. The Mistake ................................................... 3 O I2 O 33 Anonymous..................... Adonia, a Novel................................................ 4. o 18 O 33 M. A. Hanway ............... Andrew Stuart ................................................ 4 O 18 O 1802 Miss Hatfield .................. She Lives in Hopes, &c. .................................... 2 O 9 O 33 Anonymous..................... Belmont, a Novel ............................................. 3 O IO 6 39 Anne Plumtree ............... Something New ; or, Adventures at Campbell House... 3 O I5 O 25 H. Ventum ..................... Justinia, a Novel ..... ... .................................... 4. O 18 O 33 Mrs. Hunter .................. Letitia, a Novel ................................................ 4 I I O 1803 Anonymous..................... Lucy Osmond................... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I O 3 O 33 Eliza N. Bromley ............ The Cave of Cosenza.................... * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * , , , 2 O I2 O 33 Anonymous..................... Lady Geraldine Beaufort .................................... 3 O IO 6 35 Mrs. Hunter .................. Letters from Mrs. Palmerston, &c......................... 3 O I5 O : 3 Anonymous..................... Follies of Fashion ............................................. 3 o 13 6 23 33 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Helen of Glenross ............................................. 4. O 16 o 1804 25 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Leopold ; or, the Bastard.................................... 2 o 8 O 33 25 - - - - - - - - - - - - - . . . . . . . . Letters of Mrs. Riversdale ........................ ... . . . . . . 3 o 13 6 2 3 Eugenia de Acton ............ A Tale without a Title ....................................... 3 O I2 O 23 Anonymous..................... Pride of Ancestry ............................................. 4. o 16 O 33 Mrs. Thomson.................. St. Clair of the Isles .......................................... 4. O I4. O 1805 Mrs. Hunter .................. The Unexpected Legacy .................................... 2 O 9 O 33 Mary Goldsmith............... Casualities ............ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .................. 2 O 6 O 22 Mrs. Le Noir .................. Village Anecdotes ............................................. 3 O I2 O 3) A. M. Porter .................. The Lake of Killarney ....................................... 3 o 13 6 33 Anonymous..................... What You Please, &c. ......................... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4. o 16 o 33 M. Malden ..................... Jessica Mandeville............................................. 5 o 17 6 I806 Anonymous..................... - Belville House ............................................. ... 2 O 8 O 23 35 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - A Sailor's Friendship ....................................... 2 O 8 O 33 33 - - - - * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Flim Flams, &c................................................. 3 I I O 35 Mrs. Opie ..................... Adeline Mowbray ............................................. 3 o 13 6 33 Eliz. Helme..................... Pilgrim of the Cross.......................................... 4. O 18 O 33 R. C. Dallas .................. The Morlands................................................... 4. I I O 1807 F. Lathom ..................... The Impenetrable Secret .................................... 2 o 6 O 33 Robert Semple ............... Charles Ellis ................................................... 2 O 9 O 35 Mrs. Edgworth ............... Lenora...........• * * * g e s e e s tº e º e s - a • * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 2 o IO 6. 33 J. Mackintosh ............... Men and Women ............................................. 3 o 13 6 93. Mrs. Opie ..................... Simple Tales .............................. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 I I O 33 M. A. Lewis .................. Feudal Tyrants ........................... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 I 8 O 1808 M. Rymer ..................... The Spaniard, &c. ........................... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I O 4 O 92 Anonymous..................... Helen, a Novel ................................................ 2 o Io 6 22 39 & B tº º e º 'º - e º a º - G tº a c e º e & George the Third ............................................. 3 o 13 6. WOL. W. K.  ## p. 96 (#110) ############################################# THE AUTHOR. Wear. Author, Title. Wols. Price. 1808 Anonymous................ © e º e e Theodore; or, the Enthusiast .............................. 4. I I O 3? Madame Genlis ............... Alphonsine, &c. ................................................ 4 I 8 O 1809 || Anonymous..................... Theodore; or, the Peruvians .............................. I o 4 6 22 F. Lathom ..................... The Fatal Wow ................................................ 2 O 9 O 33 J. N. Brewer .................. Mountville Castle ............................................. 3 O I5 O 33 G. Amphlett .................. Ned Bentley ................................................... 3 O I5 O 33 Peter Peregrine ............... Matilda Montford ............................................. 4. I I O 33 Miss M. Linwood ............ Leicestershire Tales .......................................... 4. I I O 1810 Anonymous..................... Faulconstein Forest .......................................... I O 6 6 25 92 - e s - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Calibia, Choosing a Husband .............................. 2 O IO O 55 Miss Edgeworth............... Tales of Fashionable Life.................................... 3 O 18 O 33 Anonymous.......... * . . . . . . . . . . The Acceptance................................................ 3 o 18 o 33 Harriet Jones.................. The Family of Santraile ..................... .............. 4 I 4 O 35 Alicia T. Palmer............... The Daughters of Isonberg ................................. 4 I 4 O 33 F. Melville ..................... The Benevolent Monk ....................................... 3 o 13 6 25 Anne Ormsby.................. The Soldier's Family... ...................................... 4 I 6 O 35 Anonymous............... ..... “Frederick” ................................................... 2 O I 2 O 181 I C. H. Wilson .................. The Irish Valet ....................................... ........ I O 5 O 35 Anonymous..................... The Reformist ................................................ 2 O IO O 33 23 ° - * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Self Control ................................................... 3 I 4 O 33 Theodore Edgeworth ......... The Shipwreck ................................................ 3 O I5 O 35 Emma Parker.................. Virginia, &c. ................................................... 4. I 4 O 1812 Mrs. Roberts ................. Rose and Emily................................................ I o 5 6 33 Anonymous..................... Things by their Right Names .............................. 2 O IO 6 33 33 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Rhydisel; or, the Devil in Oxford ........................ 2 O Io 6 32 23 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Adventures of Dick Distich ................................. 3 O 16 6 33 Mrs. Opie ..................... Tempter ; or, Domestic Scenes ........................... 3 I I O 35 Ann Plumtree.................. History of Myself and Friend .............................. 4 I 8 O 1813 Anonymous .................... The Sisters, a Domestic Tale .............................. I O 5 O 55 Miss Benger .................. The Heart and the Fancy........................... ........ 2 O I 2 O 35 Anonymous..................... She Thinks for Herself ....................................... 3 o 16 6 92 Mrs. Peck ..................... Waga ; or, View of Nature ................................. 3 O 18 O 93 Miss Burney .................. Traits of Nature................................................ 4. I 8 O 1814 Anonymous..................... Sara, a Tale ............... 6 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * I o 5 6 33 W. H. Hitchener ............ The Towers of Ravenswold ................................. 2 O IO O 32 Anonymous..................... The Adventures of a Dramatist ........................... 2 O I 2 O 33 Lady Morgan .................. O'Donnel, a National Tale ................................. 3 I I O 33 Miss Houghton ...... ..... .. The Border Chieftain.......................................... 3 O 18 O 95 Maria Edgeworth ............ Patronage, a Novel .......................................... 4. I 8 O 1815 Maria Benson .................. System or no System.......................................... I O 6 O 22 John Gamble .................. Howard, a Novel ............................................. 2 O 9 O 35 Sir Walter Scott...... . . . . . . . . . Guy Mannering ................................................ 3 I I O 23 Emma Parker.................. The Guerrilla Chief .............................. ........... 3 I I O 25 Anonymous..................... History of John de Castro ................................. 4 I 4 O 33 Ann M. Porter ............... The Recluse of Norway....................................... 4 I 4 O 1816 Anonymous..................... A Tale for Gentle and Simple .............................. I o 7 o 95 23 ° - * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Adventures of Peter Wilkins .............................. 2 o Io 6 33 Mrs. Opie ..................... Valentine's Eve ................................................ 3 I I O 35 T. S. Surr ..................... Magic of Wealth ............................................. 3 O 18 O 32 Anonymous..................... Chronicles of an Illustrious House ........................ 5 I 7 6 33 23 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * s Clara Albin........ * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * , , , s a s 4. I 8 O 1817 33 ° e º s • * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Headlong Hall ..................... ... ............. ......... I O 6 o 93. Emma Parker.................. Self Deception .......................................... . ... 2 O I 2 O 35 Anonymous..................... Melincourt, &c. ............ ............................. ..... 3 O 18 O 53 3 x * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Six Weeks at Long's.................................... . ... 3 I I O 35 Fanny Holcroft ............... Fortitude and Frailty * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * s g g a s e e 4. I 2 O 33 Anonymous..................... The Pastor's Fireside * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * . e. e. 4 I I I 6 1818 Eliz. B. Lester ............... The Quakers ............... ....................... ... ........ I O 6 o 33 Anonymous..................... Northern Irish Tales............... .. • * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * e s e 2 O I 2 O 2) }} • * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Manners, a Novel .............................. ... ........... 3 O 18 O 33 Anna M. Porter ............... The Knight of St. John ... ... ........... ................. 3 I I O 33 Mrs. Opie ..................... New Tales ...................................................... 4 I 8 O 35 By the Earl of Erpingham... Some Account of Myself ............ .....,.............. .. 4 I 2 O 33 Anonymous..... tº s e º e º e s a s a e º e a e Rosabella ; or, Mother's Marriage ......,,................ 5 I IO O 1819 33 - " " " " " : * * * * * * * * * * * * s a Conidans, &c,.................. . . ........................... I o 7 O 25 Madame Planche ,,,,,,,,, A Year and a Day... ................... i . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 O I2 O  ## p. 97 (#111) ############################################# THE AUTHOR. 97 Year. Author. Title, Wols. Price, 1819 Anonymous..................... Errors and their Consequences.............................. 2 O I3 O 35 Miss Porter..................... The Fast of St. Magdalen......................... 3 I I O 22 Miss Croker .................. The Question, Who is Anna P .............................. 3 I 4 O 33 Mrs. Robert Moore............ Eveleen Mountjoy ............................................. 4. I 4 O 182O M. A. Grant .................. Tales Founded on Facts .................................... I O 7 O 29 Anonymous..................... The Retreat ................................................... 2 O I 2 O 22 A. Marmacopt.................. The Wharbroke Legend....................................... 2 O 14 O 33 Sir Walter Scott............... The Abbot ...................................................... 3 I 4 O 35 Mrs. Opie ..................... Tales of the Heart............................................. 4. I 8 O 32 R. C. Dallas .................. Sir Francis Darrell............................................. 4. I 8 O 33 Anonymous..................... The Mystery of Forty Years Ago ........................ 3 I I O 1821 H. B. Gascoigne............... Sympathy, &c. ............... ................................ I O 5 O 32 J. H. Brady .................. The Spanish Rogue .......................................... 2 O I5 O 95 Anonymous..................... Concealment ......................... # * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * s a e s s 3 I I O 95 Lee Gibbons .................. The Cavalier ................................................... 3 I I O 39 Anonymous..................... A Legend of Argyle .............................. . ......... 3 I I O 1822 Sir Walter Scott ............ The Pirate ...................................................... . 3 I I I 6 53 Charlotte C. Richardson ... The Soldier's Child ... ....................................... 2 O I 2 O 22 Anonymous..................... Maid Marian ................................................... I o 7 o 33 James Hogg .................. Three Perils of Man .......................................... 3 I 4 O 33 Anonymous..................... Pen Owen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 I II 6 33 Sir Walter Scott..... ......... Peveril of the Peak ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4. 2 2 O 1823 Anonymous..................... A New England Tale.......................................... I o 6 o 3? 35 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Which is the Heroine P....................................... 2 O I 2 O 33 33 s • * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * The Confederate................................................ 3 I I O 39 99 • * * * * * * * * e & © tº a 9 tº e º e º e King of the Peak ................................ ............ 3 I I O 33 Sir Walter Scott............... Quentin Durward ............................................. 3 I I I 6 33 Anonymous..................... Reginald Dalton................................................ 3 I I I 6 1824 35 s • * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * The Stranger's Grave ....................................... I O 6 O 33 Geo. Soane ..................... The Outcasts ................................................... 2 o 16 O 2 3 Geo. Butt........................ The Spanish Daughter ....................................... 2 o 16 o 35 Anonymous..................... Trials, a Novel ................................................ 3 I I O 2 3 Sir Walter Scott............... Red Gauntlet ................................................... 3 I I I 6 33 3.5 s = * * * * * * * * * * * * * St. Roman's Well ............................................. 3 I I I 6 1825 B. D'Israeli..................... Vivian Grey ................................................... 2 O 18 O 23 Anonymous..................... Matilda, a Tale of the Day .............. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I O IO 6 33 33 • * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * The Story of a Life .......................................... 2 o 18 o 35 35 • * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * The Foresters................................................... 3 I 7 O 23 5 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Tremaine; or, Man of Refinement ........................ 3 I 4 O 5 § Sir Walter Scott.............., Tales of the Crusaders ....................................... 4. 2 2 O 92 H. Willis........................ Castle Baynard ................................................ I O 8 O 35 T. Lister........................ Granby ......................................................... 3 I I I 6 25 H. Smith........................ Brambletye House .............................. ... . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 I I I 6 1826 Anonymous..................... Sir John Chiverton, a Romance ........................... I O IO 6 33 33 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Truth, a Novel ................................................ 3 I 4 O 33 Allan Cunningham............ Paul Jones ...................................................... 3 I I I 6 35 33 - e s • * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * The Tor Hill, a Novel ....................................... 3 I I I 6 1827 33 e s , , s a s • * * * * * * * * * * * * * Falkland, a Novel............................................. I o Io 6 35 23 ° • * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Confessions of an Old Bachelor ........................... I o Io 6 35 32 - . . . * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Belmour, a Novel ..................... ....................... 2 O 18 O 33 39 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - English Fashionables Abroad ........................... & e & 3 I I I 6 33 35 • * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Historiettes, Tales of Continental Life .................. 3 I I I 6 32 33 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Richmond, &c., a Novel .................................... 3 I I I 6 1828 Sir Walter Scott............... Tales of a Grandfather....................................... I o Io 6 33 Anonymous..................... Yes or No, a Novel .......................................... 2 I I O 92 35 . . . * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Confessions of an Old Maid .............. .................. 3 I 8 6 35 25 - - - - - - - * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Herbert Lacy, a Novel ................................... ... 3 I I I 6 33 35 • * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Tales and Legends.............. .............................. 3 I II 6 35 33 - e s • * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * De Lisle; or, the Distrustful Man ........................ 3 I I I 6 93 35 e s • * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Herbert Milton ............................................. tº & & 3 I I I 6 1830 Marryatt........................ The King's Own................................................ 3 I I I 6 25 Ritchie........................... The Game of Life ............................................. 2 O 18 O 22 E. Lane ........................ The Fugitives................ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I O 9 O 1835 Sir E. B. Lytton............... The Student .................. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 I I O 39 Anonymous..................... Agnes Searle ................................................... 3 I II 6 ?? ?? * * * * * * * * * * * * Finesse, a Novel * c s , , , , , , , , , , , , , a t w w w w • * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 2 I I Q  ## p. 98 (#112) ############################################# 98 THE AUTHOR. Year. Author. Title. Wols. Price. 1840 G. P. R. James ............... The King's Highway................................. ........ 3 I I I 6 1841 Anonymous..................... Bllen Braye; or, the Fortune Teller ..................... 2 I I O 1845 35 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mary Aston..................... * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * I O 6 O 35 D. Lister........................ College Chums ................................................ 2 I I O 33 G. P. R. James ............... The Smuggler............................ * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 3 I I I 6 1850 Anonymous..................... Shadow and Sunshine ...................... ................. I O 6 O 33 35 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Silwood, a Novel ............................................. 2 I I O 35 P. Leicester..................... Ada Greville ................................................... 3 I I I 6 I86o Capt. Wraxall.................. Camp Life ...................................................... I O IO 6 32 Anonymous..................... Hulse House, by the Author of Anne Grey............... 2 I I O 2 3 F. J. Greenwood ............ Under a Cloud ................................................ 3 I I I 6 If we analyse this list the following facts are established: 1. From 1750 to 1792 inclusive the ruling price of a novel was 3s. a volume, so that a four-volume novel was 12s. and a three-volume novel was 98. Occasionally, however, there is observed a tendency to cheaper forms, as in 1790, when there occur two cases of novels at 2s. 6d. a volume. This price was “net;” there was no reduction or discount to the public. The novels of this period were for the most part very short; now and then, as in the case of “Tom Jones” and “Peregrine Pickle,” they were long; as a rule they were much shorter than the modern Three-Decker. . 2. In the year 1793 there is a sign of an upward tendency. A single volume book is announced at 4s. Then for three or four years the old price is maintained. In 1796 Mary Robinson’s “Angelina.” is priced at 4s. 6d. a volume, and “Agatha,” whatever her merits may have been, appears at 4s. a volume. In 1797 3s. 6d. and 4s. are the rule. In 1798 the old price is forgotten. In 1799 nothing is under 3s. 6d. In 1800 prices range from 3s. 6d., 4s. 6d., 5s. 3d., to 6s. a volume. In 18O1, nothing is higher than 4.s. 6d. In 1802 we range from 4s. 6d. to 5s. 3d. The same prices are asked in 1803, 1804, 1805. of “Flim Flams ” asks 7s. a piece for his volumes. A common form is now the four- volume novel at a guinea. Here and there, all the time, we find the old price of 3s. In 1807 Lewis’s “Feudal Tyrants” is issued in four volumes at £1 8s. In 1808 Mdme. Genlis' “Euphrosyne” is published in four volumes at the same price. In 1809 and 18 IO 6s. a volume is the rule. In 181 I an Anonymous issues a three-volume novel at £I 4s.--we are getting very close to the guinea and a half. From 1812 to 1821 prices range from 6s. to 8s. a volume. In 1822 for the first time occurs the ominous price of a guinea and a half. There may be earlier cases, but the first discovered by Mr. In 1806 the author English was that of Sir Walter Scott's “Pirate,” in three volumes. In the same year “Peveril of the Peak” was published in four volumes at 282 2s., viz., half a guinea for every volume. From 1823 to 1830 one-volume novels are issued at 6s, and at Ios. 6d., but by far the larger at the latter price. Two-volume novels appear at 12s., 16s., 18s., and a guinea. Three- volume novels at a guinea, 31 48., 31 7s., and 31 IIs. 6d. That is, out of twenty-one three volume novels on this list fifteen are at a guinea. and a half, two at £1 8s. 6d., one at £I 7s., two at £1 4s., and one at a guinea. From the year 1825 to 1860 the price of half a guinea for every volume was the rule, with here and there a rare exception. Of late years there have been many experiments in price and form. Certain well-known writers have never produced a three-volume novel at all; the price of the single volume has become a uniform 6s., exactly double the price a hundred years ago. The first appearance of the cheap edition seems to have been the series of novels issued by Messrs. Colburn and Bentley in 1831, called “Bentley’s Standard Novels and Romances,” at 2s. 6d. each. Of this series the Athenæum of that date says: “If these works do not succeed, and eminently, it is no use catering honestly for the public. These are among the very best and cheapest ever issued from the press.” The first appearance of the six-shilling novel seems to have been in 1861, when Messrs. Blackwood and Sons published at that price George Eliot’s “Silas Marner.” Others followed at the same price, and the London publishers, as Bentley and Son, Sampson Low, &c., speedily began to publish at the same price. The second and cheap edition of the novel, in regular succession, either at 6s. Or 3s. 6d., or less, is a thing of not more than thirty years’ existence. The old rule was one form of publication, either serially or in three-volume form, and then an end. Until the year 1865 or thereabouts, if a novel  ## p. 99 (#113) ############################################# THE AUTHOR. 99 appeared in a magazine, that was its first and final appearance. The two-shilling novel, for which Miss Braddon is chiefly responsible, began the cheap edition. But the ordinary successful novelist did not, as a rule, look forward to a cheap edition of his story, however well it was received by the public, and there were critics who spoke of a reprint, even if it contained an acknowledgment of the journal from which it was taken, as if the publisher and the author were committing some kind of fraud upon the public in presenting old Wares a,S new. The rise in price from 3s. to half a guinea a volume may perhaps be explained by more than one theory. Perhaps the following explanation may find acceptance : The rise in price begins towards the close of the last century. For nearly a quarter of a century the country was engaged in a deadly contest for life and liberty. This contest demanded the most cruel sacrifices. Therefore, although the seas were kept pretty well open and a great part of our foreign trade remained with us, the taxation fell heavily on all classes, but most heavily on that class which then formed the great bulk of readers —the clergy and the professional people. The examples of Edinburgh, Lichfield, Exeter, Norwich, and other places illustrate the importance of the literary circles—some of them containing men of great literary ability—which had sprung up all over the country. The members of these coteries, perforce, ceased to buy books; they formed book clubs and circulating libraries. The natural result of the narrowed circulation was a rise in price. From 3s. a volume the novel became gradually, as we have seen, half a guinea. And this price con- tinued, because the people had lost the habit of buying books, and, though the book clubs fell to pieces and the literary coteries were broken up, the habit of reading remained and was extended more and more, while the central circulating library took the place of the country book club and supplied the reading, the demand for which far exceeded, and still exceeds, the purchasing power of the people. *- r= - - THE AUTUMN ANNOUNCEMENTS, HEY have already begun in the Athenæum. The number for August 25 contains the autumn lists of four publishers. It is proposed to analyse and classify these lists as was done last year in these columns. This classifica- tion cannot be complete before the end of October or perhaps later. Meantime, with thirty-five WOL. W. new books and new editions announced by Messrs. Longman; fifty-four by Messrs. Chatto and Windus; seventeen by Messrs. Chambers; and four by Messrs. Putnam, we make a good beginning. At present we may only observe that, as appears from these lists, the three-volume novel is not dead yet. *- - -º ON “WARNINGS AND ADVICE.” CORRESPONDENT addresses a letter to the editor which seems to demand especial attention. He writes to this effect : “I read your paper regularly from beginning to end. It afflicts me, every month, with a pro- found melancholy on account of your “Warnings and Advice.’ They may be most useful, for those who can follow them. I cannot. I am one of those whose first desire is to get my work pub- lished at all. Why? Because I have a message for the world? Not at all. But because I can write things of a kind which command a certain, but not a great, success. My line is the novel, but there are many others, like myself, though in other lines, who can produce work which gets bought, somehow, to some small extent. They write readable essays; ‘ historical’ chapters, cribbed from recent investigations in the Record Office and elsewhere; concocted out of old books in a library, and made to look something like work of Original research among unpublished documents; biographies of half-forgotten celebrities; poetry. But the poets are not quite up to my level, for they have to pay for their things; I want my work published, and not at my own cost. I want, also, to be known in my own circle as a man of letters. It gives one a certain distinction to have produced one book and to be engaged upon another. My vanity is, I believe, the leading motive. But, besides, I always have a suspicion that my work may be worth large sums of money, and I naturally want all I can get, and more. So that I go to my publisher, first and above all things, anxious that he should take my stuff; next, suspicious of his terms; and, lastly, afraid to stipulate any conditions. As for independence, I really haven’t any. I am in his hands; he makes me feel that he is obliging me. Not that he is insolent ; he is even kindly ; sometimes he makes me miserable by telling me how much he loses by his authors; sometimes he makes me mad by little condescensions and words of patronage. Always, of course, I am to be the obliged and grateful party in the business. I am never, as you desire me to be, independent of him. He will very kindly take my work ; he will very I.  ## p. 100 (#114) ############################################ I OO THE AUTHOR. nobly, though he says he is certain to be a loser by it, make me an offer. He has produced half-a-dozen books of my mine; on every one he says he has lost; yet he is always ready to take another. There- fore, as he is a business man, I do not believe him. But I don’t dare tell him so. What have your warnings and your information done for me P. Well, they have proved clearly that, even with my limited sale, the gratitude should be on his side, not mine. As a (hitherto) grateful dependant on this disinterested Patron, it is gall and wormwood to me to learn what his agreement really means, and what it is that I have had to accept. Your “Warnings and Advice’ are fourteen in number; they are all practical; they are all, I dare say, to other people, useful. But, alas ! they are of no use to me, because I am Quite unable to adopt any of them. I might, it is true, go so far as to stamp the agreement—I don’t think he would find it out—but the nature of the document makes it quite un- necessary for me. The other man can stamp his, if he likes, but it seems unnecessary. Then, again, I might take your advice about a literary agent, but I fear that my commercial value at the best is not great enough to make any agent anxious to have me as a client—my last book, produced on the half-profit plan, showed a loss of eleven pounds, eleven and eightpence. As regards “future work, my Patron has not yet tried to bind me down; but he would do so, I dare say, if he thought of it. And as for drawing the agreement myself, or reserving anything, or having a say in the advertisements, I think I see my Patron's face if I dared to suggest anything of the kind. One poor man, a friend in the same line as myself, and of about equal commercial value, ventured once to suggest to his Patron that he might have the accounts of the joint venture audited. “What?’ cried the Patron, “do you think I mean to cheat you ?’ The retort was obvious ; there can be but one reason for your partner hiding his books; but my friend did not dare to make use of it. I myself on one occasion when a royalty was offered—I will not lower myself in your eyes by confessing the amount of that royalty or the number of copies which had to be sold before the royalty began—ventured to ask Smilingly—it was a hollow, forced smile, I fear —what share of profit the proposed arrange- ment might leave to the other side. He replied, icily, that he must really be allowed to manage nis property—he called it his property—in his own way, and it was no affair of mine whether he lost or gained. Most likely, he added, pump- ing up a sigh, he should be a very heavy loser. “In plain words, I am entirely dependent on my publisher. He gives me exactly what he chooses; I must accept or go elsewhere. And where should I go? Your advice is excellent, in fact, to those whose books are commercially valu- able. For the rank and file I submit that it is unpractical.” That the writer's position is such as he describes one need not doubt. That he is one of many in the same position we know too well. That the position is one of necessity is another question. For, if we consider, very nearly the whole business of the smaller publisher—and of all publishers except a few large houses—lies with the writers of the day, and of these by far the greater number, like our correspondent, possess individually but little commercial value. Yet, taken together, they may be very valuable, because every one represents a certain amount of gain to the publisher, otherwise his books would not be produced, and one or two among them, especially among the younger sort, may at any moment become popular and very valuable indeed. If such a writer, then, would offer his next work on our conditions to his friend the “Patron,” he would probably find it indignantly refused. He could then try elsewhere, and here the Society might possibly help him. But if all such writers—all that very large class of writers whose works possess some commercial value, however small—demanded such conditions, the result would be — must be — submission and acceptance. For, since our conditions involve nothing in the world that can be considered derogatory to the publisher, nothing unfair, nothing out of the common course, nothing but the common sense of an ordinary business trans- action, and nothing more than the Ordinary pre- cautions with which one person admits another to the management of, or partnership in, his property, it stands to reason that opposition would disappear as soon as it was found impossible or difficult to get such agency or such partnership without these conditions. The “warnings and advice,” on the other hand, to those whose work is in demand are so simple that it is their own fault if they do not stipulate for their observance. For instance, in the common case of a royalty, the “warnings” numbered respectively (I), (3), (4), (7), (8), (II), and (I2) are the only points necessary to be observed, and of these especially numbers (4), (8), (II), and (I2). Next, it must be remembered that the business of the Society is to defend literary property, and to show how it must be defended. If writers will not trouble to defend their property because it is of small value that is their concern. We  ## p. 101 (#115) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. IO I tell them, at least, how they may estimate its possibilities, and how they may guard and keep their own. In defence of other kinds of property, the law does not permit the invasion of its rights where the value is small any more than when it is large. A pocket must not be picked of a handkerchief any more than of a watch. Nor should a literary agreement over a small property be more unfair than one over a large property. There is another way of looking at it. The one-sided old I oper cent. royalty; the penny in the shilling; the 20 per cent. when 5000 copies (say) have been sold ; and many other of the tricks which we know so well—if they are now tried with even the youngest and most dependent writer, are tried with the consciousness that they have been exposed; that the victim can ascertain for himself the reality of his position; and that, dependent as he may be for the moment, should the day of success arrive when his works would become by themselves an income to his pub- lishers, he will certainly go elsewhere. The Society has rendered many of the old “dodges * impossible by ascertaining and publishing what is really meant by the mysterious Cost of Production. To return to the class represented by our cor- respondent. They want to publish, very often, because they believe that their work is “as good as other people’s.” This desire overcomes, as is apparent from this letter, every other considera- tion. In order to be published they will accept any terms. This desire, therefore, makes the author a supplicant and a dependant. He invites a one- sided offer. If he refuses it the chances are that he is not worth much, and he is told to go elsewhere. On the other hand, if he is a young man, it is possible that he may become a success, in which case it is, perhaps, wiser to treat him with fairness, as a client whose business is desirable. This consideration smoothes the way to a better understanding. Here is a very simple rule. Such a writer generally avoids the leading Houses, thinking foolishly that he will do better with the smaller Houses—and forgetting that there is but one public. Let him, therefore, before going to one of the smaller Houses examine its lists. If he finds that it can show only one or two works of any popular author, and those his earliest works, let him ask why this popular author left this House. Naturally, because he was, or thought he was, unfairly treated. Then let this young writer make up his mind to avoid a House which cannot keep its clients. On the other hand, a House which has long lists of popular authors is, primá facie, one which acts so as to retain the confidence of writers. But if a writer considers that warning which stands last in our list, he will do well, either by a man of business or in person, to address a publisher as one business man with another. “Here,” he will say, “is a work which I believe to be a possible property, even if a small property. If your advisers also think so, is it worth your while to undertake its production on the following terms P I contribute the work itself; you contribute the liability to pay the difference, if any, between the actual cost of production and the demand for the book. You also undertake the distribution, collection, &c.; in return for which you shall have such a share of the profits as may be agreed upon as equitable. The partnership is to be quite open, as between two honourable men ; books always accessible ; nothing charged but out of pocket expenses; the proposed list of advertisements to be arranged with me : and, of course, no secret profits of any kind.” Such a letter, at all events, would not be the letter of a dependant. And the answer would probably show the true character of the publisher to whom it was addressed. NOTES AND NEWS, Rº: of the Author will rejoice to learn that Mr. Robert Sherard is about to resume his Letters from Paris in these columns. Arrangements have also been made for a Letter from New York, on American Literature and Literary Folk. The former letter will begin, it is hoped, next month ; the latter in November or December. Mr. Strachey's paper in the National Review for August, on the Heroic Couplet in English verse, indicates a new line of critical research, which will, I hope, be followed up either by Mr. Strachey or by other competent scholars. The construction—the structure—of English poetry, not the lives of the poets, or criticisms on their works, but the origin, growth, and development of its many metres, has never, so far as I know, been seriously and adequately treated. Mr. Strachey's paper is only a chapter, and that an imperfect chapter, on one branch of the subject. Where did Chaucer find his favourite metre P Why did he choose that metre in preference to the shorter line most common in the fabliaua, or the longer line which was used by his friend Eustache Deschamps? Where did Skelton find—or did he invent—his short metre P How was it that the six-foot line failed to hold its own? Sonnet, blank verse, ode, lyrical ballad, song—every branch of poetry down  ## p. 102 (#116) ############################################ I O2 THE AUTHOR. to the new-old metres of modern versifiers—the ballade, triolet, villanelle, chanson royale—which seem to have had their day. Again, there is the splendid music of Swinburne. Is there anything, anywhere, in the history of poetry, which can compare with his march of song P Can there be any verse, anywhere, to which he owes anything P Such a paper as Mr. Strachey's takes time and reading and scholarship. Therefore it is rare. I have received from America the First Part of “The Art of Short Story Writing.” It is only a typewritten part, and I am earnestly begged to guard it from being published in this country. It would therefore be unfair to quote from the pages, or to set forth the methods and plan of the book, or to express any opinion upon the treatment or the literary value of the book, or its probable usefulness to beginners. The author of the work prefers to remain anonymous, which is perhaps wise. Many writers, seeing the terrible mistakes and the waste of good material committed by beginners in their first attempts, have thought that a school of fiction might do useful preliminary training work just as well as a school of painting. The anonymous author of this work, which will be issued by “the Revised Literary Bureau,” of New York, declares him- self strongly of this opinion. The first and obvious objection to such a school is that every- body so far has got on without it. Quite true. On the other hand, how many would have got on more quickly and better with it P. How many, again, would have been deterred from entering upon a line of work for which they had no ability? There is in the construction, the arrangement, the setting, the dialogue of a novel, as much art asthere is in the grouping of a picture, the management of the light, &c. This truth, which is perfectly well known to all those who have studied, and intelli- gently attempted, the art of fiction, has been denied, or derided, by those who write on the subject without any study of it or any sympathy with it. It may be objected that those who have the natural aptitude will find out these things for themselves. Perhaps they will ; perhaps they will not; perhaps it will take them years of work and partial failure, with the sacrifice of their best materials. Of course, those who have not the natural gift will never be able to use, even if they find out, the true methods. Why, then, teach them P. We cannot create a story teller, any more than a poet, by teaching; but we may stop at the outset those who are certain, to fail; we may teach the methods, and put into the right line the rank and file of the story tellers; and we may save genius itself from blunders and from disappointments. Another objection, however, less obvious, presents itself. After going to such a school the candidate who failed would most certainly throw the whole blame of failure upon the school. It would therefore be mecessary for the lecturers and teachers to be very ready with their warnings. He must be a stupid person, however, who was unable in six months to find out whether a student would fail or succeed. We now await the American treatise. Every year, as regularly as the showers of August, appears the letter complaining of the bold bad smuggler who imports Tauchnitz editions in his pockets. The whole family, girls and all, enter with zeal into the smuggling business; impromptu pockets are devised in feminine garments; men’s coats are found to contain stowage room pre- viously unsuspected; a successful run is made ; and the family shelves are enriched with another row of Tauchnitz books. They have been bought at half the cost of the English edition, you see. Cheapness before anything. These books, more- over, are openly sold in this country; one may sometimes see rows of them in the secondhand shops. What is to be done P. It is impossible to touch the conscience of the traveller homeward bound. He will not smuggle lace, because he understands that lace is property—it is visible property—he must not defraud the revenue; literary property he does not understand—he cannot see it. Here is a book—why cannot he take the book home with him P Because the law prohibits? Nonsense; it can hurt nobody. It is impossible to make him see that to import this book is an infringement of right; a robbery of author or publisher, or both. Therefore some- thing else must be attempted. What? Let us take counsel together. There must surely be some way of preventing the smuggling of books. Now the rough and ready way by which dockyard labourers are prevented from stealing dockyard stores might be attempted. Wardens of the yard stand at the gates and feel the men as they pass. An expert hand would detect a Tauchnitz in the coat pocket. And a substantial fine judiciously and sternly administered would do the rest. But perhaps some other method might be suggested. - We referred last month to the critic who desires the reduction of three volumes to one, because we should then get a shorter novel. I have before me two novels, each in one volume. One is called “Marcella," and the other “The Manxman.” The former contains about 28O,OOO words, and is therefore twice as long as the ordinary three-volume novel; the latter contains  ## p. 103 (#117) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. IO3 about 236,000 words, and is therefore half as large again. No ; we shall not necessarily get our novels any shorter when they are published in orie volume; and, as was said last month, a book may be very short and yet very ill-con- structed. It is well known that Mr. Hall Caine deliberately resolved to try the result of appealing to the public at once with his new novel “The Manxman.” The following was the result, pub- lished here with the author's sanction, eight days before the day of issue:— Mudie's subscription .......... IOOO Smith’s 35 ............... 200 Smith's railway stalls............ ... 2COO The trade, &c. ..................... 4OOO Separate Colonial edition ......... 5OOO Total, I 2,260, before the book was out. Now, it must be remembered that Izoo, or even looo, is a very large subscription for a three-volume novel. The publishers’ immediate returns, therefore, are probably more than doubled by the new system. Everybody, however, it is objected, is not so popular as Mr. Hall Caine. That is quite true. The figures must therefore be taken to show what may be meant by a popular work, and they certainly do carry encouragement to those who believe in going to the whole public of readers in the first instance. Since this was written the Athenaeum (Aug. 25) states that the first edition of 20,000 “ ran low ’’ in a fortnight. We have been accused of encouraging persons who have not the faintest chance of achieving either kind of literary reputation—that is, reputation for literary style, or popularity—to believe that figures such as these may apply to themselves. Disappointment most probably awaits those sanguine persons, But is it not the same in other professions P. The freshman from the country grammar school goes up to the university dreaming of the Craven, with a first-class and a fellowship to follow. In five or six years he has found his place as a third-class man and an assistant master in his old school. The young barrister recognises the splendid prizes of his profession and dreams of becoming a leader, a Q.C., a judge, a Lord Chancellor. Why should not the young writer in the same way dream of vast popularity ? Meantime, as the Society is in existence mainly for the defence of literary pro- perty, is it not necessary to show what literary property means ? A paper on the “Art of the Novelist,” by the late Amelia B, Edwards, is published in the August number of the Contemporary. The paper bears the appearance of being unfinished, or, at least, uncorrected, being out of proportion, covering too much ground, and generally “un- workmanlike.” But, for one thing, it is valuable. The author speaks out strongly on behalf of a novelist whom we seem to be forgetting, viz., Anthony Trollope. His works will perhaps be read again, but not until the time comes when the society of this century has become the study of the historian. Then, indeed, Trollope will be found a mine of wealth for the ideas, the habits, the prejudices of that kind of society — the higher middle class — which he drew so well. Perhaps no novelist has ever understood his own generation better than Trollope. Dickens knew the lower middle class; Trollope knew the class above — the gentlefolk of the country town; the clergy; the country people; the professionals. . Last year in America. I met a lady—a lady no longer young—a lady of reading and culture— who declared to me that, in her opinion, whatever might be said to the contrary, Trollope was the first English novelist of this century. Trollope's greatest vogue was in the Sixties. When he died —was it not in 1879 P−he had not outlived his reputation, because there were millions who remembered his work, but his circle of readers had wofully diminished. Those of us who remember the Sixties can recall the joy with which his novels were received, one after the other; the firm drawing; the clearly outlined portrait— all his figures were types; the individuality of the author who owed nothing to any predecessor. Thinking over these things, I understood what that American lady meant. And here is Amelia B. Edwards, after her death, speaking to us to much the same effect. I wonder how a modern young lady would like one of Trollope's novels of the Sixties, with its illustrations — the dumpy girl with her hair in a net, the crinolined skirts, the flat heels, her round face with the great innocent eyes, her honest worship of Man the Superior— ohl so very, very different from her daughter, from the new girl, who defers to no masculine mind, talks on all subjects, writes on all, and carries a latch key ! The testimony of Professor Brander Matthews, of New York (see p. 29), to the working of the American Copyright Act, which we owe to the Daily Chronicle, is extremely valuable. He shows, especially, how the Act has weeded out the reprints of English authors, and encouraged and stimulated American authors, who for the first time find themselves, he says, free from com- petition with stolen goods. Henceforth all the best books will belong to both countries alike;  ## p. 104 (#118) ############################################ IO4 THE AUTHOR. but the bulk of the more popular literature will remain American for the Americans, and British for Britons; in other words, while the writers who can command an audience on both sides of the Atlantic will enjoy the widest audience that was ever granted to any writer in any country, the people for their daily reading will prefer their own folk, their own local setting, and their own dialect. I am pleased to read Professor Matthews’ opinion on the effect of free libraries, because I have always maintained, from my own experience, observation, and conversation with those who know, viz., librarians themselves, pre- cisely the same opinion. As regards the magazines, it is also pleasant to find Professor Matthews practically saying exactly what has been said in the Author. In one or two points he does not speak from know- ledge. For instance, he says that the American weekly paper contains much the same kind of work, and is illustrated in the same way, as our Strand. Obviously he has never seen the illustra- tions of the Strand, or he would not compare them with the terrible things of the American weekly. Again, I doubt his “main" fact; namely, that the American reading public is so much larger than our own. He quotes a circula- tion of 200,000 copies. We can show a circulation of 3OO,OOO copies of this same magazine, the Strand. The questions are, it seems to me— What makes popularity ? Is good work com- patible with popularity ? The example of the American magazines seem to prove that it is— unless, which would be a most humiliating con- fession, we must own that the middle class in this country is below the corresponding class in America in intelligence, taste, and cultivation. WALTER BESANT. *-* → r- - -, PUBLIC LIBRARIES IN AMERICA.” C{INCE writing the notes on English Free S Libraries and the books read by the people who use them, for the number of August, I have received a work by Mr. William J. Fletcher, Librarian of Amherst, on the Public Libraries in America (Columbian Knowledge Series: Sampson Low and Co). This little book supplements the information already gathered concerning our own libraries. The greater part of it is, it is true, devoted to topics belonging to * Public Libraries in America. By William J. Fletcher, M.A., Librarian of Amherst College. London; Sampson Low, Marston, and Co. 1894, librarians, such as classification, cataloguing, pre- servation, distribution, buying, and binding. There are, however, many points of more general interest. For instance, as to the number of public libraries. In the year 1858 there were in the United States no more than IOO libraries, with something like a million volumes altogether. The largest was that of Harvard College, with 70,000 volumes. In 1890 the number of libraries in the country was 4000, the number of volumes amounted altogether to 27,OOO,OOO ; and there were fifty libraries with more than 50,000 volumes each. Moreover, free libraries are multiplying much more rapidly than ever before. Not only are there founded every year many new libraries, but it is found that the old libraries cost more every year to maintain, the growth of a large library being much faster in proportion than that of a small library. Neglected depart- ments are discovered and brought up to date; serial publications have to be continued; the reference department is always increasing. A great deal has been done in the States by private gifts. This book contains a list of donors and donations, including only those of 50,000 dollars and upwards, amounting in all to 17,OOO,OOO dollars, or three and a half million sterling ! How much has been given to free libraries in this country by private persons P The incomes of the hundred largest public libraries are also given in a classified list ; they amount to nearly a million and a half of dollars, or £300,000, but the returns of ten out of the hundred are not complete. The number of free public libraries which contain more than 10,000 volumes does not much exceed one hundred. But in the smaller towns there are a great many libraries as yet quite small, too small to be included in the Government report. The 4ooo libraries above mentioned may be divided roughly as follows: College and school libraries... . 2 OOO Subscription libraries ... 5CO Libraries of societies, &c. . IOOO Free public libraries 5CO The free public libraries are all lending libraries. For instance, in the Newark (New Jersey) library any resident of the town may freely borrow books, under certain conditions to insure the library against loss. This extension of the public library, once introduced, seems essential for its true usefulness. A large number of the libraries are open on Sunday, but not the greater number. Again, there are a large number of special libraries not included in the lists already con- sidered. Almost every State has its Historical Society, which has its library, free and open to  ## p. 105 (#119) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. iO5 any student. There are also the State libraries, which are composed chiefly of law books and public documents, of great use for purposes of reference. And there are the special collections of scientific books. At Washington alone there are nine special libraries, including more than a million volumes, and of the university libraries there are six at least which contain over IOO,OOO volumes each ; that of Harvard alone contains 43O,OOO volumes. What do the people who use these libraries read? This little book gives no lists or details. But it states, what everyone might guess beforehand, that the fiction circulated far exceeds all other classes of books together, “the great majority of readers seeming to care for nothing else.” Not that the American librarian groans over the fact. “This,” he says, “simply shows how great is the demand for reading as recreation. To the masses of the people, hard worked and living humdrum lives, as well as to their pining for something to kill time, the novel comes as an open door into an ideal life, in the enjoyment of which, even in fancy, one may forget the hardships or the tedium of real life.” Something is said as to the guidance exercised by librarians in this respect. Enough has been said to show that the Ameri- cans are much in advance of us in the matter of libraries. Four thousand libraries with over Io,000 volumes each, and a great many more with from one to ten thousand; more libraries continually being founded ; rich men continually giving great sums of money for the foundation and mainten- ance of libraries; this is a statement with which comparison is not calculated to inflate our own pride. One thing more. Everything good in litera- ture becomes instantly, as soon as published, the common property of all the English-speaking peoples. These figures illustrate and prove, what we have persistently maintained, that already a popular book, of whatever kind — historical, scientific, religious, imaginative—commands in Great Britain and Ireland, the Colonies, India, and the United States, taken all together, an audience from the libraries alone which has never yet been equalled in the history of literature. There are writers belonging to this country alone, writers in every branch of literature, who command on the first appearance of a new book the subscription of every important library over the vast area where our language prevails. And great as is already this audience, it is nothing compared with that which awaits the writer and teacher of fifty years hence. When the number of libraries will be multiplied by fifty, and the number of readers by ten, one hundred millions of English-speaking people will be two hundred millions: if there are now only ten millions of readers there will then be a hundred millions. W. B. *– A –iº r- - - LOWE'S COMPLETION. Dim are the memories of those early days When Love was only in the bud as yet ; Swift glances—peeps of tangled woodland ways:— The hues she wore, the way her hair was set. Like broken lights upon some fairy stream, When Dian’s silver shafts are shivered there, Through misty veil seen faintly as in dream, So gleam those far off days, so dimly fair. As we forget its tributary rills, When seawards borne upon the river's breast ; The flashing breakers boom ; amid the hills The becks are hushed, or murmur at the best. So, launched on Life’s inexorable sea, Those echoes of the past have ceased to move Our wedded souls; their whispers drowned—Ah me !— In the imperial symphony of love F. B. DOVETON. *- a sº-º sº- - - LITERATURE OR PHYSICAL SCIENCE: OR the last twenty years, the increasing predominance of subjects other than literary in English education has been most marked. An active movement has been observable to deprive letters of the prominent place they had hitherto occupied; and confident predictions have been uttered that this revolution will be complete, that art and letters will be entirely replaced by the absorbing pursuit of the knowledge afforded in physical science. No doubt, the scientific method of investi- gation is a most valuable discipline, and it is desirable that everyone should have some expe- rience of it ; but it is folly to deny that Art and Poetry and Eloquence have the capability of refreshing and delighting us, and possess for mankind a fortifying, elevating, quickening, and suggestive power. However, for the time being the partisans of Science are popularly supposed to have the victory; and gloomy prognostications are to be heard with reference to the future of modern literature as well as antique. . These apprehensions have been felt elsewhere in Europe. The late M. Renan asserted that “one hundred years hence the whole of the historical and critical studies in which his life had been passed, and his reputation made, will have fallen into neglect, and that natural science will exclusively occupy man’s attention.” No one, familiar with the history of European litera- ture, will for a moment accept this view. It is  ## p. 106 (#120) ############################################ 106 THE AUTHOR. only by the pursuit of this study that we can rightly appreciate the history of the race. Litera- ture is the voice of the people. I believe that so long as man exists, from the very constitution of the human mind, there will always be moral and aesthetic cravings, which Science, however attrac- tive, can never gratify. I think, therefore, that the “splendour and rapid march of the physical sciences” have partially eclipsed, but will never extinguish, the interest in the older subject of literature. However, some of those whose opinions carry weight in the scholastic world have asserted that it cannot be taught, and that the experiment has failed. The signs of this failure are to be found in the modifications of certain examinational require- ments, in which literature has been degraded to a secondary place, or altogether eliminated, or recognised only in connection with Philology. “Literature has been regarded as mere material for the study of words. All that constitutes its intrinsic value has been ignored. Its master- pieces have been resolved into exercises in grammar, syntax, and etymology; its history into a barren catalogue of names and works and dates. No faculty but that of memory has been called into play in studying it.” That it should have failed therefore to commend itself as an instrument of education is no more than might have been expected. The aim and purpose of modern culture are distinctly utilitarian ; all studies have been appraised and valued, and “saleable knowledge” is the most sought. No wonder the proper study of literature can find no place in the system of modern education. Indeed, it is better out of it. Wise men are pointing out the necessity in these days for finding some effective agency for cherishing within us the ideal, and herein is the great value of literature to all those who seek the higher education, with a genuine desire for true culture. It supplies a want, which, how- ever much the exclusively scientific may ignore, will make itself felt in the human heart. It was well said by a great Oxford scholar that “the object of literature in education is to open the mind, to correct it, to refine it, to enable it to comprehend and digest its knowledge, to give it power over its own faculties, application, flexi- bility, method, critical exactness, sagacity, ad- dress, and expression.” support the truism that literature is a most valuable agent in self-culture. But we can avoid the mistake of those who confound its pursuit with education, or regard it as the sole and sufficient agent. Burke said, “What is the education of the world? Reading a parcel of We need not pause to books? No! Restraint and discipline, examples of virtue and of justice, these are what form the education of the world.” - Let us avoid all extravagance, however, and remember that it contains “the best that has been thought and said in the world,” and there- fore regard it as a priceless factor in self- cultivation. But enough, perhaps, has been said upon the disciplinary and educative character of the study of literature. It contains other sources of interest; it brings to our knowledge many whom it is a delight to know. While some excite our reverent admiration, and some afford endless entertainment, there are others who call forth deeper feelings by the loveableness of their character—the noble-minded, in whom pride and vanity, resentment and self-love have no place, who in pure simplicity and singleness of heart give their great knowledge and power unre- servedly to the world, solely that all may share their own happiness; men whose lives seem realised ideals of what is most excellent in moral beauty. *-- * ~ * e- - -º BOOK TALK. AS the one-volume fiction anything to fear from the one-volume collections of short stories? It would be very interesting to know whether the circulation of “Tife's Little Ironies” has equalled that of the one-volume edition of any of Mr. Hardy's other novels. Perhaps such a collection of good short stories, already popular, is likely to become more popular than the long novel, whether in one or three volumes. In the words of a recent critic, “the tendency of the public taste is in the direction of brevity and wit rather than of long drawn-out narratives and elaborate word painting!” No rule, however, can be laid down as to length, that depends on the subject; on the author's style; on the inci- dents; on a thousand things. If a novel can be too long, it may also be too short. And, indeed, every one knows novels which one would like to go on for ever. The impatience of readers on the length of a novel belongs to London, or to the rush of life in great cities, which leaves little time for reading. In the country, or quiet colonies, there is no such impatience: the reader loves to linger among the creations of the novelist. Mr. Morley Roberts' new book, “The Purifica- tion of Dolores Silva, and other Stories,” is one which must leave a good impression on the reader as far as the art of short story writing is con- cerned, but, at the same time, the impression is a  ## p. 107 (#121) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. IO7 sad one. In the first story, “ Initiation,” a girl's first lover, or, let us say, would be lover, is treated with surely more than usual severity, even by the most startled innocence. In the second story the lover never knows till after her death that the heroine cared about him at all. In the third, called “When She May,” the luckless proverb is complete. She does get May—a May lasting a lifetime. “Panic ’’ is the next, and is the one story in the book which everyone will have read before, we forget where it appeared, but it was spoken of as a good story at once. We cannot be quite sure whether, after carefully showing that the chief character was a coward, the author did not mean to convey the idea that after all he had a certain amount of courage—as much as a great many men. However lily-livered, however great a “cur” a man may be, to cut one's throat with a a razor in front of a looking glass requires some nerve. The “Fair-trader’ is, perhaps, the most worthy of praise, but it provokes the question whether it is at all founded on fact. If European girls who disappear are really drafted into Mohammedan households, it is surely a question for public meetings and Parliament. When we take up Miss Ella Hepworth Dixon's story, “A Modern Woman,” it is natural just now to wonder beforehand whether or not we are going to have the fin-de-siècle young person over again. It is therefore particularly pleasing to find that a modern woman as described by a woman need not necessarily imply a pretty piece of up-to-date vulgarity. We have in Mary Erle, Miss Dixon's heroine, as sensible a girl as One would expect the daughter of an eminent scientist to be; her father's distinguished position gives her a footing in society, but at his sudden death she has to earn her own living. The story opens with some account of the professor's funeral, which might have been pruned a little, true as it is to the dismal facts of our methods of interment. From this point we have a history of the girl’s fruitless attempts to become an artist, and afterwards of her success as a society journalist and writer of stories. With the account of these struggles is interwoven that of her own and her friend’s love affairs, which the author refuses in either case to bring within the possibi- lity of a happy ending. We doubt whether Miss Dixon has been as successful with her men characters, but we confess to have been suffi- ciently interested to want to know what became of them in the real end—“Jimmie,” for instance, and the A.R.A. One method of trying to arrive at the best relation between producer and consumer is to compare our system with that of other nations, and the question is asked, when his (the novelist's) story has passed through the magazines or the syndicate of newspapers, must he fling it on to the world as one volume, and let people buy it or not as they think fit * That is what he has to do in France, that is what he has to do in Germany, that is what he has to do in the United States. Whether foreigners can be called greater readers than Englishmen because they may be greater buyers appears doubtful—we have had our system, they have had theirs. But if our three- volume system has given way, there are those who say that the foreign system of publication has become quite as risky. For instance, apropos of the novel in Paris, we have lately read: “A member of a great novel pub- lishing firm tells me that now it does not pay to bring out novels unless there is some great name on the title page.” Zola still makes money, but this business man believes the turn of the tide has in his case begun. Before advocating any foreign system, American, then, or continental, the author would require a much more exact knowledge than we at present possess of the agreements entered into between publisher and author in those countries. As it is, it has taken this Society many pages of recapitulation to get its members to understand that while there is no sentiment in business, every plausible man of business knows there is a great deal of business in sentiment. Perhaps the most striking, because the most ignorant, comment on the recent three-volume novel discussion, is the following:—“The simple fact is, that until the public can be educated to buy books instead of borrowing them, the attempt to produce original works of fiction in one volume must inevitably result in a ruinous failure.” Well, but how about the thou- sands—the hundreds of thousands—the millions of one-volume novels which are bought every year P. How about the returns of those who write them P The fact is, the public does buy books in vast numbers. Perhaps the numbers should be even greater, but it is absurd still to speak of the public as a borrowing instead of a buying body. As to the price asked, perhaps the critic could help by giving his opinion as to whether the book is worth buying at all, or at any other price. Rarely, if ever, in our leading reviews do we see the price of the book mentioned or discussed, but now it really seems a false shame on their part to persistently avoid the pecuniary question when perusing a book; but however that may be, apart from excellence in literary criticism, the duty of educating the public to become book buyers must lie chiefly in the hands of the critics.  ## p. 108 (#122) ############################################ IO8 THE AUTHOR. May we not therefore leave the reading powers of the public alone for a minute, and revert to the idea of property? In every family there will be those who read and those who prefer other amusements; but the outlay of money upon books, the investment in books, the formation of a library, which in the ordinary course of events would pass to a man's children or be sold—why should this be generally left to chance? Why should a householder be so careless of the value of the books admitted into his home that on his demise they will only fetch I d. or 2d. a volume? Yet how often is that found to be the case ? A valuable book is certainly more within the reach of most men than are valuable pictures, but because some books can be obtained cheap, like some prints, that is no reason why some discrimination should not be used. Library is perhaps too big a term for most people's collection of books, but, on the other hand, modern literature must have fallen very low indeed if it excites no desire in the reader to possess and re-read what has appeared to be worth finishing when once taken up. Mr. Lockwood has published through the Rox- burghe Press his lecture on the Laws and the Ilawyers of Pickwick, with a sketch of Mr. Serjeant Buzfuz as a frontispiece. Every reader of Pickwick has his own idea of what Buzfuz was probably inclined to be like, and those who sometimes may find amusement in visiting the public galleries of the courts may have fixed on quite a different type of counsel as representative of that distinguished advocate. Surely Serjeant Buzfuz's handkerchief ought to appear. As the lecture consisted mostly of readings, the author tends an apology for reproducing it in book form ; but perhaps he did not intend it to be much more than a souvenir of what must have been an enjoyable evening to each of his audience. A new novel, entitled “The Birth of a Soul’’ —a psychological study — by Mrs. Alfred Phillips, author of “Benedicta,” &c., will be published in England and America early in October, in one volume. “A Spanish Singer,” by Annabel Gray (Stone- man), vol. 2 of the Annabel Gray library, is a well-constructed and dramatic story depicting the artistic experiences of a young débutante in opera, in Italy. Vocalists will find much to interest them in this realistic sketch of art abroad. In Mr. S. R. Crockett’s “Mad Sir Uchtred of the Hills,” the author has at least done one thing, and that a difficult one ; he has added another “ cat’’ to literature. The madman has a broken- legged wild cat which performs a grand feat in the destruction of a weasel. The introduction of this incident, and the manner of describing it, seems to us to be the best thing in this clever book. The late Professor Romanes wrote poetry and printed his verse, but refrained from publishing it. His poems, which are said to be chiefly religious in their tone, were given to his friends only. It would be possible, perhaps, to secure the publication of those which may appear worthy of the author's reputation as a man of science. Mr. Samuel H. Church thinks that Oliver Cromwell has never had justice done him by any of his English biographers. He has therefore addressed himself seriously to the subject, and the result has been issued by Putnam's, New York. A presentation copy of “Among the Boers and Basutas; or, a Study of our Life on the Frontier,” by Mrs. Barkly, has been graciously accepted by the Queen. The book is now in its second edition. The Rev. Prebendary Jones has issued (Smith, Elder, and Co.) a new and cheaper edition of his “Holiday Papers.” This is the very deadest time of all the year. The book advertisements are chiefly lists of the “Standard ” works and “Favourite ” novels. The “ announcements’ have hardly begun. The dear old phrase— ‘Messrs. Bungay and Co. promise us”—as if we were all waiting anxiously for that distinguished Firm to tell us what it has got in the bag—has not yet appeared; it will begin next week. It is a mistake, however, to suppose that it is the month of the least reading. If the publishers of the Saturday or the Spectator would divulge secrets it would probably be shown that the circulation goes up, not down, while the people are running about the country, killing long hours in the train, sitting in lonely seaside lodgings with a rainy day to get through. Holiday time is reading time with a large number of people who are too much occupied with busi- ness and society to read while they are at home. The magazines which are tossed over in June are read through in August. Of literary articles there are not many in the August magazines. One observes in the Contem- porary a paper by the late Amelia B. Edwards on the “Art of the Novelist; ” a paper by Hall Caine in the National Review on “The Novelist in Shakespeare; ” and No. 1 of a series of papers on “The Historical Novel” by Mr. George Saintsbury in Macmillan. All on fiction. The friends of the late Rev. Henry Allon, D.D., will note with pleasure that the story of part, at  ## p. 109 (#123) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. IO9 least, of his life, that of his Ministry, has been written and published. The biographer is the Rev. W. Hardy Harwood ; the publishers are Cassell and Company. It would seem, however, that his literary life, which would interest many, apart altogether from his career as an indepen- dent minister, is not included. Yet he was for many years the editor of the British Quarterly Ičeview, a magazine which was the home of many admirable papers—literary, social, and historical, as well as controversial. Dr. Allon was a per- sonal friend of the late Dean Stanley, and acquainted with most of the men of leading in that part of the literary world which is engaged on subjects treated in quarterly reviews. He was a many sided man ; his views on literature were broad, and while he was its editor the British Quarterly Review was a power of considerable weight and authority. Mr. Grant Allen’s new book “The Tidal Thames” (Cassell and Co.), is a sumptuous work, illustrated by—and illustrating—twenty original drawings by W. L. Wyllie, A.R.A. It is not, perhaps, a cheap edition—35 15s. 6d. cannot be called cheap—but the drawings are exquisite; everything that is fine, however, is in a sense cheap, whatever price be put upon it; because there is no measuring of artistic worth by money, and the only question is whether one can afford to pay the price asked for the work desired. Mr. Standish O'Grady's heroic Irish romance, “The Coming of Cuculain,” will be published early in October by Methuen and Co., illustrated by Mr. D. Murray Smith. The story is now run- ning serially through the Warder (Dublin) and the Northern Whig (Belfast). The hero of Mr. O'Grady’s tale is the famous Cuchullin of High- land tradition, the Cuthullun of MacPherson’s eplc. *~ * ~ * g- - --e. CORRESPONDENCE, I.—THE LAUREATESHIP. & HAVE read with great interest the article | on the Laureateship and its long abeyance in the Author for this month. It would be impossible to put the view of the case which we, who are in favour of maintaining this ancient and unique office, entertain in terser or more forcible language. To my mind the delay is one which can in no way be excused. There is one point which I should like to emphasise which the writer of the article has passed over, and it is this. It is notorious that poetry in England does not in general pay. Long after Mr. Tennyson had published his most characteristic and popular poems his income consisted mainly of the pension from the Consolidated Fund, which he retained to his death. But, on his appointment as Laureate, his income is said to have risen enormously. Without going into figures, it is certain that his position as Laureate very largely affected his popularity and increased his income. What the gains of a new Laureate would be on appointment it is impossible to tell. If he should unfortunately be a writer with no public, probably they would be but small. If he already had a considerable circulation, it is certain that the appointment would mean a very largely increased income. It is of this substantial advantage that the perhaps natural hesitation of extreme age has deprived the literary profession for nearly two years. It is well that the literary public should know that it is not the pittance of £80 or so, which is the nominal salary, that is at stake, but a much larger sum, to say nothing of the great discouragement which the blank silence of the authorities has inflicted upon the chief glory of our literature for a period without precedent in the history of the vacant office. II.-M. MALLARME's SCHEME. I hope that the Society will take up and at least ventilate the proposal made by M. Mallarmé in the Figaro that the literature of the past should become the property of the nation, or at least of living writers. How much would have been realised by the works of Sir Walter Scott had there been a royalty of 1d. in the shilling laid upon every volume issued since the copyright came to an end ? And why, M. Mallarmé asks, should this great property be handed over, not to the nation, but to a small class of tradesmen P Pray let us know more about it. A MEMBER. III. ON THE WARNINGS AND ADVICE. (Our correspondent's letter on this subject will be found with comments on p. 99). IV.—ON THE CO-OPERATION OF MEMBERS. Now that the dead season gives one time to look round and think, I should like to ask you, Mr. Editor, if the time has not come to take the members’ opinions upon many subjects concerning which the Author has spoken from time to time. I would suggest that a list of subjects of importance to the craft be drawn up, taken one after the other, and referred to the whole body of members. I think that your hands would be strengthened, the members would feel that they  ## p. 110 (#124) ############################################ I IO THE AUTHOR. were having a voice, and that many ways of joint action might be arrived at. A Journal,IST. W.—THE SocIETY's READERs. I submitted a MS. to be read. I received an opinion which was careful and courteous, and not complimentary. It pointed out certain definite objections to the work as reasons why it would not be accepted. I have now removed those objections, yet it is not accepted. A BEGINNER. [It is to be hoped that the Society's reader did not commit himself to the statement that altera- tion would mean improvement, or that the removal of certain objections would mean acceptance by publishers. Everyone knows the common criticism on a new author. “Well, he knows, at least, how to write.” Any publisher's reader also knows the MS. of which he says, “Well, at least he has not yet learned to write.” The Society's reader can only suggest why the latter judgment was pronounced, and here the “way to write” can be discovered.] >e cº WHAT THE PAPERS SAY. I.—THE LATE MR. WYATT PAP worTH. R. WYATT PAPWORTH, F.R.I.B.A., M curator of Sir John Soane’s Museum, died at the museum on Sunday, Aug. 19. Mr. Papworth was distinguished for his literary work in connection with architecture, especially in his contributions to the Transactions of the Royal Institute of British Architects, among which those “On the Superintendents of English Buildings in the Middle Ages, with especial reference to William of Wykeham,” and “Collec- tions for an Historical Account of Masons, their Customs, Institutions, &c.,” are of historical importance. He was also a constant contributor to Notes and Queries. To his labours the architectural profession is indebted for the pro- duction of “The Dictionary of Architecture” (Architectural Publication Society), recently com- pleted in eight volumes folio, begun in 1852 on the lines of the notes and collections of himself and his late brother, Mr. J. W. Pap- worth, and, until its completion in 1892, carried out under his sole editorship. Mr. Papworth, as a member of the Court and Master and Past Master of the Clothworkers' Company, took a leading part in the promotion of technical education and in the City and Guilds Institute.— Times, Aug. 21. II.--THE AIM AT PopULARITY. The man who aims at being popular and admired is not nearly so likely to be popular and admired as the man who thinks little or nothing about it, but aims simply at his own individual ideal. Here, again, the failure of the direct aim appears to be due to its real and perceived inferiority to those aims which usually secure it. The man who directly aims at getting admira- tion and esteem will hardly deserve them, for he cannot deserve them without cherishing plenty of aims which would be very likely to risk or forfeit other persons’ admiration and esteem. The man who lives for the good opinions of others, cannot be deserving of those good opinions, for he cannot contribute much to teach others, by the indepen- dence of his own life. In this case also, then, the ill-success of the direct pursuit of admiration is simply due to the fact that that pursuit is a lower aim than any consistent with the attainment of the admiration pursued. But if happiness be the true standard and end of life, why should it fall into the hands only of those who do not directly seek it P Surely, if it is not safe to pursue it directly, it can only be because it is not the proper end and aim of life—because while it may be the natural reward of the pursuit of better ends, it is not itself the chief end. Nothing could well be more improbable than that the one standard and best fruit of human action should be carefully wrapped up in the folds of inferior ends, so that you may come upon it by accident, if you are to taste it properly at all. R. H. HuTTON. a-i----~~~" •-Fs-e-es-e- NEW. BOOKS AND NEW EDITIONS, Theology. BROWNE, CANON. The Christian Church in these Islands before the Coming of Augustine. Three lectures delivered at St. Paul's in January, 1894. Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. DAVIDS, PROFEssoR RHYs. Buddhism. S.P.C.K. 2s. 6d. EVE, NOAH, ABRAHAM : a study in Genesis. By a Layman. Cassell. Is. GRAY, REV. HERBERT B. Men of Like Passions, being Characters of some Bible Heroes, and other sermons, preached to boys at Bradfield College. Longmans. 58. KING, RIGHT REv. E. Practical Reflections on Every Werse of the Prophet Isaiah. Longmans. 4s. 6d. MALDONATUS, JOHN. A Commentary on the Holy Gospels : St. Matthew's Gospel. Part III. Translated and edited from the original Latin by George J. Davie. John Hodges. Is... net. History and Biography. - CHURCH, CANON. Chapters in the Early History of the Church of Wells, I 136-1333. Limited edition. Elliot Stock, and Barnicott and Pearce, Taunton. 158. New edition.  ## p. 111 (#125) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. I I I RLVIN, REv. C. R. S. The History of Walmer and Walmer Castle. Canterbury : Cross and Jackman. FoRREST, G. W. The Administration of the Marquis of Lansdowne, Viceroy of India, 1888-94. Calcutta : Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing. FREEMAN, PROFESSOR. The History of Sicily from the Earliest Times. Wol. IV. From the Tyranny of Diony- sios to the Death of Agathokles. Edited from post- humous MSS., with supplements and notes, by Arthur J. Evans. Oxford, at the Clarendon Press. Henry Frowde. 2 Is. GAsquièT, DR. FRANCIs A. Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. Sixth Edition. Part I. Hodges. Is. HARRIs, THOMAs. Three Periods of English Architecture. B. T. Batsford. 7s. 6d. HowARD, MAJOR-GENERAL O. O. Funk and Wagnalls. 6s. HUME, MAJOR-GENERAL JoHN R. Reminiscences of the Crimean Campaign, with the 55th Regiment. The Author, 27, Pilgrim-street, Ludgate-hill. Cheap edition. 3s.6d. RAYSERLING, DR. M. Christopher Columbus. Translated from the author’s MS. with his sanction and revision, by Charles Gross. Longmans. 5s. LLOYD-VERNEY, COL., and HUNT, LIEUT.-COL. J. M. Records of the Infantry Militia, Battalions of the County of Southampton from A.D. 1757 to 1894. And Records of the Artillery Militia Regiments of the County of Southampton from A.D. 1853 to 1894. With Isabella of Castile. portraits and illustrations Longmans. 3O8. MoRRIs, WILLIAM, and MAGNUsson, EIRíKR. The Heimskringla. Vol. II. By Snorri Sturluson. Trans- lated from the Icelandic. Being Vol. IV. of the Saga Library. Quaritch. 31. I Is. 6d. SHUCKBURGH, EVELYN S. A. History of Rome to the Battle of Actium. Macmillan. 8s. 6d. THIERs, Lou Is ADOLPHE. History of the Consulate and the Empire of France under Napoleon. Translated by D. Forbes Campbell and John Stebbing. With thirty- six steel plates. Chatto and Windus. Twelve vols. 12s. each. WALTON, CoL. CLIFFORD, C.B. History of the British Standing Army A.D. 1660 to 1700. Harrison and Sons. General Literature. ABBOTTs, W., M.D. Stammering, Stuttering, and other Speech Affections: Their Causes and Cure. The Savoy Press. Is. - BADDELEY, M. J. R. Guide to the Peak District. Dulau and Co., Soho-square. 3s. BAKER, JAMEs. The New Guide to Bristol and Clifton. Edited. J. Baker and Son. BRASSEY, LORD. Papers and addresses on Work and Wages. With an introduction by G. Howell, M.P. Longmans. 58. BRITISH MUSEUM : Supplement to the CATALOGUE of the ARABIC MSS., by Charles Rien ; CATALOGUE of ARABIC Books, by A. G. Ellis, Vol. I. A to L; CATA- LoGUE of HEBREW Books acquired during the years 1868 to 1892, by S. van Straalen. Longmans, Quaritch, Asher, Kegan Paul, and Henry Frowde. CALVERT, ALBERT F. The Aborigines of Western Australia. Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent, and Co. CASE AGAINST DIGGLEISM. Published for the Progressive School Board Election Council by Alexander and Shepheard. Is. CHANUTE, O. Progress in Flying Machines. American Engineer and Railroad Journal. New York : CICERO, M. T. Correspondence. Edited, with a revision of the text, a commentary, and introductory essays, by Professor Tyrrell and L. C. Purser. Wol. IV. Long- mans, Green. I5s. CYNICUs, HIs HUMOUR AND SATIRE. Company. Is. DAVIs, A. H. Dover College Register, 1871-1894. Edited by. Dover : the Editor. 2s. 6d. DEMBO, DR. J. A. The Jewish Method of Slaughter, com- pared with other Methods. Translated from the German. Kegan Paul. Boards, 2s. 6d. net. DOLAN, DR. THOMAS, M. Our State Hospitals. Leicester : John Richardson and Co. 2s. 6d. DUBOIs, F#1,Ix. The Anarchist Peril. Translated, edited, and enlarged with a supplementary chapter by Ralph Derechef. T. Fisher Unwin. 5s. EDGAR, John. Voluntary Schools and Board Schools Con- trasted. R. W. Simpson. ELLISTON, THOMAS. Organs and Tuning. Weekes and Co., Hanover-street, W. 3s. 6d. net. FUR AND FEATHER SERIES : THE GROUSE ; Natural History by the Rev. H. A. Macpherson, Shooting by A. J. Stuart-Wortley, Cookery by George Saintsbury; with illustrations by A. J. Stuart-Wortley and A. Thorburn. Longman's. 58. FURSE, COLONEL GEORGE. The Organisation and Adminis- tration of the Lines of Communication in War. Clowes and Sons. I28. - GREEN wooD, MAJOR. The Personal Responsibility of Judges. Paper Covers. G. Barber, Cursitor-street. HART, ERNEST, D.C.L. On the Use of Opium in India. Prepared by. Smith, Elder. Is. HATFIELD, T. H. Land o' Nod. Gay and Bird. 6d. net. HELLER, THOMAS EDMUND. The New Code for Evening Continuation Schools (1894-95). With Introduction, Notes, and Index. Bemrose and Sons. 6d. HEwiTT, J. F. The Ruling Races of Prehistoric Times in India, South-Western Asia, and Southern Europe. Archibald Constable and Co. 18s. |HOOPER, W. H., and PHILLIPs, W. C. Manual of Marks on Pottery and Porcelain. Macmillan. 4s 6d. ICTHYosAURUs. Hints and Wrinkles on Sea Fishing. Iliffe and Son. Is. Cynicus Publishing JONES, BENJAMIN. Co-operative Production. With a Prefatory Note by Mr. Acland, M.P. 2 vols. Henry Frowde. I5s. Journa L OF THE SANITARY INSTITUTE, for July. Stan- ford. 2s. 6d. LEHMANN, R. C. Conversational Hints for Young Shooters. Chatto and Windus. LE QUEUx, WILLIAM. The Great War in England in 1897. Illustrated by Captain Cyril Field and T. S. C. Crowther. Tower Publishing Company. 6s. LLOYD's YACHT REGISTER, Supplement No. 2, alterations and additions to July 26, 1894. Paper covers. Low's HANDBOOK TO THE CHARITIES OF LONDON. Edited by H. R. Dumville. Fifty-eighth year. Sampson Low. Is. 6d. LUNN, REv. HENRY S. The Grindelwald Conference, 1894. 5, Endsleigh-gardens, N.W. LUSSICH, ANTONIO D. Celebrated Shipwrecks. covers. Monte Video : El Siglo Ilustrado. MARTIN, JOHN. Chats on Invention. Offices of Invention. Is. MILLAIS, J. G. Game Birds and Shooting Sketches. Second Edition. Sotheran and Co. 18s. net. - MURRAY's HANDBOOK FOR SCOTLAND. Sixth Edition. John Murray. 9s. OUR NEXT WAR in its Commercial Aspect ; with some account of the premiums paid at Lloyd's from 1805 to 1816. Blades, East, and Blades. Paper  ## p. 112 (#126) ############################################ II 2 THE AUTHOR. PARROTT, J. E. The Industrial and Social Life and Duties of the Citizen. W. H. Allen and Co. Is. PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL Coloni AL INSTITUTE. Wol. XXV., 1893-94. Edited by the Secretary. The Royal Colonial Institute, Northumberland-avenue. QUARTERLY RETURN OF THE MARRIAGES, BIRTHS, AND DEATHS registered in England. Eyre and Spottis- woode. 9d. REPORT OF THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE UNIVERSITY ExTENSION Congress, LONDON, 1894. P. S. King. IS. RUTHERFORD, MILDRED. American Authors. A Hand- book of American Literature from Early Colonial to Living Writers. The Franklin Printing and Publishing Company. SHAw, LIEUT.-CoI. WILKINson J. Elements of Modern Tactics. Eighth edition. Kegan Paul. SIMs, G. R. Dagonet on Our Islands. Fisher Unwin. Is. SLACK, CAPT. CHARLEs. Formations for Battalion Attack. Clowes and Sons. STAY-AT-Homſ E HUSBANDS AND How TO MANAGE THEM. By One of Themselves. Edited by the Rev. Sydney Mostyn, Bachelor. Gay and Bird. 3s.6d. STEAD, W. T. Chicago To-day. Review of Reviews Office. IS. TIMBER TRADEs Journ AL : LIST OF SHIPPING MARKS ON SAwN AND PLANED WooD, 1894. W. Rider and Son, Bartholomew-close. 6s. WALLIS, J. WHITE. Manual of Hygiene. Kegan Paul. WALLIS-TAYLOR, A. J. The Sanitary Arrangement of Dwelling Houses. Crosby Lockwood. WILKIE, JAMEs. The Life Assurance Agent's Wade- Mecum. Compiled by. Edinburgh : Andrew Elliot. Is. WIRE, ALFRED P., and T)AY, G. Knowledge through the Eye. George Philip. Is. Fiction, BLACKMoRE, R. D. Perlycross. Sampson Dow, Marston, and Co. 6s. Boot HBY, GUY. In Strange Company. Ward, Lock, and Bowden. 58. CAINE, HALL. The Manxman. Heinemann. 6s. CALow, RoRERT. Brookfield. Remington. Ós. CHRISTIson, NEIL. Wedded to a Genius. A novel. 2 vols. Bentley. CLARK RUSSELL, W. The Frozen Pirate. New and cheaper edition. Sampson Low. 3s. 6d. CLOUT, CoLIN. Norman ; or Inherited Fate. Long. 6s. CRoCKETT, S. R. The Autonym Library : Mad Sir Uchtred of the Hills. Fisher Unwin. Is. 6d. DE LA PASTEUR, MRs. HENRY. A Toy Tragedy. Cassell and Co. Is. HAGGARD, H. RIDER. Mr. Meeson's thousand. Longmans. 38. 6d. HETHERINGTON, HELEN F., and BURTON, REV. F. D. Led On. 3 vols. Ward and Downey. HousTON, MRs. Kathleen Carmichael’s Recollections. Dublin and Belfast : Eason and Son. Bagster. 2s. 6d. JONES, CHARLOTTE. R. The Hypnotic Experiment of Dr. Reeves, and other Stories. Bliss, Sands. 2s. 6d. MACDONALD, J. M. Thunderbolt. An Australian Story. Digby and Will. Fifteenth Hurst and Blackett. 3s.6d. MACDONALD, GEORGE. A. Dish of Orts. Enlarged edition. Sampson Low. 2s. 6d. M“LEAN, ALISON. Quiet Stories from an Old Woman's Garden. Frederick Warne. 3s. 6d. MUIR, ALAN. Charming to Her Latest Day. R. Sutton and Co. 28. OLIPHANT, MRS. A House in Bloomsbury. 2 vols. Hutchinson. 391 Is. OUIDA. The Silver Christ, and A Lemon Tree. Pseudo- nym Library. Paper covers. Fisher Unwin. Is. 6d. RAIMOND, C. E. The Pioneer Series : George Mandeville's Husband. Heinemann. 2s. 6d. net. RIDGEWAY, ALGERNON. The Westovers. Digby and Long. 6s. RowsELL, MARY C. A Friend of the People. 3 vols. Fisher Unwin. 31.s. 6d. SAUNDERS, MARSHALL. Beautiful Joe : the Autobiography of a Dog. New edition. Jarrold and Sons. 3s. SAVAGE, R. H. The Princess of Alaska : a Tale of Two Countries. Routledge. 2s. SCHMID, CHRISTOPH VON. The Basket of Flowers. the German. Blackie. Scott, SIR WALTER. Waverley Novels, Border Edition : Count Robert of Paris, and The Surgeon's Daughter. With Introductory Essay and Notes by Andrew Lang. Ten etchings. 2 vols. Nimmo. 12s. SHUD, TAMAN. A. Rash Wow. Digby and Long. From WALFORD, L. B. Ploughed, and other Stories. Long- man. 68. WINTER, JOHN STRANGE. A. Seventh Child. Second edition. F. W. White. 2s. 6d. YOUNG, MIRIAM. Lost One Hundred Pounds Reward : a tale of Sixty Years Ago. Digby and Long. 2s. 6d. Poetry and the Drama. ALDINE EDITION OF THE BRITISH PoETs : Shakespeare's Poems, with Memoir by the Rev. A. Dyce. George Bell and Sons. 2s. 6d. CAMBRIDGE SHAKESPEARE, Vols. XXI. and XXII., being the second and third parts of King Edward VI. Edited by William Aldis Wright. Macmillan. 6s. each. CoLLINs's PoEMs, with Memoir by W. Moy Thomas. George Bell and Sons. 2s. 6d. DICK's CoMPLETE EDITION OF SHAKESPERE's Worrs, with 37 Illustrations and a Memoir. New edition. John Dick. 28. INGLISFIELD, W. Queen Elizabeth and Earl Leicester : a Drama in five acts. Eliot Stock. RING, CLIFFORD. The Royal Pearl and other Poems, Hereford: Jakeman and Carver. Owen, JOHN. Verse Musings on Nature, Faith, and Ereedom. Enlarged reissue. Sonnenschein. PIATT, SARAH. Poems. 2 vols. Longmans. Ios. SMITH, HORACE. Interludes (second series). Being Two Essays, a Farce, and Some Verses. Macmillan. 5s. Geography and Travel. ARNOLD, SIR EDw1N. Seas and Lands. New edition. Longmans. 3s. 6d. - . . . BAEDEKER. Great Britain. A handbook for travellers. Io marks. BRIGHTON. Plan. On cloth. W. H. Smith and Son. Is. CURZON, HON. G. N. Problems of the Far East. Long- Ina,11S. 2 I S. I)Avis, G. CHRISTOPHER. Cruising in the Netherlands. Jarrold and Sons. Is. 6d. FINLAND. With map and illustrations. Finnish Tourist Association. - FISHER, REV. R. Flamborough : Willage and Headland. Hull; William Andrews. 3s.6d. LEwis, MRS. A. Lady’s Impressions of Cyprus in 1893. Remington. 58. MAYO, THE EARL OF. The War Cruise of the Aries. Illustrated by William B. Boulton. Dublin : Edward Ponsonby; Simpkin, Marshall. 18. - Helsingfors. The Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Author, Vol. 05 Issue 04 (September 1894) Subject The topic of the resource <em>The Author</em>, Vol. 05 Issue 04 (September 1894) Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015013732253" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015013732253</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Publication Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1894-09-01-The-Author-5-4 publications The Author https://historysoa.com/files/original/5/269/1894-10-01-The-Author-5-5.pdf e24038c590aba06b133300a3d1c62a37 PDF Text Text ���������������������������� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Author Subject The topic of the resource <em>The Author</em> Description An account of the resource A digitised run of the Society of Authors' monthly periodical, <em>The Author</em>, 1890<span>–</span>1914, made available together for the first time.<br /><br />Currently users can browse issues and <a href="https://historysoa.com/items/browse?search=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Index&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;tags=&amp;exhibit=&amp;date_search_term=&amp;submit_search=Search+For+Items&amp;sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CTitle">indices</a> (not available for all volumes). Full text search for all issues, and other additional search functionality, will be added in 2022. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1890–1914 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context The-Author-Issues Publication Date The date of an event (in YYYY, YYYY-MM or YYYY-MM-DD format) 1894-10-01 Volume 5 Issue 5 Pages Page range in volume 113–140 Ngram Date Version of the date in YYYYMMDD format for use by the Ngram plugin 18941001 Ngram Text Version of the text with no HTML formatting for use by the Ngram plugin C be El u t b or, (The Organ of the Incorporated Society of Authors. Monthly.) CONDUCTED BY WALTER BESA NT. VoI. W.-No. 5.] OCTOBER 1, 1894. [PRICE SIXPENCE. For the Opinions eaſpressed in papers that are signed or initialled the Authors alone are responsible. None of the papers or para- graphs must be taken as eaſpressing the collective opinions of the committee unless they are officially signed by G. Herbert Thring, Sec. HE Secretary of the Society begs to give notice that all remittances are acknowledged by return of post, and requests that all members not receiving an answer to important communications within two days will write to him without delay. All remittances showld be crossed Union. Bank of London, Chancery-lane, or be sent by registered letter only. Communications and letters are invited by the Editor on all subjects connected with literature, but on no other sub- jects whatever. Articles which cannot be accepted are returned if stamps for the purpose accompany the MSS. *— - --> g- > -º WARNINGS AND ADVICE. {. RAWING THE AGREEMENT.—It is not generally understood that the author, as the vendor, has the absolute right of drafting the agreement upon whatever terms the transaction is to be carried out. Authors are strongly advised to exercise that right. In every form of business, this among others, the right of drawing the agreement rests with him who sells, leases, or has the control of the property. 2. SERIAL RIGHTS.–In selling Serial Rights remember that you may be selling the Serial Right for all time; that is, the Right to continue the production in papers. If you object to this, insert a clause to that effect. 3. STAMP 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 which serves for one, is forwarded without the stamp. The author may be assured that the other party to the agree- ment seldom neglects this simple precaution. The Society, to save trouble, undertakes. to get all the agreements of members stamped for them at no ea pense to themselves eaccept the cost of the stamp. 4. ASCERTAIN WHAT A PROPOSED AGREEMENT GIVES To BOTH SIDES BEFORE SIGNING IT.-Remember that an WOL. W. reservedly in his hands. arrangement as to a 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. 5. LITERARY AGENTS.–Be very careful. Yow cannot be too careful as to the person whom yow appoint as yowr agent. Remember that you place your property almost un- Your only safety is in consulting the Society, or some friend who has had personal experience of the agent. Do not trust advertisements alone. 6. CoST OF PRODUCTION.—Never sign any agreement of which the alleged cost of production forms an integral part, until you have proved the figures. 7. CHOICE OF PUBLISHERS.–Never enter into any cor- respondence with publishers, especially with those who ad- vertise for MSS., who are not recommended by experienced friends or by this Society. 8. FuTURE Work.—Never, on any account whatever, bind yourself down for future work to anyone. 9. PERSONAL RISK.—Never accept any pecuniary risk or responsibility whatever without advice. Io. REJECTED MSS.—Never, when a M.S. has been re- fused by respectable houses, pay others, whatever promises they may put forward, for the production of the work. II. AMERICAN RIGHTS.–Never sign away American rights. Keep them by special clause. Refuse to sign any agreement containing a clause which reserves them for the publisher, unless for a substantial consideration. 12. CESSION OF COPYRIGHT.-Never sign any paper, either agreement or receipt, which gives away copyright, without advice. 13. ADVERTISEMENTS. – Keep some control over the advertisements, if they affect your returns, by a clause in the agreement. I4. 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, LINCOLN's INN FIELDs. HOW TO USE THE SOCIETY, I. VERY member has a right to ask for and to receive advice upon his agreements, his choice of a pub- lisher, or any dispute arising in the conduct of his business or the administration of his property. If the advice sought is such as can be given best by a solicitor, the member M 2  ## p. 114 (#128) ############################################ II 4. THE AUTHOR, 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 is in order to ascertain what has been the nature of your agree- ments, and the results to author and publisher respectively so far. The Secretary will always be glad to have any agreements, new or old, for inspection and note. The infor- mation thus obtained may prove invaluable. 4. If the examination of your previous business trans- actions by the Secretary proves unfavourable, you should take advice as to a change of publishers. 5. Before signing any agreement whatever, send the pro- posed document to the Society for examination. 6. The Society is acquainted with the methods, and—in the case of fraudulent houses—the tricks of every publish- ing firm in the country. 7. Remember always that in belonging to the Society you are fighting the battles of other writers, even if you are reaping no benefit to yourself, and that you are advancing the best interests of literature in promoting the indepen- dence of the writer. 8. Send to the Editor of the Awthor notes of everything important to literature that you may hear or meet with. *- - -º e- * -s. 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 booking fee is charged to cover postage and porterage. 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 Director by appointment, and that, when possible, at least four days’ notice should be given. 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. 8. That the Syndicate undertakes arrangements for lectures by some of the leading members of the Society; that it has a “Transfer Department” for the sale and purchase of journals and periodicals; and that a “Register of Wants and Wanted * has been opened. Members anxious to obtain literary or artistic work are invited to com- municate 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. * - a -4° 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 P Communications for the Author should reach the Editor not later than the 21st of each month. All persons engaged in literary work of any kind, whether members of the Society or not, are invited to communicate to the Editor any points connected with their work which it would be advisable in the general interest to publish. Members and others who wish their MSS. read are requested not to send them to the Office without previously communicating with the Secretary. The utmost practicable despatch is aimed at, and MSS. are read in the order in which they are received. It must also be distinctly under- stood that the Society does not, under any circumstances, undertake the publication of MSS. The Authors’ Club is now open in its new premises, at 3, Whitehall-court, Charing Cross. Address the Secretary for information, rules of admission, &c. Will members take the trouble to ascertain whether they have paid their subscriptions for the year P If they will do. this, and remit the amount, if still unpaid, or a banker's order, it will greatly assist the Secretary, and save him the trouble of sending out a reminder. Members are most earnestly entreated to attend to the warning numbered (8). It is a most foolish and may be a, most disastrous thing to enter into an agreement binding for a term of years. Let them ask themselves if they would give a solicitor the collection of their rents for five years to come, whatever his conduct, whether he was honest or dishonest ? Of course they would not. Why then hesitate for a moment when they are asked to sign them- selves into literary bondage for three or five years P Those who possess the “Cost of Production ” are requested to note that the cost of binding has advanced 15 per cent. This means, for those who do not like the trouble of “doing sums,” the addition of three shillings in the pound on this head. In other words, if the cost of binding is set down in our book at eight pounds, to this must now be added twenty-four shillings more, so that it now stands at £9 48. The figures in our book are as near the exact truth,  ## p. 115 (#129) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 115 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, hy inserting any number of advertisements in his own magazines, and by exchanging with others. Some there are who call this a form of fraud; it is not known what those who practise this method of swelling their own profits call it. *- - --> LITERARY PROPERTY. I.—MAYNARD, MERRILL, and Co., appellees, v. WILLIAM BEVERLEY HARRISON, appellant. May, 1894. (Before Judges WALLACE, LACOMBE, and SHIP- MAN, United States Circuit Court of Appeal.) Q(HIPMAN, C.J.-The complainant, Maynard, Merrill, and Co., a corporation duly created under the laws of the State of New York, and having its principal office in the City of New York, was, in June, 1893, the owner of the copyright of a book entitled “Introductory Language Work,” of which Alonzo Reed was the author, and which had been duly copy- righted by him in July, 1891, under the laws of the United States respecting copyrights. The complainant is a book publisher, and has been in the habit of sending the printed and unbound sheets of this book, and of other books which it published, to George W. Alex- ander's bookbindery, in the City of New York, to be stored there until it gave Mr. Alexander an order to bind a specified quantity, who would sometimes bind a lot in anticipation of such orders. On June 21, 1893, a destructive fire occurred in this bindery, the result of which was, as the complainant supposed, to destroy the commercial value of all the property which it had in the building. One of its employés, at its request, examined the débris and reported that there was nothing of value which the complainant could use in the manufacture or sale of books. Alexander there- upon sold the entire débris which had fallen into the cellar to one Fitzgerald, who resold it, with- out moving it, to some Italian dealers in waste paper, and in order to prevent them from using the paper and books for other purposes than paper stock, incorporated the following provision in the contract of sale: “It is understood that all paper taken out of the building is to be utilised as paper stock, and all books to be sold as paper stock only, and not placed on the market as any- thing else.” “The cellar was cleared of this class of mate- rial, and subsequently a quantity of damaged copies of “Introductory Language Work” appeared in the market, as owned and offered for sale by the defendant, William Beverley Harrison, a dealer in second-hand books, and a citizen of the State of New York and residing in the City of New York. The leaves of the books were dis- coloured and stained by smoke and water, but the covers had a respectable appearance, and the complainant supposed that the unbound sheets which had escaped the fire had been rebound by Barrison, or under his direction, or with his privity, and that he was selling such newly bound books, as well as some bound books which had escaped serious injury, and thereupon brought a bill in equity before the United States Circuit Court, to restrain his alleged infringement of its copyright. The bill counted entirely upon the right of the complainant under the copyright statutes of the United States. Upon its motion, the Court granted an injunction pendente lite. Harrison denies, in his affidavit, that he pur- chased any sheets or loose covers of the book. He further says, rather vaguely, that he “learned that certain dealers had come into possession of the salvage from the fire at said Alexander's place; that affiant visited the premises where said salvage was stored, and from them purchased a number of bound and completely finished volumes, some of which were the publications of the complaimant.” He further says that he “pur- chased the said books in the regular course of trade, without any knowledge of any understanding or arrangement, if any there was, between com- plainant and others, and that he accepted the same, as he believes, according to the established usage of the trade, believing them to be books which had been put upon the market as Salvage, as damaged books are bought and sold.” The affidavits show that the complainant, which was the owner of the copyright. permitted Alexander to sell absolutely all its copyrighted books in his cellar, and that his vendee obtained the entire legal title to these damaged volumes. They were sold again, together with other papers and books, under express restrictions against their use for any other purpose than for the manufac- ture of paper. Harrison says that he bought the books in question without knowledge of this restriction. Whether he had notice of facts which should have put a purchaser upon inquiry to ascertain whether he was being made a party to a violation of contract cannot be determined upon the affidavits. The question, as it arises upon the bill and the  ## p. 116 (#130) ############################################ I i 6 THE AUTHOR. affidavits, is, can the owner of a copyright restrain, by virtue of the copyright statutes, the sale of a copy of the copyright book, the title to which he has transferred, but which is being sold in viola- tion of an agreement entered into between him- self and the purchaser; or are the remedies of the original owner confined to remedies for a breach of contract P So long as the owner of a copyright retains the title to the copies of the book which he has the exclusive right to vend, by virtue of the copyright, he can impose restrictions upon the manner in which and upon the persons to whom the copies can be sold. Having the exclusive right to vend, he has the right to appoint to whom the book shall be sold. If his agents, to whom he has intrusted the possession of his books, violate his instructions and fraudulently sell to a person with knowledge or notice of the fraud,-such fraud will be an infringement of the copyright, with which the original owner has never parted, and can be restrained by virtue of the Statutes of the United States. Thus, if the owner of a copyrighted book entrusts copies of the book to an agent or employé for sale only by subscription and for delivery to the subscribers, and the agent fraudu- lently sells to non-subscribers, who have know- ledge or notice of the fraud, such sale is an infringement of the original owner's copyright, who can disregard the pretended sale and have the benefit of all the remedies which the statute or the law furnish. This right to enjoy the benefit of the copyright statutes results from the fact that the owner has never parted with the title to the book or the copyright, although he parted with the possession of the book. But the right to restrain the sale of a parti- cular copy of the book, by virtue of the copyright statutes, has gone when the owner of the copy- right and of that copy has parted with all his title to it, and has conferred an absolute title to the copy upon a purchaser, although with an agreement for a restricted use. The exclusive right to vend the particular copy no longer remains in the owner of the copyright by the Copyright statutes. The new purchaser cannot reprint the copy, he cannot print or publish a new edition of the book; but the copy having been absolutely sold to him, the ordinary inci- dents of ownership in personal property, among which is the right of alienation, attach to it. If he has agreed that he will not sell it for certain purposes, or to certain persons, and violates his agreement and sells to an innocent purchaser, he can be punished for a violation of his agreement, but neither is guilty under the copyright statutes of an infringment. If the new purchaser parti- cipates in the fraud he may also share in the punishment : (“Clemens v. Estes,” 899.) . . . The distinction between the remedy of the owner of a copyright and the books published under its protection, who has retained the title to the books and the copyright, and has been defrauded by an unauthorised sale to a purchaser, with notice, and the remedy of a copyright owner who has parted with his title to a copy of the copyrighted book, and has been injured by the failure of the purchaser to comply with his con- tract in regard to its use, is stated by Judge Hammond in “Henry Bill Publishing Company v. Forsythe’’ (27 Fed. Rep. 914) as follows: “The owner of the copyright may not be able to transfer the entire property in one of his copies, and retain for himself an incidental power to authorise a sale of that copy, or rather the power of prohibition on the owner that he shall not sell it, holding that much, as a modicum. of his former estate, to be protected by the copy- right statute; and yet he may be entirely able, so long as he retains the ownership of a particular copy for himself, to find abundant protection under the copyright statute for his then inci- dental power of controlling its sale. This copy- right incident of control over the sale, if I may call it so, as contradistinguished from the power of sale incident to ownership in all property— copyrighted articles like any other—is a thing that belongs alone to the owner of the copyright itself, and as to him only so long as and to the extent that he owns the particular copies involved. Whenever he parts with that ownership, the ordinary incident of alienation attaches to the particular copy parted with, in favour of the transferee, and he cannot be deprived of it. This latter incident supersedes the other — swallows it up, so to speak—and the two cannot co-exist in any owner of the copy except he be the owner at the same time of the copyright; and, in the Inature of the thing, they cannot be separated so that one may remain in the owner of the copyright as a limitation upon or denial of the other in the owner of the copy.” - The case of “Murray v. Heath " (I Bain & Adol. 804), which is somewhat relied upon by the defendant’s counsel, does not throw a strong light upon a case arising under the statutes of the United States. The question was whether the sale of the engravings was, under the circum- stances of the case, a violation of the English, statutes, which prohibited a piratical publication, of the engravings of another, or was a breach of contract. The Court was of opinion that the statutes were not applicable. - The other cases which were cited on the argu- ment are not applicable to the facts of this case, , 22 Fed. Rep.  ## p. 117 (#131) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 117 although they are instructive upon the rights of copyright owners, under copyright statutes, or of the rights of owners of manuscripts: (“Stephens v. Cady,” 14 How. 529; “Stephen v. Gladding,” 17 How. 447; “Parton v. Prang,” 3 Cliff. 537; “Bartlette v. Chittenden º’ 4 McLean, 3oo; “Prince Albert v. Strange,” 2 De G. & S. 652; “Taylor v. Pillow,” L. R. 7 Eq. Cases, 418; “Howitt v. Hall,” Io Weekly Rep. 381 ; “Hud- son v. Patten,” I Root, Con. 133.) The dis- cussion by Judge Hammond upon the general subject, in “Henry Hill Co. v. Smythe.” (supra) is most valuable, and anyone who has occasion to examine this subject will find that the territory bas been thoroughly explored. Our conclusion is that, upon the facts stated in the bill and in the affidavits, the complainant has no remedy under the copyright statutes of the United States, and, as both parties are deemed to be citizens of the State of New York, the complainant is without remedy in the Circuit Court for the Southern District of New York. The order of the Circuit Court for a preliminary injunction is reversed and set aside, with costs. Wallace and Lacombe, J.J. concur. New York Law Journal, June 13. II.-MUSICAL CoPYRIGHT IN AMERICA. We published in the September number of the Author a letter addressed by Mr. G. Dixey, secretary of the Music Publishers’ Association, on a recent decision in an American court. To repeat the last words of that letter, “The judgment thus delivered has settled the point for the present, and until that judgment is upset or varied it must be accepted that the law of the United States of America is, that the expres- sion “book’ in the Act of 1891 does not include ‘ musical composition and that, consequently it is not necessary that such compositions should be printed in America as a condition of obtaining copyright there.” On this point Mr. R. H. Johnson writes from New York as follows: “I hope the news of the confirmation by the courts of our contention that music does not have to be manufactured here will be widely published in your country. It closes a chapter in the history of International copyright Music is now a thing produced and published, and not subject to exclusion because the method of publication may be like that of books or chromos. My testimony as to the intention of the framers of the bill was part of the plaintiff's brief, and that consideration seems to have had weight in the decision.” - III.-AUTHORSHIP FALSELY AsCRIBED. A publisher of New York printed in 1873 a volume, the authorship of which was ascribed to Bret Harte. This volume contained four chapters of a story that had actually been written by Bret Harte ten years previously, while the remaining chapters making up the volume were written by some person unknown. To the whole story Bret Harte's name was prefixed, but at the end of his portion of the story appeared an explanatory note. . The facts having been proved as above stated, the court granted Harte's application for an injunction under which further sale of the book was restrained. The judge said, in his opinion: “I think that the plaintiff has such an interestin his name and in his reputation as an author as entitles him to invoke the aid of a court of equity in restraining the defendant in falsely repre- senting that a literary production published and sold by the defendant is the work of the plaintiff. . . . It seems to me that the act of the defen- dant is calculated to mislead the public, and induce the purchase of the work referred to in the complaint, under the impression that said work is wholly written by the plaintiff. The case is analogous to that of a trade mark, and the principle on which the relief is granted in such cases is that a defendant shall not be permitted by the adoption of a trade mark that is untrue or deceptive, to sell his own goods as those of the plaintiff, which is injuring the latter and also defrauding the public. In this case the gen ral public would, in my judgment, be misled by the title-page of the book in question into supposing that the whole of the book was a production of the plaintiff, and the facts seem to point strongly to the conclusion that it was the design of the defendant thus to mislead the public. & It is no answer to this to say that every one who read the book must necessarily read the note at page 34, as that note is better calculated to call the attention of the purchaser to the fact that he has been deceived rather than to prevent the deception. Entertaining these views, I shall direct that an order be granted continuing the injunction until the case can be tried, plaintiff to pay all the costs of the motion.” -—-º-º-º-º-º- IV.—HANFSTAENGL v. NEWNEs. The “living picture * cases, Hanfstaeng! v. Newnes, 7 R. Aug. 80; Hanfstaeng! v. Empire Palace, '94, 2 Ch. 1, 7 R. Sept. 84 (both in C.A.), make a good example of the true principles of copyright law. Copyright is not a property in ideas conferred by the law of nature, as certain philosophers have vainly talked, but a monopoly  ## p. 118 (#132) ############################################ 1 18 THE AUTHOR. specially created by law on grounds of public utility, and a monopoly not in ideas or artistic motives in the abstract, but in particular forms of expression. Therefore copyright in a work of literature or art can be infringed only by a repro- duction ejusdem generis, a picture by something pictorial, and so forth. It does not follow, how- ever, that infringement might not be indirectly committed by reconstruction of the original design from something which was not itself an infringe- ment, even if the reconstructor had no direct acquaintance with the original ; it was expressly allowed by the Court of Appeal that it could be so, though they held that in the particular case it was not. The questions of dramatising literary work and of “performing rights * are not touched by these decisions, and stand on a special footing. —Law Quarterly Review for October. *– ~ *-* THE INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT CONGRESS AT ANTWERP, R. J. E. MUDDOCK, F.R.G.S., was the sole representative of England at the Congress, which closed its sittings on the 26th of August, Mr. Muddock, who went over by special invitation of the committee, speaks in glowing terms of the princely hospitality offered to the foreign delegates by their Belgian confrères Without making any invidious comparison, he wishes to particularise the exceeding kindness and courtesy of the Hon. Paul Cogel, President of the Antwerp Society of Bibliophiles; of M. Victor Robyns, the esteemed President of the Antwerp Cercle Artistique, Litteraire, and Scientific; and M. Franz Gittens, the well-known Belgian dramatic author. Fetes, illuminated corteges, receptions, dinners, excursions, and visits to all that is interesting in Antwerp, were the order of the day, and the wonder is that the guests have survived all this kindness. They have not only survived, however, but are unanimous in their expressions of satisfaction and gratitude for the magnificent hospitality of their hosts. Notwith- standing all the feasting and junketing much solid work was done, as two seances were held each day, and some six hours a day were consumed in this way. At the opening sitting, M. Robyns, in the name of the old and intellectual city of Antwerp, extended a warm welcome to the foreign delegates, and he alluded in graceful terms to the great interest manifested in the Congress by His Majesty the King of the Belgians. It was a good sign when representatives of nearly every European nation assembled to discuss amicabl their mutual interests in the products of intellect, whether such products took the form of litera- ture, art, science, poetry, the drama, or music. Meetings like that did more to bring about the longed for universal brotherhood than anything else could possibly do; for there was no nation- ality in brain work. Literature and art were cosmopolitan, they recognised no frontiers, and gatherings of that kind served to strengthen the bond of good feeling which literary men and women, musicians, artists, composers, &c., enter- tained for one another, irrespective of country. Great strides had been made of late years in securing to authors and artists universal recogni- tion of their rights in the works they created. But there was still much to do, though the good work that had already been done was a guarantee for the future; and it might safely be asserted that there would be no pause until the literary and artistic millenium was reached. Then nations would be compelled to recognise, by the laws of their respective countries, that the products of a man’s brain labour could no more be filched from him with impunity than could his land, his houses, his household effects, or anything that was legitimately his. The sentiments expressed by the President were received with warm approval, and Dr. Albert Osterrieth, who spoke in the name of the Congress of German authors, said that throughout Germany there was a very strong desire to promote in every possible way the interests of international copyright. M. Pfeiffer, of the Syndicate of the Musical Composers of Paris; Dr. Lundstadt, in the name of Swedish publishers, and of the Literary and Artistic Circle of Stockholm ; Herr Stoutz, for Switzer- land; and Mr. J. E. Muddock, for England, said that authors and composers of their respective countries would not rest until their rights in literary and artistic property were fully recognised. At the second sitting there was a very large attendance, including the Princess Napoleon Bonaparte-Weiss, and several women of letters, amongst them being Madame Brun, the well- known Belgian novelist and journalist. When the meeting had been declared open by the President, M. Bonilla, who represented the “Society of Spanish Writers,” rose to address the assembly. Speaking in Spanish, he made a stirring and eloquent appeal for the universal recognition of the results of intellectual labour. He insisted that workers with the pen and pencil had been too long regarded as mere time-servers of the public, whose mission was to give to the world the efforts of their genius, but like the slaves of old they could own nothing. Fortu- nately a more enlightened era was dawning, and  ## p. 119 (#133) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. I Ig the day could not be far distant when authors and artists would have cause to rejoice that they had clamoured for an equitable recognition of their interests by all nations. A long discussion followed on the rights of translation. Translation in principle is said to be a mode of reproduction, but while that prin- ciple is admitted in some countries it is contested in others. It was certainly proclaimed at the Brussels Congress in 1858; and since then the International Literary Union has endeavoured to get it universally recognised. Under any cir- cumstances, the desirability was urged of pro- longing the term during which an author's consent has to be obtained before his works can be translated, and twenty years was named as an equitable limit. This was objected to by M. Ernest Eisenmann, an avocat of Paris, and the author of an important work on the rights of authors and journalists. He maintained that if such restrictions were placed upon the rights of translation they would militate against the author's themselves. That would certainly be the case in dramatic and musical composition. When the subject had been well threshed out, without any very definite conclusion being arrived at, M. Alcide Darras, one of the general secretaries of the union, laid before the assembly a brief but lucid account of the legislative move- ments that had been made with regard to inter- national copyright during the past few years. He spoke bitterly of the action of the United States, and said it was something more than an anomaly that Canada should be disposed to favour American writers in preference to all others. England had given copyright to English authors in the whole of the British Empire, and that copyright was secured by an international treaty; nevertheless Canada showed a strong disposition to give American authors Canadian rights, although America had treated English authors so scurvily. Referring to Mexico, M. Darras said it was greatly to the credit of that country that Mexican subjects, or anyone producing a literary work in Mexico, had the advantage of perpetual copyright, while great liberality was shown to authors of all nationalities. It certainly would be more honourable on the part of the Govern- ment of the United States if they took a leaf out of their neighbour's book. At the subsequent sittings of the Congress long and interesting dis- cussions took place on the relations of publishers and authors, in so far as those relations were concerned in contracts of publications. All the speakers pointed out that in every country, as matters now stood, the author was entirely in the hands of his publisher, and if the publisher chose to act dishonestly, as he often did, the author WOL. W. suffered, and had no remedy. It was pertinently asked why literary contracts should not be placed upon the same basis as any other commercial contract. If an author wrote a book, and a publisher undertook to publish it on terms of mutual profit, there was a distinct partnership created. The author's capital in the business was represented by his work, and the value of that work must be taken to be equal in every sense to the amount the pub- lisher invested when he printed and put the work on the market. The author should there- fore be in a position to know precisely what busi- ness is being transacted and what returns are coming in. As matters now stood, he was entirely dependent for this information on the bare statement of the publisher. And, while it was not assumed for a moment that all pub- lishers were dishonest, it could not be denied that the temptation to make a little extra profit by the manipulation of accounts and the suppression of information that ought to be afforded was very great indeed; and human nature was the same in a publisher as it was in other buman beings, often more so. It was admitted that the subject was a very difficult one to deal with in an international sense, for transactions of the kind often had to be determined by local circumstances. But there was no reason why some general principles should not be laid down and adopted by the union. And it was suggested that in default of distinct stipulation to the contrary a contract of publication should be taken to mean one edition only, whether it was of a musical or literary work. The number of that edition should be expressly stated in the contract, and every copy of it should be numbered and signed by publisher and author. This scheme would at once afford an author a ready means of knowing how many copies of his work had been sold, and it would be a safeguard against unauthorised reproduction. Of course the same regulations would apply to any subsequent editions. Although no definite decision was arrived at on this subject owing to various difficulties that presented themselves, it was admitted that it was too important to be shelved, and that it should be brought forward next year, and in the mean- time some concerted plan of action should be. worked out which should aim at doing justice to. all parties without wounding the susceptibilities. of any. Mr. Wolfgang Kirschbach, the well-known. theatrical critic and editor of the Dresdner. Nachrichten, then invited the Congress to meet. next year at Dresden, and he said he was autho- rised to promise a welcome and a reception in the name of the Saxon Government, as well as of the N  ## p. 120 (#134) ############################################ I 20 THE AUTHOR. municipal authorities. And he further promised that the warmest support would be accorded te the work and aims of the Congress by the whole of Germany, North and South. The invitation was accepted, and Dresden fixed as the next place of meeting. Altogether it may be said that the Congress has been productive of many good results, and the work so far achieved is just and equitable to all who labour with their brains. And, as M. Bergerem, the Minister of Justice, said at the grand banquet given by the President to the distinguished foreigners gathered together in Antwerp in the name of literature, science, and art, the objects of the association must, in the end, be universally triumphant. They had right on their side, and they would soon have power to enforce those rights. It is greatly to be regretted that the entire English press, from the Times downwards, should have been so utterly indifferent to this important Congress that no report of it has appeared in any paper in this country. Journalists cannot afford to ignore the aims and objects of the association, and it surely would have been worth while for the great London dailies to have instructed their foreign correspondents to furnish to their respective papers some particulars of the labours of the Congress. It is also a matter of surprise that Mr. Muddock was not supported by some of his London confrères. The question of inter- national copyright is one which very closely affects us as a literary people, and particularly in so far as our dealings with America are concerned. And unless writers and artists here think their property is not worth protecting, they would do well to show that they are in full accord with the spirit and aims of these annual congresses, and attend in numbers to speak and vote on all that tends to promote the common welfare of the great brotherhood of the pen and pencil. *— — —” * * * NOTES FROM PARIS. AM writing this from a fishing village at the extreme southern point of the Bay of Biscay, in a desolate land of dunes, with the purple line of the Pyrenees in front of me, and all around a forest of pine trees. . A coin perdu. if ever there was one, yet at the time of the English rule in Aquitaine, a place of some importance. In the middle of the village rises the “Tower of the English,” and many of the houses were built by English hands. g e gº Is it a fallacy that, as many of us imagine, soli- stude and quiet are very necessary to the man who would produce his best work, and that a man works hardest where there is little tempta- tion for him to leave his writing-table P Zola has recorded the fine fevers of industry which come upon him in the country, but then Zola will work anywhere and under any circumstances. Daudet, on the other hand, has told me that at the seaside at least he is never able to work. “The sea is a terrible waster,” he said, and added that having sought solitude in a little village on the Mediterranean coast, he remained six weeks without putting pen to paper. For my part my experience is that a solitary and monotonous way of life is fatal to literary production. One cannot think when one yawns. And again, the song of the sea is one continual invitation to idleness, whilst the fields and the forest have mysterious and syremlike voices to tempt one away. People who have read “Jack,” will remem- ber the poet D’Argenton, who, having longed for years for a quiet retreat in the country, found, when he was able to afford one, that he could not work there, and wasted six years in idle endea- vours. Perhaps the reason of this is that the country is so delightful that idleness becomes a real pleasure. It is a characteristic trait of the American critics that when reviewing a translation all men- tion of the translator, even in quoting the title of the book, is omitted by them. Translation, it would appear, after their manner of thinking, is and cannot be otherwise than hack work. Yet one of Charles Baudelaire's chief titles to fame is in his masterly translation of Poe's tales. American journalism, by the way, seems to be sinking lower and lower into infamy. Not many days ago I was passing a delightful hour in the pine forest near my house, with my dog and my grey donkey for companions, and an odd volume of Montaigne in my hand. I could see the great red sun going down into the sea, athwart the pines; the air was fresh and balsamous, and only the cooing of the turtle-doves broke the stillness. I was away for the time from everything that was common and cruel, and ugly and human. And then broke in upon my tranquil meditation American journalism, in the form of a cablegram from New York, an unclean thing that I threw away from me with disgust as soon as I had read it. It came from a great American editor, and requested me to nose out the dirty story of an American milliardaire, who, it appears, has fallen into the toils of some Parisian Phryne. I was to “ mail photos,” and to accompany the same with a “rip-roarer story of their intimacy.” After reflection I picked the filthy paper up again, and have pasted it up in my study as a reminder of the things to which American journalism leads.  ## p. 121 (#135) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. I 2 I Inasmuch as, by the stress of circumstances, there are many writers who engage in literature in a purely commercial spirit, might not the critics exact that the publishers in sending in ibooks for review should mention, besides the price of each volume, the amount of remunera- tion which was assured to the author when he sat down to the task of its production. This knowledge might dispose them to greater leniency or severity, as the case might be. The critic might be very exacting in the case of a book for which the author had received or was to receive several hundred pounds, and less so in the case of work paid for with as many six- pences. I would like to read some such sentence in a literary critique as the following: “This is a hastily-written book, immaturely considered. Still, when we remember that the author produced it at the rate of fourpence halfpenny for each hour's work, we cannot but commend it as extremely good value for money.” In this matter also the philosophy of Mrs. Gamp holds good, and them as wants titivating must pay accordingly. Alphonse Daudet has just finished a new novel. It is one of the very few of his stories— is it not the only one P-which contains a murder. There are a husband and wife who each suspects the other of the crime, and so on. It ends in a reconciliation. I am glad to say that Daudet's health is improving. I had a long letter from him a few days ago, entirely in his own hand, firm, healthy writing “in his least nervous pen.” Be usually dictates to his secretary, the amiable M. Ebner. He tells me that his son’s book, “Les Morticoles,” is still selling very well, already in a tenth edition, I believe. Apropos of Léon Daudet, who, it will be remembered, married Victor Hugo's grand- daughter, the last time I saw him he told me that Hugo's books were selling very badly indeed, and he is in a position to know the facts, as husband of the lady who is entitled to one half the revenue from the Hugo copy- rights. This disposes of various accounts we have heard of the continued demand for these works. Emile Zola, leaves for Rome next month to collect materials for the second volume of “Les Trois Villes " series, which is to be called “Rome.” I am afraid that he will not succeed, as he had hoped, in securing an interview with the Holy Father, and it is to be feared that the odium theologicum provoked by “Lourdes,” will put many difficulties in his way. In the meanwhile “Lourdes'' is in its hundredth edition, and Charpentier's presses are still hard at work turning out copies by the thousand. It is expeeted WOL. V. that this book will have the largest sale of any of Zola's works. * Edmund de Goncourt, I am sorry to say, is, as I hear from Champrosay, ailing with “a liver crisis.” This splendid old man is, however, so robust that I expect him to outlive us all. He is resting his pen at present, though, of course, he continues to keep his daily diary, as he has done for the past thirty years. The widow of Leconte de Lisle is preparing her late husband's manuscripts for the press. She is working in collaboration with De Héredice, and they hope to collect sufficient material for a volume of poems, which shall add to the reputa- tion of the author of “Poémes Barbares.” The task is a difficult one, as the late poet was very critical about his own work, and they are anxious not to print anything which he would have refused to publish. Leconte de Lisle destroyed more than four thousand lines of verse which he deemed unsatisfactory, and what he published had been revised and revised again. A new life of Napoleon is being prepared in Paris by a Boston Professor, and will run for two years in the Century Magazine. I myself was recently invited by the proprietors of another American magazine to do another life of Napoleon, and very good terms were offered. But the matter fell through when I was informed that Napoleon had to be treated in an entirely favour- able light, as I found it impossible to do so. The Americans all have an immense admiration for Napoleon, chiefly, no doubt, because of the persis- tent way in which he plagued England. A study of Napoleon as the Arch-Anarchist and forerunner of the anarchy of this fin de siècle would be interesting. ROBERT H. SHERARD. Capbreton, Landes, Sept. 19. *– ~ –” g- > -e AUGUSTA WEBSTER, HE death of Augusta Webster on Sept. 5 takes from us a poet of very remarkable powers, and of achievement second to no woman of the age who has attempted poetry. She was a daughter of the late Admiral Davies, who for many years filled the post of Chief Constable for Cambridgeshire, and lived at Cam- bridge. Augusta Davies published her first volume of verse in the year 1861 or 1862. It was entitled “Blanche Lisle,” and bore the assumed name of Cecil Horne. After her marriage to Mr. Thomas Webster, a classical scholar and a Fellow of Trinity, she published under her own name translations of “Prometheous Vinctus ” and the “Medea,” N 2  ## p. 122 (#136) ############################################ I 22 THE AUTHOR. she also published another volume of verse under her nom de plume. The works that followed were “Dramatic Studies” (1866), “A Woman Sold” (1867), “Portraits” (1870), “The Auspicious Day” (1872), “Yu-Pe-Yas's Lute” (1874), “Disguises” (1879), “A Book of Rhyme’” (1881), “In a Day” (1882), “Daffodil and the Croaxaxicans” (1884), and “The Sentence” (1887). In addition to these volumes of verse, Mrs. Webster produced a book of essays called “A Housewife's Opinions.” She wrote for the Eacaminer when William Minto was its editor, and, it is understood, for the Athenæum. She also essayed a novel, but, apparently, without success, and for six years she was a member of the London School Board. It will be seen that her time of greatest activity was in the sixties and the seventies. It seems a long time ago, but the time has not yet come for an estimate of Augusta Webster's place among the poets of the Victorian age—an age which produces more fine verse in a decade than was written during the whole of the last century, and an age in which critics are continu- ally bemoaning the decay of verse; an age in which we are so busy over our own work that we have no time to read the work of others; an age in which a new great Inovelist, if not a new great poet, is boomed every month; an age in which the poet of to-day will be clean forgotten to- morrow. The contemporaries of Augusta Webster—those who lived in the sixties and the seventies—have read her works and found in them qualities of the highest order, purity of thought, beauty of expression, music in rhythm, dexterity in metre, power of conceiving and drawing character. Does the younger genera- tion read her P Ome knows not. Will the works of this singer survive? Out of all she wrote, surely, something. He would be a bold critic who would foretell immortality, even a limited im- mortality—an existence prolonged for three generations—for any poem of the day. But to him who remembers those early volumes—the “Dramatic Studies,” “Portraits,” and the trans- lations—Augusta Webster will always remain a figure in contemporary literature among the fore- most, and among the worthiest. W. B. ** a 2–º r- - -, NOTES AND NEWS. R. JAMES PAYN writes that if he had twenty lives he would give them all to the profession of Letters. He says, moreover, that no profession is more free from jealousies and acrimonies. Well, a certain depress- ing work on the “Quarrels of Authors” is to be found in most of our libraries. Some day it will be brought up to date, and then some very pretty jealousies and acrimonies of the present day, of which the world is now ignorant, will be brought to light. There have been two or three actions in the High Court of Justice produced by “acri- monies’’ of literary men. And there are too often to be seen even in signed articles, criticisms and judgments by literary men concerning other literary men that are certainly not kindly either in phrase or intention. In fact, one of the prin- cipal reasons which has hitherto kept men of letters apart from each other, is the unhappy pre- judice that it is the duty of a writer to criticise and sit in judgment upon other writers, as if the power of writing verse should make a critic as well as a poet. That criticism should be con- temptuous and derisive; that it should not be written with the view of pointing out what ought to be, but to inflict as much pain as possible by exaggerating what is, in the volume: these are articles of belief that seem happily passing away. The editor of the immediate future will certainly insist on as much courtesy in his columns as at his dinner table. I have before me certain extracts from the registers of St. Bartholomew's Church, which formerly stood on the site now occupied by the east wing of the Bank of England. The dates of these registers are from 1568 down to 1720 or thereabouts. There are baptisms, marriages, and deaths. Among them are three entries which are curious. They are all in the burials, and are as follows: 1672. Katharine Dufoe. I687. Katharine Dufoe. 1708. Mary Defoe. Now Daniel Defoe, son of Thomas Foe, of Cripplegate, and said to be the grandson of Thomas Foe, of Elton, assumed the “De '’ about the year 1684. It is generally assumed that he did so in the hope of passing for one of gentle birth. These entries, however, make it clear that there was one family, perhaps two, in the City of the name of Dufoe or Defoe. It is probablé, therefore, that this was the older way of spelling his name, and that he was really connected with families who so spelled the name. The Rev. Dr. Bell, of Cheltenham, calls my attention to the question in the September number of the Author : “Is not the Sheridan family the only family on record which has con- tinued to hand down its best characteristics from One generation to another ?” He reminds me of  ## p. 123 (#137) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. I 23 the Arnold family as another which has also done so. He mentions the names of Matthew Arnold, Thomas Arnold, Mrs. Humphry Ward, Mr. Oakley Arnold Forster. Undoubtedly this is another case of hereditary genius, which in the domain of literature is exceedingly rare. In music and in law hereditary ability is more often found. What descendants of Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley, have ever distin- guished themselves in literature ? In another column will be found some kind of answer—though of necessity incomplete—towards the question of what the people read. Setting aside fiction, an army of Io,000 borrowers, in one library, read during one year 65,000 works of history, travels, philosophy, art, and science. This for a body of people only just beginning to read seems pretty well. We must remember that they are nearly all working people; that a great many of them—the women especially—have very long hours of work; that during the summer months they will naturally take their recreation in the open air; and that a large proportion of the men have been accustomed to take their winter recreation in public houses. Let us remember also that without this library only very few of these working men would have read any book at all. Not any book at all. It is rare to find books in a working man's lodging ; it is still rarer to find him buying books. How can he buy books unless out of the twopenny basket P Indeed, to those who ignorantly accuse us, as a nation, of not buying books, the first reply is, that whether we want to buy books or not we cannot afford to do so, because, out of the whole 37,000,000 population or 7,400,000 families in this our United Kingdom, there are but 250,000 families which earn an income of so much as 32OO a year, and not more than 400,000 families which either earn or possess that modest income. Now, with the lowest possible standard of necessary comfort, what margin can be left with an income of £200 for the purchase of books P From time to time we read letters in the papers on the economy of small incomes. Some- thing is put down for the luxury of trips and excursions—for change of air is necessary; the gentility of a pew, instead of a free seat, is never forgotten ; but nothing is ever left for books. Why? Because books cannot be afforded. And those who cannot buy books are now growing eager to read them. “We would buy,” they say, “if we could. But, indeed, we are not able to buy.” -->e- As for those favoured few—the happy 4OO,OOO families—whose income is 32OO a year and over, they have hitherto bought all the books that are sold—new or secondhand—all but the books of elementary education. The new public libraries are now stepping in as purchasers. When we speak of the vast audience which already awaits a success- ful writer, whether historian, poet, exponent of science, preacher, philosopher, or novelist, it must be remembered that this great body of readers who cannot buy will always form the largest part. And if, as seems probable, the 400,000 families above-named become reduced in number, and their incomes grow steadily and yearly less, there will be nobody at all left to buy books, and the libraries will be the only pur- chasers. Meantime what the 400,000 do buy and how much they buy, and how far the reproach is just that they do not buy, must be considered by the light of actual figures. And these figures we will try to collect and to publish. The New York Critic of Aug. 11 contained a paper on Art in the Magazines, suggested by cer- tain comparisons made in these columns between the advance of the American magazines and the seeming decline of our own. The writer says: “Among other reasons advanced for this state of things is the abundance of illustrations that we give, but the most important thing is omitted, viz., their quality. With us illustration is an art; in England it is a pastime—it entertains without instructing. The same class of men do not prac- tise it in both countries; and, furthermore, the English draughtsmen have not yet learned to draw for the photo-engravers, as have the American and the French.” He goes on to criticise the artistic character of a certain English magazine. The remarks under this head may be omitted. The following, however, is an American's opinion on American art. One would like that of an English artist on the same work: Now take the August Harper’s and see the difference between the American process-work and that of England. Note Mr. Smedley’s illustrations in Mr. Ralph's story of “Old Monmouth,” in Mr. Matthews’s “A Vista in Central Park,” or in Mr. Warner's story. They are made by the Kurtz process. Here we have the artist and the process- engraver working in perfect harmony, and the result is almost as fine as that brought about by the graver. Mr. Remington’s illustrations of his own paper are even better. There are few artists who know so well how to work for mechanical engraving as Mr. Remington. An admirable piece of work is Mr. Thulstrup's in “Up the Coast of Norway.” The illustration on page 381 has all the softness and light and shade of a mezzotint engraving. Mr. Du Maurier's illustrations of “Trilby’’ lend themselves parti- cularly well to the work of photo-engraving, because they are pen-and-ink drawings. The engraver could probably not reproduce them any better, if as well. But to see just  ## p. 124 (#138) ############################################ I 24 THE AUTHOR. what delicaey and tone the engraver's hand gives to a picture, we must turm to the frontispiece, “On Shark River,” drawn and engraved by Victor Bernstrom. In Mr. Castaigne we have another artist who is a master of the art of drawing for process-engraving. He is a Frenchman, and learned his art in France, where they have long made a specialty of it. I doubt whether the engraver could do him the justice that the camera does. It would be very difficult to catch his peculiar effects with the hand. His illustrations to “Washington as a Spectacle,” in the Century, make this clear, especially the picture on page 490. Mr. Sterner shows himself in a new light in his illustration of “Poe in the South.” There is an imaginative quality in his work that goes well with that of the author he illustrates. For work with the graver it would be hard to find anything more satisfactory than Mr. Timothy Cole's reproduction of Quentin Matsy’s portrait of his second wife. Here we have something that mechanical engraving can never give—the personality of the engraver, the touch of the artist. In looking at this picture one feels the dignity of handwork over that of the machine. Another fine example of the engraver's art is the frontispiece of Scribner's, Carolus . Duran’s “The Poet with the Mandolin,” engraved by W. B. Closson. Here, again, we have what photo-engraving cannot give. The name of W. S. Vanderbilt Allen is comparatively new in the art world, but it accompanies some spirited scenes of Newport life, which have had the distinction of being engraved. Kaemmerer's illustrations of Professor C. G. D. Roberts's poem would have gained much, had Florian touched them into life; as it is, they have lost by the “process.” On the other hand, it is doubtful whether the engraver could have done more for Castaigne's illus- trations of Mr. Bunner's story. Process work has seldom been seen to better advantage than in the picture opposite page I64. Mr. Sterner's illustrations of “An Undiscovered Murder” are, if anything, better than those he has in the Centwry. They are certainly more pleasing in subject, and the one on page 183 is a gem. No ; one does not find such art in the English magazines. Everybody is interested in the Autocrat of Boston. Therefore I make no doubt that every- body will read the following extract from the New York Critic (Sept. 8, 1894). I had the pleasure of an afternoon with the most amiable of poets and essayists last year. We drove from Salem to Beverly one fine afternoon in July, the party consisting of Prof. Woodberry, Mr. Sprigge, and myself. And we spent a couple of hours talking to the Autocrat, who was in the best spirits, and the best health possible. At Beverly he has a charming country house on a hill with a large garden and a delightful view. Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes’s birthday, of which the Critic had brief mention last week, was celebrated in a very quiet manner, as the poet himself desired. He is not only adverse to publicity on that day, but finds it best to protect his health as far as possible by preventing intrusion into his Sanctum. The good Doctor is always kindly in feeling and expression towards every reporter who calls, but yet has be- come now extremely reserved. To the first reporter who came last week he gave an interview, and then, when the other gentlemen of the press trod the path to his Beverly Summer home, he presented each with a printed slip con- taining this same interview, thus saving time and exertion. The friends who called on his birthday were glad to find that in spite of the prolonged illness which prostrated both mind and body (infact, the doctor himself says that it was the longest, illness he ever had), the Autocrat is regaining his physical strength. He is no longer able to answer the hosts of letters. that pour in upon him as they always have, people by the score having simply flooded his table with queries and with manu- scripts to which they have invited his attention ; and, while the Doctor has always expressed himself as gratified at words. of affection, he has not been able of late to answer even the complimentary notes. Indeed, he does no writing now at all, and whatever dictation he is able to carry out is devoted to the completion of his autobiography, now made his great. lifework, and not destined to be published until after his death. Someone suggested to the Doctor, when the latter spoke of the cramp that affected his hand in writing, that he learn to use the type-writer, but the poet smilingly replied that he did not propose to forsake an old friend for a new one at his time of life. For eight summers now Dr. Holmes has been at Beverly Farms, which he regards as the most perfect of summer resorts (barring the east winds), and he delights in telling visitors about all the surroundings. of the place. He points out, with delightful interest, the two islands in front of his house, quaintly named “Great. Misery" and “Little Misery"—terms derived from a game of cards called Boston,” invented by some British officers. who were quartered upon those islands during the early wars. Of course, the trees still consume a great deal of his attention. Recently, it is said, he has found a new tree in. Beverly, which he considers the most beautiful of all; and to its base he drives several times each week, there to sit in its shade and enjoy its protection. If he can hear of any big tree within any reasonable distance of his home he is sure to visit it. Speaking about his health to a caller, Dr. Holmes said:— “I am afraid that I am commencing to grow old. Since last February, when I had a severe attack of the grip, I have not been very well, and I have been obliged to take. good care of myself. Walking and riding principally, an occasional call and receiving some of my friends who are kind enough to call upon me, form the day’s routine.” He spoke briefly of literary people he had known, stating that he had been visited by almost every literary Englishman, who had come to Boston since Dickens's time. He added sadly, “Lowell’s death affected me keenly, it makes. me feel that I am old, that I have outlived my genera- tion.” It is a well known and remarkable fact that the year which saw Dr. Holmes’s birth, 1809, also saw the births of Tennyson, Darwin, Gladstone, Robert C. Winthrop, and Abraham Lincoln. Dr. Holmes himself once spoke of this, mentioning all except himself in noting: the “wonders” of the year, and when his visitor added, “You have forgot to mention one birth, Doctor, that of Oliver Wendell Holmes,” the Autocrat quickly responded, “Oh, that doesn’t count ; I ‘sneaked in, as it were.” Dr. Holmes’s birthday this year was remembered, as usual, by his publishers, Houghton, Mifflin and Co., with a magnificent. bouquet of eighty-five roses, one for each year of the poet's, life, while other friends sent remembrances. The classification of Literature is a subject which belongs especially to the Institute of Librarians. If, however, the existing methods of classification are to be considered by this body, we may ask to send representatives to the deliberating committee. A letter by Mr. J. Taylor Kay, in the Daily Chronicle for Sept. 18, proposes that a commission consisting of one or  ## p. 125 (#139) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. I 25 two members of the crafts of author, publisher, bookseller, journalist, and librarian, shall be appointed to consider existing systems, and to recommend, or to create, a classification for general use. Meantime Mr. Kay gives the classification which he considers the best, that of Mr. Melville Dewey, proposed in 1876. Here it IS :— CLASSES AND DIVISIONs. O 480 Greek. IO Bibliography. 490 Other Languages. 2O Book Rarities and 500 NATURAL SCIENCE. MSS. 5IO Mathematics. 30 General Cyclopedias. 520 Astronomy. 40 Polygraphy. 53O Physics. 50 General Periodials. 540 Chemistry. 6O General Societies. 550 Geology. 70 Bookbinding. 560 Paleontology. 80 Catalogues. 57O Biology. 90 58o Botany. IOO PHILOSOPHY. 590 Zoology. I IO Metaphysics. 6OO USEFUL ARTs. I 20 - 6IO Medicine. 130 Anthropology. 62O Engineering. 140 Schools of Psychology. 630 Agriculture. I 5o Mental Faculties. 64o Domestic Economy. 16O Logic. 650 Communication and 17o Ethics. Commerce. 180 Ancient Philosophies. 660 Chemical Technology. 190 Modern Philosophies. 670 Manufactures. 2OO Theology. 68o Mechanic Trades. 2Io Natural Theology. 690 Building. 22O Bible. 700 FINE ARTs. 23o Doctrinal Theology. 7Io Landscape Gardening. 240 Practical and Devo- 720 Architecture. tional. 730 Sculpture. 250 Homiletical and Pas- 740 Drawing and Design. toral. 75o Painting. 26O Institutions and Mis- 76o Engraving. sions. 77O Photography. 270 Ecclesiastical History. 78o Music. 28o Christian sects. 790 Amusements. 290 Non-Christian Reli- 8oo LITERATURE. gions. 8Io Treatises and Collec- 3OO SOCIOLOGY. tions. 3IO Statistics. 820 English. 320 Political Science. 830 German. 330 Political Economy. 84o French. 340 Law. 85o Italian. 350 Administration. 86o Spanish. 360 Associations and In- 870 Latin. tutions. - 88o Greek. 37O Education. 890 Other Languages. 380 Commerce and Com- 90o HISTORY. - munication. 9IO Geography and De- 390 Customs and Cos- scription. tumes. 920 Biography. 4OO PHILOLOGY. 930 Ancient History. 4IO Comparative. 940 Europe. 42O English. 950 º ſ: 430 German. 96o 3 || Africa. 44O French. 97O 3 4 North America. 450 Italian. 98o 3 | South America. 460 Spanish. 990 Oceanica and 47O Latin. Polar Regions. . . Each of these divisions is, of course, capable of mine further sub-divisions. In adapting the 8th Alabama Regiment. system to shelving arrangements, the above numbers are the subjects or class numbers, and a decimal point number being added, acts at the order of numeration on the shelves, which in each case will, of course, run to infinity. An interesting point in literary history is touched upon by an “Old Novel Reader” (p. 129). He informs us that the first attempt to introduce cheap books was made in Ireland nearly sixty years ago, by Mr. John Simms, of the firm of Simms and MacIntyre, of Belfast. Mr. Henry Herman is dead. One was sur- prised to learn, first, that he was sixty-three years of age, and next, that he was formerly a Confederate officer—Lieutenant-Colonel of the He was the author, in collaboration with Mr. Henry Arthur Jones, of the “Silver King,” and he wrote “Claudian.” He also wrote, with Mr. David Christie Murray, two novels, and several without collaboration. He was a man of strong friendships, of great resource, and of wide personal experience. Sir Frederick Pollock (p. 126) objects to the “language” of a note of mine about the importa- tion of Tauchnitz books. He complains that it is a note of “vituperation.” I thought, in my feeble way, that it was a note written in good temper and without any calling of names. I have read it again ; and again I fail to find any “vitupera- tion.” Is it right, or is it not, to bring these books into England P. If it is not right, one is justified in saying so. The reason why the prac- tice is common is that many excellent people who carry it on are ignorant that it is much the same thing as smuggling a roll of lace. And this was pointed out in the note. However, as some readers have not perhaps read the note of September who will read Sir Frederick's remarks in October, I reproduce it, vituperation and all : Every year, as regularly as the showers of August, appears the letter complaining of the bold bad smuggler who imports Tauchnitz editions in his pockets. The whole family, girls and all, enter with zeal into the smuggling business; impromptu pockets are devised in feminine garments; men’s coats are found to contain stowage room previously unsuspected; a successful run is made ; and the family shelves are enriched with another row of Tauchnitz books. They have been bought at half the cost of the English edition, you see. Cheapness before anything. These books, moreover, are openly sold in this country; one may some- times see rows of them in the secondhand shops. What is to be done P. It is impossible to touch the conscience of the traveller homeward bound. He will not smuggle lace, because he understands that lace is property—it is visible property—he must not defraud the revenue ; literary pro- perty he does not understand—he cannot see it. Here is a  ## p. 126 (#140) ############################################ 126 THE AUTHOR. book—why cannot he take the book home with him P Because the law prohibits P Nonsense ; it can hurt nobody. It is impossible to make him see that to import this book is an infringement of right; a robbery of author or publisher, or both. Therefore something else must be attempted. What? Let us take counsel together. There must surely be some way of preventing the smuggling of books. Now the rough and ready way by which dockyard labourers are prevented from stealing dockyard stores might be at- tempted. Wardens of the yard stand at the gates and feel the men as they pass. An expert hand would detect a Tauchnitz in the coat pocket. And a substantial fine judiciously and sternly administered would do the rest. But perhaps some other method might be suggested. About the magnitude of the mischief; Sir Frederick puts it down at £50 or £100. Let us see. Every year there are at least 300,000 travellers from the British Isles on the Continent. These include the people who crowd the hotels of Biarritz, the Riviera, and Italy in the winter; the people who stay at the mountain resorts; and the people who travel in the spring, summer, and autumn. All these people buy for their reading the Tauchnitz books. This collection contains 2Ooo works, I believe, in about 25oo volumes. It is certainly not too much to estimate the annual purchase at one volume for each traveller. If only half of these volumes—say 150,000, repre- senting I2O,OOO works—are brought back to Eng- land, it means that I2O,OOO works printed abroad are annually brought over here, to the great detri- ment and loss of books printed in this country. We certainly must not assume that every book brought over prevents the purchase of an English manufac- tured book. But, remembering the way that books get lent, and that in certain houses, where not much can be spent in new books, every book is circulated, we may be pretty sure that the Tauchnitz books do prevent the purchase of a very large number of English books. I should be disposed, roughly, to estimate the yearly loss at something like 60,000 volumes, which means a good many thousand pounds, and I think that if the Society could do anything to stop the practice of bringing over these books, it would be doing good service to everybody concerned. The new departure which was observed by Messrs. Sampson Low, Marston, and Co. in the publication of Mr. Blackmore’s “Perlycross" has been followed in Mr. William Black's new novel “Highland Cousins.” The first issue of the novel in book form is in one volume at 6s. The edition consisted of 6000 copies, and the 4th, 5th, and 6th thousand are so numbered on the title page. The month which produces “Trilby’’ and “Perlycross” and “Highland Cousins” is fortunate indeed. WALTER BESANT. NOTES BY THE WAY. HE correspondent who complains, in the September number of the Author, that he dares not talk to his publisher like a man of business, has another way open to him. If he really believes in his own estimate of the com- mercial value of his work, he can easily make sure whether his view or the publisher's is right. Let him publish on commission. But this, it may be said, involves risk. Of course it does. Nothing venture, nothing have. In the usual forms of publishing contract the author is insured against risk by the publisher. People will not insure your book against publishing risks for nothing, any more than they will insure your house against fire, or your crops against storm. This insurance is not separately charged, but is one of the many elements determining the author's share of profits. In the case of an author who is already successful, the risk and the insurance premium may be taken as less than any assignable quan- tity. In the case of an unknown or hitherto unsuccessful author they are and must be appre- ciable. The fact that a new author's book suc- ceeds does not show that there was no risk, no more than the fact of one's house not being burnt down or one's ship wrecked shows that it was foolish to insure. For the rest, the Society can and does give information and advice to its members; it cannot provide them with back- bones. 2. I must deprecate the language of the note about importing Tauchnitz editions. It is use- less to call people thieves and robbers for not being in advance of public opinion ; and I must also protest against the suggestion of adding some new inquisitorial procedure to the terrors of our custom houses, which are already, since the dynamite scare of ten or twelve years ago, the most troublesome in Western Europe. Neverthe- less, a law-abiding man ought to satisfy law and conscience, and at the same time do a work of charity to other travellers, by leaving his foreign reprints asan addition to some hotelorship library. Public opinion has to be educated on this point, but it is not to be done by vituperation. Mean- while, I should like to know whether the total loss to British publishers and authors by the private importation of Tauchnitz copies amounts to anything like 3100 or £50 in a year. We certainly cannot assume that every one who brings in a Tauchnitz copy of a popular book would otherwise have bought an English one. It seems to me that we have more important things to attend to, even in this particular line. For example, the book market of the minor colonies is, or very lately was, supplied almost wholly by  ## p. 127 (#141) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 127 pirated issues notwithstanding the efforts already made by the Society to procure better inforce- ment of the law. The same mischief exists, though not so largely, in Canada. 3. The question of filling up the Laureateship iseems to me outside the business of the Society of Authors. Individual members are entitled to their opinions. I shall not state mine, but I feel sure that any corporate attempt at meddling in this matter could only bring the Society into ridicule. 4. I have observed with uneasiness, in the Author and elsewhere, a tendency to revive the high metaphysical theory of copyright as a per- petual and immutable right of property conferred by the law of nature. This theory is, in my opinion, unsound, and at all events it has been definitely rejected by English and American law. 'Copyright is property, but not a property in ideas; it is a monopoly or exclusive franchise, created for reasons of policy, in particular forms whereby ideas are expressed. M. Mallarmé's project is of a different order. It is an instal- ment of Socialism, and points towards a proposal which I quite expect to see seriously made some day, namely, to abolish copyright and substitute the endowment of literature by a State depart- ment, which department would, as a probable though not necessary corollary, be invested with large powers of censorship. Let authors consider how they would like this. - FREDERICK POLLOCK. *— - -º HAMMERSMITH PUBLIC LIBRARY, - HE Report of the Commissioners for the Public Library of Hammersmith for the year 1893-94 has been sent to us. The facts and figures are instructive. By an unfortunate omission the rules of the library are not presented with the report, so that the subscription or price of a ticket for the lending library cannot be learned. That it is very small is shown from the return of receipts for the year, in which 320 Os. 5d. is set down for sales of tickets. Comparing the number of applicants for new tickets with the amount realised, it would seem that 2:#d. was the price of a ticket, but perhaps this is wrong. Bowever, there are about Io,000 borrowers. An analysis of the professions and trades of the 2OOO who enrolled themselves during the year shows 350 belonging to the professional classes, among them two authors, three publishers, one barrister, one solicitor, fourteen clergymen, two missionaries, nine journalists, while the rest are all working men and working women. The library, therefore, belongs to all classes. It con- tains II,500 books, of which more than one-fourth belong to fiction. It is greatly to be hoped that in the next report the commissioners will give an analysis of the books taken out, showing the names of the authors mostly read. There is, however, a classified list showing the number of books in each class. The figures are very satis- factory. The IO,OOO borrowers between them, representing, in the proportion, viz., 18 per cent. of the professional to 82 per cent. of the working classes, read between them the following: Theology and Philosophy 1,958 books History and Biography... 7,088 Voyages and Travels 5,220 , , Law and Politics ......... 679 , Arts and Sciences......... 8,027 , Fiction ..................... I 25,827 , Poetry, Drama, and Classics .................. I,725 23 Miscellaneous and Maga- Zines ..................... 9,469 × Juvenile Literature ... ... 28,350 , Music........................ 1,871 ,, In all they read I 90,214 books, which, divided among the IO, SOO, means very nearly twenty books a-head. Since reading is no longer to the great mass of mankind study but recreation, and since it may be allowed that the Commissioners and the librarian between them know how to present only literature that is worthy of being read, we need not wonder at fiction representing 60 per cent. of the books taken out. If, however, we ask what fiction is read, the answer exactly agrees with what has been repeatedly advanced in these columns; that the general public turned into a public library read exactly what the limited public turned into Mudie’s library read, viz., the newest fiction by living writers first, and that they call for these books oftenest. This must neces- sarily be the case, because the books of the day will always interest more than the books of yesterday. Thus Rider Haggard’s books go out at the rate of 56 copies a year for each volume, but Scott's only 22 ; Thomas Hardy’s novels are taken out at the rate of 47 copies a year for each book; Charles Dickens's at the rate of 35; Thackeray, 23; Charles Kingsley, 36. The dead novelists still in demand at the Hammersmith Library may be classified as follows:– Wilkie Collins ............... 26O4 issues. Harrison Ainsworth ......... I926 , Miss Muloch .................. I 594 3, Lord Lytton .................. I494 3, Anthony Trollope ............ I494 3, Dickens ........................ I388 ,  ## p. 128 (#142) ############################################ fº& THE AUTHOR. Sir W. Scott ~ II 22 issues. Lever ................. ......... 815 , George Eliot .................. 696 » Thackeray ..................... 5I 7 2, Charlotte Bronté ............ 347 , As to the popularity of living authors the returns are not trustworthy, because the collections do not appear to be complete. On the same subject the Tibrarian of the Clerkenwell Public Library—Mr. J. D. Brown— writes as follows: “My experience is that slush and truck are avoided even by the classes who are supposed to have nothing in the nature of educated perception about them. Give even the ordinary public library boy reader his choice between one of Henty’s tales and ‘Broadway Bill’s Adventures in Denver,’ and it will soon be seen that Paternoster-row licks the Bowery.’” • *=~~~~~ --z------- FICTION. HE following is an enumeration of the prin- T cipal novels and tales published in one, two, and three volumes respectively during the last three years—Sept. 1891 to Aug. 1894, both included. It is compiled from the monthly list of , “New Books and New Editions” published in the Author, these lists being prepared from the daily announcements. Each work is counted once only, taking no account of the numerous new editions. Translations are not included :- 1891. 1892. 1893. 1. 2 3 1. 2 3 1 2 3 Vol. Wols. Vols. Vol. Vols. Vols. Vol. Vols. Vols. September ... Ig | 2 || 5 || 2 I | 2 | II || 48 || 1 || 12 October ...... 28 || 4 || 7 || 62 || 2 || 14 || 81 8, 16 November ... 52 || 3 || 6 || 52 || 8 || Io || 75 || 6 || Io December ... 18 || 3 9 || 35 | 5 || 5 || 51 || 6 9 1892. 1893. 1894. January ....., I6 || 2 7 I I I 2 8 || 24 2 6 February ... I9 || 3 || 5 || I4 5 8 || 20 || 4 8 March ...... 28 2 8 || 2I IO || 23 4 4. April ......... I9 || 4 4 || 26 2 6 || 30 7 7 May ......... 35 || 5 || IO 27 | 5 9 || 28 || 4 || 13 June ......... 23 2 6 || 38 || 4 || I4 || 41 || 8 || 14 July ......... 18 4 3 : 36 I 5 || 28 3 3 August ...... I9 2 3 || 25 | I 3 I7 2 2 Totals... 204] 36 || 73 ||368 || 37 IO3|466 55 IO2 Note, in connection with this list, a passage in the Author for Sept. 1894, page IO7:— “Perhaps the most striking, because the most ignorant, comment on the recent three-volume novel discussion is the following:—‘The simple fact is, that until the public can be educated to: buy books instead of borrowing them, the attempt to produce original works of fiction in one volume: must inevitably result in a ruinous failure.’” It will be observed that the one-volume form. has increased in two years from 294 to 466. This. form is produced for the buying public. Some of the books have run into many thousands of copies;, we have not heard of any ruinous failures in consequence of their appearance. II.—THE THREE-VoIUME NOVEL. The London Booksellers’ Society has addressed a letter to publishers. The letter was published on July 18 in the Westminster Gazette, from whose columns it is here quoted. By accident the slip has been delayed two months:– “We observe in the circular addressed to you by Messrs. Mudie and Messrs. W. H. Smith and Son, with reference to the price of three-volume: novels, that they suggest—‘That you shall agree not to issue cheaper editions of novels and of other books, which have been taken for library circulation, within twelve months from the date. of publication.” We beg to convey to you our unqualified disapproval of such a proposal, and in the event of your being inclined to entertain the idea, we desire, at this early stage, to enter our formal protest against such an injustice to: the bookseller. At the same time we are very conscious that on this subject your own ideas. and ours run on parallel lines. As the whole question of three-volume novels is now being raised, we should like to say that it would be a great satisfaction to us if good works of fiction ceased to be issued in this way. We are unani- mously in favour of such novels being published at once in a six-shilling form, or, at any rate, at some popular price, and we feel convinced that. not only would the bookseller order such volumes in large numbers, but that the library orders. would not be diminished. As to ‘other books,’ we have long been of opinion that the price at which they are issued upon first publication pro- hibits sales.” III.-LoRD CHESTERFIELD ON NOVELS. In connection with the discussion on the length. of novels, I think the following quotation from Lord Chesterfield is not inapposite: “I am in doubt whether you know what a novel is : it is a little gallant history, which must contain a great deal of love, and not eaceed one or two small, volumes. The subject must be a love affair, the lovers are to meet with many difficulties and  ## p. 129 (#143) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. I-29 obstacles, to oppose the accomplishment of their wishes, but at last overcome them all, and the conclusion or catastrophe must leave them happy. A novel is a kind of abbreviation of a romance; for a romance generally consists of twelve volumes, all filled with insipid love nonsense and most incredible adventures.” F. Norreys Conn ELL. IV.--THE Two-WOLUME, NOVEL. As no voice has so far been raised on behalf of the two-volume novel during your late interest- ing discussion upon the rival merits of its longer and shorter sister, might Inow urge my feeble plea for it P. In the first place, would not many three- volume novels be improved in quality by some compression P. How often the padding will come out in that third inevitable volume. Witness even “Lord Ormont and his Aminta.” I am an ancient and omnivorous novel reader, and I speak the name of George Meredith with all due reverence, but here for the first time I did strip some irrelevant (as it seemed to me) details and conversations, not bearing in his usual admirable way upon the plot, which helped to expand two very short first vols. and this filled up last one into the publishers’ fatal three. I speak in ignorance of the financial aspect of the question. Perhaps you would enlighten us a little as to that matter. As regards the reader, his pocket would benefit of course, though less than if the com oression into one solid mass, involving smaller type and poorer margins, became general. But then our eyes. We especially who go on loving fiction in our decrepitude. Besides, who has the courage to face a one-volume “Middlemarch " or “Diana of the Crossways,” if even the shabbiest of second-hand editions in decent print can be had second-hand on easy terms ? May I venture, in my role of sexagenarian, to correct a statement in your August number to the following effect, and by so doing do justice to an enterprising Irish firm of publishers ? “The cheap edition” you say “was introduced about thirty years ago.” It is almost double that term of years since Mr. John Simms, of the firm of Simms and MacIntyre, an old established firm in Belfast, invented the shilling novel. This gentleman is still alive. I inclose his address On the chance that you may care to have a few particulars of his venture. I remember, when a child, the arrival of each gay green monthly volume as it came to be read aloud of an evening, and then added to the long rows of its fellows on the book-shelves. These bore on their backs the names of Miss Mitford, Mary Howitt, Mrs. Gore, shilling. Mrs. Trollope (Anthony's mother), the Banims. (O'Hara family), Carleton, Gerald Griffin, and numbers of other good novelists, to say nothing of the great “Monte Christo,” “Consuelo,” and hosts of the better sort of French and German. stories, translated for the first time into English. All these came to us at the modest price of one With many apologies for intruding on your space, I am, sir, yours faithfully, AN OLD NOVEL READER. THE AUTUMN ANNOUNCEMENTS. Tº: following announcements are reduced and classified from the lists published in the Athenæum up to Sept. 22. The order followed is that of their appearance in that. paper. Among the more important books announced by Messrs. Longmans are Froude's “Life and Letters of Erasmus;” Gardimer’s “History of the Commonwealth;” “Wandering Words,” by Sir Edwin Arnold; Liddon’s “Life of Pusey,” third vol. ; Liddon’s “Clerical Life and Work;” the Bishop of Peterborough’s “Hulsean Lectures. for 1894.” They announce one three volume novel, one novel in one volume, and a complete. set of Mrs. Walford’s books. A new edition of Max Müller’s “Chips from a German Workshop;” a new edition of Chesney’s “Indian Polity;” and a new edition of Leslie Stephen’s “Playground of Europe,” are also in their list of thirty-seven new books. Messrs. Chatto and Windus will produce fifty- seven new books, including three novels in three volumes; five in two volumes; twenty-five- in one volume ; some of these being cheap editions only. In what is called more solid. literature will be issued Wols. III. and IV. of Justin Huntly M*Carthy’s “French Revolution;” the Life and Inventions of Edison ; a translation. of the Memoirs of the Duchess de Gontant ;. Flammarion’s “Popular Astronomy ; ” George MacDonald’s Poetical Works. Not belonging to . “solid" literature, is Lehmann’s “Conversational. Guide to Young Shooters,” from Punch. Messrs. Chambers's announcements are mainly of fiction. Nine one volume novels; four new volumes of popular biographies; and certain. elementary works. Messrs. G. P. Putnam's Sons announce forty-- two works. Among these are biographies and studies of Rufus King, Oliver Cromwell, Tinto- retto, Napoleon, Prince Henry, Julian the Apostate, Louis XIV., Thomas Jefferson, Thomas  ## p. 130 (#144) ############################################ I 30 THE AUTHOR, Paine—a sufficiently miscellaneous collection— and five novels. Messrs. Macmillan and Co. announce in all eighty-two works, including reprints and new editions and selections, and republished essays and papers. Among the reprints and old authors we find Shakespeare: a new Concordance to Shake- speare; Tennyson, “Gulliver's Travels;” Froissart, Thoreau, Chaucer, Keble, Southey, a new version of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, and several new editions of classical works. The more important of the new books are Matthew Arnold’s Letters; Mrs. Oliphant’s “Reign of Queen Anne,” Mrs. Steele's “Tales of the Punjab,” novels by Marion Crawford and Sir H. Cunningham, the Life of Dean Church, the Life of Cardinal Manning, the Life of Sir A. C. Ramsay, Frederic Harrison on “The Meaning of History;” Five Lectures by Freeman; Canon Atkinson on “Whitby,” and a book on Sport and Natural History, by the late George Kingsley. Mr. John Nimmo will publish eight new books, and will complete the “Border Waverley.” Among these books will be a biography of the late John Addington Symonds; a posthumous work by Symonds on Boccaccio; and a selection from the stories of Bandello. Mr. Edward Arnold announces twenty-six works, including a Life of Sir John Macdonald ; a Memoir of Maria Edgworth ; the Recollections of the Dean of Salisbury; Robert Sherard’s Life of Alphonse Daudet; Dean Hole's “Thoughts upon England spoken in America; ” and a selec- tion from Ste. Buive. Messrs. Hutchinson announce thirty-four new books. Among these are novels by Mrs. Oliphant, D. C. Murray, Mrs. Spender, the author of the - “Yellow Aster,” F. Frankfort Moore, Mrs. Dilke, Mrs. Alfred Marks, “Rita.” Adeline Sergeant, Amelia Barr, and Sarah Tytler. The Sunday School Union announces five books, including a volume to which Archdeacon Farrar - contributes. - Messrs. Cassell and Co. announce thirty-eight works. These include the second volume of Traill’s “Social History of England; ” George Augustus Sala’s Autobiography; a “Life of Daniel Defoe;” by Thomas Wright; and novels by Frank Stockton, Hesba Stretton, Max Pember- ton, H. Hutchinson, L. T. Meade, Mrs. Alex- ander, Mrs. Molesworth, Anthony Hope, Frank Barrett, Egerton Castle, Maurus Jokai, and Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. Messrs. Partridge and Co. announce twenty- seven works. Among these are Biographies of Reginald Heber, John Howard, Elizabeth Fry, and Bishop Alwyn. There are novels by G. Manville Fenn and Sarah Doudney, and there are books for boys and girls. The S.P.C.K. announce sixteen works. Among the writers are Mrs. Charles, Professor Maspero, G. Manville Fenn, F. Frankfort Moore, Harry Collingwood, and others, Messrs. Innes and Co. announce six new books, besides story books, for these children's series. Dorothea Gerard and Stanley Weyman have intrusted them with two novels. Messrs. Oliphant, Anderson, and Ferrier announce three new books, including one novel by Maggie Swan. Messrs. Bell announce twenty-eight books. Among them are a new volume of Pepys; a History of the British Navy, by Capt. Robinson, R.N. ; a new edition of “Eros and Psyche,” by Robert Bridges; a “Handbook to the Ruins of Rome,” by the Rev. Robert Burn; and a transla- tion of Gregorovius's “History of Rome in the Middle Ages.” Messrs. A. and C. Black announce nineteen works. Among them are Archdeacon Farrar on “The Life of Christ as represented in Art;” an “Introduction to the Book of Isaiah,” by the Rev. T. K. Cheyne; Haikel’s “Monism,” translated; “Syriac Literature,” by the late William Wright; “The Religion of the Semites” (new edition), by the late Professor Robertson Smith ; and three novels. Messrs. Methuen and Co. have forty-six books in preparation. Among them are six selections of English verse and one of English prose; additions to the different series running for this firm ; a History of Egypt, by Professor Flinders Petrie; a book on the French Riviera, by Mrs. Oliphant; a book of Ballads, by Rudyard Kipling; and novels in one volume by Baring Gould, W. E. Norris, Gilbert Parker, Anthony Hope, Conan Doyle, Robert Barr, “X, L.,” and Standish O'Grady. Messrs. Sonnenschein and Co. announce fifty- six works, of which thirteen are educational and thirteen belong to social and political economy. There is a volume of Ethical Discourses by Leslie Stephen; a new series, called “Social Eng- land Series,” will be commenced; and there are four novels. Mr. Fisher Unwin announces fifty-seven works. Among them are a translation of Villari’s Florence ; “A Literary History of the English People,” by M. J. J. Jusserand; the Life of Charles Bradlaugh, by his daughter; a Life of Abraham Lincoln, by John Nicolay and John Hay; Henry Norman's Travels in the Far East; four or five books of new verse; twenty novels, including one by the Rev. S. R. Crockett and one by “Rita; ” the Tales of John Oliver Hobbes, now first collected, in one volume ; and the com-  ## p. 131 (#145) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. I31 mencement of a series called the “Criminology Series.” Messrs. Wells Gardner and Co. announce twenty-three works, including seven stories. Mr. John Hogg announces two books, viz., one on Whist and a collection of stories. The Cambridge University Press announce fifty-one books, of which the greater part are theological, classical and educational. Not a single mathematical or scientific work is in the list. The most important of the new books are “The History of English Law,” by Sir Frederick Pollock and Frederic William Maitland; “Chap- ters on the Principles of International Law,” by J. Westlake; “The Growth of British Policy,” by Sir J. R. Seeley; “Outlines of English Industrial History,” by W. Cunningham and E. A. McArthur; “The Europeans in India,” by H. Morse Stephens; and “The Foundation of the German Empire,” by J. W. Headlam. Messrs. Chapman and Hall are producing fifteen new books. The more important are Sir C. P. Beauchamp Walker's “Days of a Soldier's Tife,” Col. Malleson’s “Tife of Warren Hastings; Col. Cooper King’s “Life of George Washington,” “Life of General Lee,” by Fitzhugh Lee, his nephew ; six books of sport and travel, and five novels. Messrs. Heinemann has a list of thirty-five new books. Among them may be mentioned “Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge,” edited by Ernest Hartley Coleridge; “In Russet and Silver,” a new volume of poems by Edmund Gosse; three new volumes of the “Great Educator’”; seven- teen novels by Mrs. Lynn Linton, W. E. Norris, M. L. Pendered, including transla- tions of Björnstjerm, Björnson, Tourjuénief, and Zola. The “Roxburghe Press” announce sixteen books. Among them is the address of the Marquis of Salisbury to the British Association, revised. Mr. David Nutt announces twenty-one books. They are not all reprints of mediaeval and Tudor literature. Among them is Canon Jenkinson's “Cardinal Toussure and the Jesuits in China,” and “Lectures on Darwinism,” by the late Alfred Milne Marshall. - Messrs. Nisbet and Co. announce twenty-five new books, with a note of “several new volumes in the ‘Pilgrim’ and other series.” With the exception of two stories, they appear to be of a religious character. Messrs. Blackie and Sons announce five new books and a new series. Messrs. Routledge and Sons announce six new novels, beginning a series—new editions of Long- fellow, Grace Aguilar, Randolph Caldecott, and “The Three Musketeers,” and Harry Furniss's, Book of Romps. Messrs. Hodder and Stoughton announce thirty works. Of these twelve are devotional, seven are novels, the rest chiefly biographical. Messrs. Henry and Co. announce five books— One of sport, one of rhymes, one of housewifery, and two novels, of which one is by John Oliver Hobbes. Messrs. Oliphant, Anderson, and Farrier announce twelve books. Of these three are bio-- graphical, one is devotional, seven are novels. *- = -º a- - - M. MALLARMES PROPOSAL. MALLARME'S proposal, published in M the month of August, called forth a . * considerable amount of discussion, for the most part favourable as to the general. principle involved, viz., that if literary property is to become everybody’s property after a term. of years it might very well be subject to a . tax, i.e., that those who, for trading purposes, produce books whose time of copyright has expired should pay to the State for that privi-. lege a royalty upon every copy sold. It is not expected that persons interested in this kind. of property should welcome the proposal — indeed, one or two such persons have already cried out pretty loudly against “taxing the public ’’ and “taxing knowledge.” But it would not be taxing the public at all, nor would it. be taxing knowledge; it would be taxing the publisher for permission to use literary pro-. perty for his own individual emolument. We. may be very certain that a book now sold. for a shilling, if it were subject to a half. penny stamp, would continue to be sold for a shilling. The opinion of our Chairman, Sir Frederick Pollock, on the proposal will be found in another column (p. 127). Meanwhile, without consider- ing the possibility or even the wisdom of such a . scheme, let us see how it would work. Suppose such a tax imposed. It would be collected by the simple process of affixing a stamp on every copy that went out of the pub- lisher's office. It would produce say, at a half- penny in the shilling, a small revenue, say, of 320,000 a year. What could be done with that money P Would the heirs of the authors by the sale of whose books it was raised be entitled to take it all? Clearly not, because then the needy author would be induced to sell his possible. claims in futurity as he now sells his copyright, very likely for a mere song. It must, therefore,  ## p. 132 (#146) ############################################ ** * * * I:32: be thrown into a special Fund—not the Literary Fund, which exists only for the relief of occasional distress, but a special Fund which shall distribute the income. The rights of successful books would then belong to the mation in trust. This Fund would be used for the purpose of preventing distress. It is always a miserable and a humiliating thing to appeal to the Literary Fund for assistance; it would be well not to extend the humiliations. Such a Fund as that proposed should be used for conferring pensions on the children and grandchildren of great writers, should they be in want; and in giv- ing pensions to living writers should their works warrant the grant. Such pensions to the living would be like a good-service pension in the navy, an honour and a distinction. It is not, however, in the least likely that the proposal will ever go farther. One point rises out of the discussion. It is fifty years since the question of terminable copy- right was discussed. Perhaps the time has now returned when the question should be again -discussed. If the same arguments would be used which then prevailed they would at least be clothed in new language, and would be set forth by leader writers and magazine writers in language that would be understood by the people. Whatever the conclusion of such a discussion might be as to the law, one good result would certainly follow: that authors would better understand what is meant by copyright, and would more stiffly demand agreements in accordance with their rights of property. It may be quite true that only one book in a thousand enjoys an existence of a hundred years; it is cer- tainly quite true that most agreements are based on the tacit understanding that the work will not become a classic. At the same time, every writer should act as if his book was going to become immortal. *— — —” a- - - A DISHONEST AUTHOR, R. HEINEMANN communicates to the Daily Chronicle the following story: “Years ago a clever author brought to the publisher an incomplete MS., saying that the remainder should be delivered within a few weeks, and pressing the publisher to at once go to press with the part delivered. His plausible and pleasant manner persuaded the unsuspecting publisher to do so, and, with the additional plea of poverty, he obtained a large sum of money on account of the price of the whole. For years the publisher vainly begged, prayed, clamoured, insisted to be given the remainder of that MS., THE AUTHOR. so that the book could be published; but, waiving aside all trivial considerations of honesty and good faith, the author, with a splendid indiffe- rence, steadily declined to again put his pen to paper to complete the work in question. Neither did he vouchsafe any satisfaction to his victim. When all amicable means failed, and the publisher found himself duped and deceived, the arm of the law was called in, but every stick that the author owned had been cleverly donated to another. The book was never completed, never published, except that the author used the identical title for a later work issued through another channel. The publisher, however, resigned himself to his loss, and refrained even from attempting to persuade a British jury that money had been obtained from him under false pretences.” One has heard from time to time of this case, but vaguely. It is like a nursery story beginning “Once upon a time.” It would be well if it were fitted with a name and date. Meantime we may note Mr. Heinemann's sweeping state- ment that publishers are “only too often victims of thieves most cunning, robbers most unscru- pulous.” Only “too often " ? Then let us hear another case or two, if another can be found. No good is accomplished by exaggerating the importance of a single fact so as to make it appear like a typical instead of an isolated fact. Publishers, in fact, are not “too often º’ victims of such dishonesty; though they may be sometimes treated in this manner. No one supposes that every writer is therefore an honourable man. Publishers may also lend money to an author in difficulties, and find it difficult to get that money back, a thing which happens in every profession or trade. Would it not be better to recognise all along that between author and publisher the same business precautions should be observed as between any other two parties to a business transaction ? No one pretends that perfect confidence should be placed in an author because he is an author; nor does any man in any business, except that of publishing, demand that absolute confidence shall be placed in him simply because he is in that business. > º:  ## p. 133 (#147) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. I 33 BOOK TALK. R.S. STEVENSON will contribute a new volume to Messrs. Hutchinson’s series of “Homespun Stories.” It will be called “Woodrup's Dinah, a Tale of Nidderdale.” She has also nearly ready a story entitled “Helena Hadley.” Among the reprints announced in the literary columns, the most interesting to one old enough to remember the literature of the sixties is that of Henry Kingsley's novels. He had the misfor- tune to be the rival of his brother, who came first and had the advantage always conferred by a serious and a religious turn. Kingsley's Devon- shire lads who sailed westward ho! all carried a Bible in their pockets, and were extremely careful not to use naughty words. . In “Alton Locke” and in “Yeast ’’ Charles Kingsley was a reformer and a radical ; in “Hypatia” he gave us nineteenth century difficulties discussed by philosophers in Alexandria from an English point ..of view taken about the year 1860. Henry Kingsley, on the other hand, had no reforms to propose, no grievances to remove, no difficulties to encounter. He took the world as he found it; he had no theological difficulties; he was not plagued with “questions; ” and he wrote his stories about the men and women that he knew. Thirty years ago they were rattling good stories—considered as stories, a good deal better than his brother could produce, with a lighter touch and a more dramatic instinct. Whether, after all these years, one would find them as bright and interesting remains to be seen. Mr. Clement Shorter edits the books and contributes a memoir. I have Beard that Henry Kingsley wrote the most delightful letters possible, but I have never had the opportunity of reading any of them. Perhaps Mr. Shorter will be able to give the world an illustration. Mr. John Bloundelle-Burton's new novel, “The Hispaniola Plate,” will commence in the St. James's Budget, on Friday, the 5th inst., and will be illustrated by M. G. Montbard. In this novel the scene will be laid partly in the present day and partly in the last days of the Stuart period, bothepochs being connected by incidents pertaining to the ends of the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. The action of the story takes place principally in the Virgin Islands. A translation of “Astronomie Populaire,” by M. Camille Flammarion, the well-known French astronomer, will be published immediately by Messrs. Chatto and Windus. The work, which is a very interesting and popular one, written expressly for the general reader, had an enormous sale in France, no less than IOO,OOO copies having been sold in a few years Several new illustrations have been added, and the work has been carefully brought up to date by the translator, Mr. J. E. Gore, F.R.A.S. Cecil Clarke has just issued a new novel, entitled “An Artist's Fate,” through Mr. Elliot Stock. Mr. Maberly Phillips, F.S.A., of the Bank of England, Newcastle-on-Tyne, has written a book on the History of Banks and Bankers of Northern England. The book deals with early currency, the establishment of the first north- country bank, traces the evolution from their early beginnings of the many well-established banking concerns which now exist, and gives most interesting accounts of the serious failures which attended the efforts of the earlier bankers to cope with the rapid strides in trade and industry which followed the epoch-making inven- tion of steam power. It will be published immediately by Messrs. Effingham, Wilson, and Co. Mr. C. A. M. Fennell, Litt.D., proposes a “National Dictionary of English Language and Literature.” It is to be issued in monthly parts at a subscription of three guineas paid in advance, or four guineas in parts. The work will be based on full indexes of certain selected authors, with quotations from many others. We learn from the New York Critic that Messrs. Dodd, Mead, and Co., of Boston, are about to issue a new edition of Mrs. Trollope's famous “Domestic Manners of the Americans,” in two volumes, with ninety-four illustrations from contemporary drawings reproduced from the first edition of 1832. From the same paper we learn that a new and complete Concordance to Shakespeare, by Mr. John Bartlett, who has been engaged upon the work for eighteen years, will be published in New York immediately. It will fill 1910 double column quarto pages. Also that Mr. Richard Watson Eddis's poems will shortly be issued in a collected form by the Century Company. Max O’Rell sails for America this month on a fourth lecture tour in the States. On Longevity of Authors, “H. G. K.” says: “You might have noted Hobbes, Fontenelle, St. Evremond, and Goethe, whose united ages amount to 368, an average of 92.” A new edition has just appeared of Mr. Powis Bale’s “Handbook for Steam Users” (Long- mans), and a new and enlarged edition of “Wood-  ## p. 134 (#148) ############################################ I34. THE AUTHOR. working Machinery; its Rise, Progress, and Con- struction ” (Crosby, Lockwood, and Son). Early in the autumn a new serial story by Fitz- gerald Molloy, entitled “A Justified Sinner,” will be run through Messrs. Tillotson's syndicate of newspapers. The same author began in the third week of this month (September) a sensational serial novel called “In Shadow of Shame,” in Cassell’s Saturday Journal. This story deals with a cer- tain operation performed on the brain, and the consequences which follow. The incident has not previously been used in fiction. Mr. Fitz- gerald Molloy recently told an interviewer that such a case was brought to his notice by a distinguished surgeon, and that the chapter in which he, the author, deals with the subject is largely copied from the medical reports, all distressing and disagreeable details being omitted. Mr. Thomas Aspden, author of “The House of Stanley,” “Queen Victoria,” &c., will produce a political novel this month called “The Member for Workshire; or Church and State.” The pub- lishers are Swan, Sonnenschein, and Co. Mr James Baker, F.R.G.S., has had two works published during the past month; one, “Pictures from Bohemia,” being this year's volume of the “Pen and Pencil” series of the Religious Tract Society. The volume is very artistic, being illustrated by Walter Crane, Henry Whatley, and other artists who have travelled with the author in distant Bohemia; a country crowded with historical and picturesque and artistic surprises. The second work of Mr. James Baker is wholly historical, entitled “A Forgotten Great English- man.” It deals with the life of Peter Payne, a great leader of men in the 15th century, who, as principal of an Oxford college, had to flee for his opinions, and became a chief in Bohemia of the powerful Hussite movement, being first always in debates, in councils, and in treaties; a man with whom Pope, Kaiser, and kings had to reckon; a leader of thought of his century, and yet forgotten |by his own country, as the letters embodied in the volume from such authorities as the late Pro- fessor E. A. Freeman, Professor J. A. Froude, Mr. W. E. Gladstone, Professor James Rowley, and others fully prove. This volume, like the first, is the outcome of Mr. Baker’s travels and researches in Bohemia. Readers and students of Scandinavian litera- ture and history may note that they may obtain catalogues of Scandinavian books at the Skandi- navisk Antiquaria, 49, Gothersgade, Copen- hagen. Mr. Robert Sherard has now completed his biographical study of Alphonse Daudet. It will be published this autumn with a portrait, a fac- simile letter, and other illustrations. Mr. John Codman Roper, author of “The Campaign of Waterloo,” has written the “Story of the American Civil War.” It will be pub- lished by Putnams in three volumes. Mr. James Field has collected his papers, which appeared originally in Scribner's, into a volume, which will be published by the same house. Max O’Rell's new book “John Bull and Co. : the Great Colonial Branches of the Firm,” will be issued simultaneously in England, America, and France. Mr. John Burroughs has a new volume of “Outdoor” essays in the press (Houghton, Mifflin, and Co.). Three other “Outdoor” books are announced in the New York Critic from the same firm. The “Book Hunter in London,” by W. Roberts, will appear in the autumn. It will form a companion to M. Octave Uzanne’s “Physio- logie des Quais de Paris,” better known under the title of the English translation of “The Book-Hunter in Paris.” In this contribution to the history of book-collecting the results of many years’ inveterate book-hunting will be chronicled, and the experiences not only of the compiler but of many past and present distinguished “hunters” will be laid under con- tribution. The introductory chapter takes the form of an essay on “The Theory and Practice of Book-Hunting.” This is followed by a disserta- tion on book-hunting in London from the earliest times to the eighteenth century. Other chapters deal with book auctions and auctioneers; with some famous collections and collectors; with book thieves; with bookstalling in London; with famons booksellers; with lady book-col- lectors; with the prices paid for particular books in past and present times, booksellers' catalogues, and other interesting matters connected with the subject. In a book covering such a wide field it is naturally impossible for the efforts of one man to gather into his net all the numerous incidents and anecdotes connected with book- hunting in London. The author, therefore, invites any information or suggestion sent without delay to him, as well as the loan or indication of rare or curious pictorial illustrations of the subject, at 86, Grosvenor-road, S.W. A new method of publication is about to be put to the test by the Roxburghe Press, of 3, Victoria- street, Westminster, and 32, Charing-cross, S.W., who announce a “time ’’ limited edition of  ## p. 135 (#149) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. I 35 “Phantasms,” a volume of original stories, illustrating posthumous personality and character, by Wirt Gerrare, author of “Rufus's Legacy.” Instead of confining the edition to a predeter- mined number of copies, the publishers will supply booksellers until Dec. 31 next, after which date all sales by the publishers will be stopped, and no other edition will be issued during the continuance of the copyright. The sole edition will be popular and modern in price and form, and the limit is made with a view to guard booksellers from deterioration in value of any stock carried over at the end of the season, and as affording a safer investment than offered by the purchase of first editions, subject to cheap reissues and remainder sales. The Roxburghe Press have in preparation “The Magistracy,” being a directory and biographical dictionary of the justices of the peace of the United Ringdom, revised to date and edited by Charles F. Rideal; “Evolution,” a retrospect by the Marquis of Salisbury, K.G., being the address (slightly revised by the author) recently delivered before the Royal British Association; a second edition of the “Law and Lawyers of Pickwick,” by Frank Lockwood, Q.C., M.P., slightly revised, with an original drawing by the author of Mr. Sergeant Buzfuz; a third edition of “Wellerisms” from “Pickwick” and “Master Humphrey's Clock,” selected by Charles F. Rideal,” with an introduction by Charles Kent and an entirely original drawing of “Sam Weller,” by George Cruickshank, jun. ; “Woman Regained,” a novel of artistic life by George Barlow; a second revised edition of “Charles Dickens' Heroines and Women Folk,” some thoughts concerning them, by Charles F. Rideal, with original drawings or Edith Dombey and Dot ; “The Reunion of Christendom,” by Cardinal Vaughan, being the slightly revised address recently delivered before the Catholic Truth Society; “Young Gentlemen of to-day,” by Charles F. Rideal, illustrated by “Crow’”; “Phantasms,” Original stories illustrating posthumous character and personality, by Wirt Gerrare, a time-limited 'edition ; “The Mountain Lake and other Poems,” from the works of Friedrich von Bodenstedt, translated by Mrs. Percy Preston, an edition limited to 450 copies; “Told at the Club,” some short stories, being No. 1 of the “Pot-boiler” series, by Charles F. Rideal; “Accidents,” by I)r. G. M. Lowe, lecturer and examiner to the St. John Ambulance Association; “Young Babies, their Food and Troubles,” by Mrs. Truman and Miss Edith Sykes; and a second edition of 5000 copies of “Food for the Sick” by the same authors; “The Reminiscences of a Septuagenarian Citizen,” by Edward Callow. CORRESPONDENCE, I.—PRoof SHEETs. AY I suggest to writers, especially writers of fiction, that it would be a kindness to - send their proof sheets to any hospital they may choose, for the use of the patients P The lightness of the sheets is a distinct advantage for those who have to read in bed. F. M. PEARD. II.-PERSONAL. Will you allow me, through the medium of The Author, to thank the Society of Authors and their secretary for aiding me to obtain an acknowledgment from two papers of infringe- ment of my copyright in title and matter. The first, a paper, boldly adapted my title of “By the Western Sea.” The second, a case of a reprint of a Canadian article entitled “ British v. German,” which is bodily taken from pages 25, 27, 31, 33, 34, 45, 46, and 95, of my “Our Foreign Competitors.” Individually I doubt if I could have obtained these public acknowledg- ments, as one editor laughed at my first very polite note suggesting an infringement of copy- right had been committed; but the letters from the Society’s secretary had a salutary effect, and tardy and reluctant justice was done to my little book and title, and the acknowledgment given as wished. JAMES BAKER. III.-GEORGE ELIOT. It is a matter of wonder to me that Miss Gilchrist's remarks on George Eliot in the July Author have remained unchallenged. As a lover of George Eliot let me say that I cannot discover the “barren fatalism” in her work. Why, the great difference between the ancients and George Eliot stands in the fact that the former depicted mortals at the mercy of a predestined fate outside their own personality, and independent of it altogether, men and women like CEdipus or Helen being “sculptured in black marble on the wall of their fate,” while the George Eliot made man master of his fate. Let me refer you to Sidney Lanin's masterly essays on the English novel on the subject of George Eliot : “An me peut €tre juste qu’envers ceux qu’en aime.” S. S. Will “Sans Souci.” be so good as to give the Editor an opportunity of answering her letter of Aug. 5* IV.-HEREDITARY GENIUS. The Rev. Dr. Bell, of Cheltenham, writes: “In your brief notice of Lady Dufferin's  ## p. 136 (#150) ############################################ 136 THE AUTHOR. Memoirs, by her son, you ask : “Is not the Sheridan family the only family on record which has continued to hand down its best charac- teristics from one generation to another ?” May I in reply remind you that genius has shown itself to be hereditary in the family of the late Mr. Thomas Arnold, the eminent head master of Rugby, and author of “A History of Rome,” “Lectures on Modern History,” and other valu- able works. Mr. Matthew Arnold, the distin- guished poet, essayist, and critic, was his son, and his place in English Literature has become assured. Another son, Mr. Thomas Arnold, is well known in the literary world as the editor of Pope, the author of a volume on Literature, and is now engaged on a work, likely to add to his reputation, for the Rolls Office on the history of Bury St. Edmunds. His daughter, Mrs. Hum- phry Ward, has won herself a name in literature as the authoress of three novels which have commanded a large share of popular attention, and made their mark in the domain of fiction. Mr. Oakley Arnold Forster, a son of Mr. William Arnold, and grandson of Dr. Thomas Arnold, has a seat in the House of Commons for West Belfast, and has already shown distinct states- manlike qualities which augur well for his future, He also has proved himself possessed of literary powers. All who have the privilege of intimacy with the daughters of Dr. Arnold, one of whom is the widow of the eminent statesman the Right Hon. William Forster, will bear ready witness to their culture, charm, and intellectual powers, both of thought and expression, though those have been confined to the quiet sphere of home, and not sought the suffrages of the public. I may say, however, that Mrs. Forster has edited a new edition of her father's “Sermons on the Interpre- tation of Scripture and the Christian Life.” Surely you will allow that in the Arnold family, as well as in the Sheridan, literary genius is here- ditary. The great grandchildren are too young as yet to prove by their works what they can achieve.” W.—A NEW FoEM OF PAPER FOR TYPE- WIRITER.S. All who use a typewriter know what an amount of time is consumed in putting in, adjusting, and taking out the sheets of finished copy, particularly if one is duplicating by the use of carbon paper. I wish to suggest an improvement which I venture to think will save much time, particularly in MSS. of great length. Instead of the ordinary sheets of paper cut to 8in. by Ioin., or foolscap, why could we not have paper furnished us on rolls 8in. wide, and in lengths that would make IOO or 200 ordinary manuscript pages. The paper could then be put on a little adjustable reel and fed to the machine as the huge rolls of paper are fed to: printing machines. To make a duplicate copy two reels will be required, one placed above the other, and between these a long strip of carbon paper may be inserted. The sheets may be after- wards torn off as one tears off a cheque. I believe this to be perfectly practicable and intend to give it a trial, and will let your readers know the result of my experiment (with your permis- sion) later. J. H. H.ILL. *– ~ *-* *=s NEW BOOKS AND NEW EDITIONS, Theology. A KEY TO THE BIBLE. By an Oxford M.A. Marshall. Is. DAVIE, REv. G. J. John Maldonatus’s Commentary on the Holy Gospels. Translated and edited. St. Matthew’s, Gospel. Part IV. Paper covers. John Hodges. Is. net. GIRDLESTONE, CANON. New edition. R.T.S. HEDLEY, JOHN C. A Retreat, consisting of Thirty-three Discourses with Meditations, for the use of the Clergy, Religious, and Others. Burns and Oates. 6s. HOLLAND, REv. W. L. The Bible Hymnal. Compiled by. Edinburgh : R. W. Hunter. Is. and 2s. 6d. net. HUMPHREY, REv. W.M. and Sacraments. Second edition, enlarged. and Leamington Art and Book Company. 58. MEYER, KUNo. Hibernica Minora, being a fragment of an Old Irish Treatise on the Psalter, with a translation and facsimile, glossary, and an appendix. Edited by. Anecdota Oxeniensia, Mediaeval and Modern Series, Part VIII. Henry Frowde. 7s.6d. MONCKTON, REv. J. G. A Key to the Figures of the Bible, &c. Paper covers. Simpkin, Marshall, and Co. MossMAN, REv. D. T. W. The Great Commentary of Cor- nelius à Lapide upon the Holy Gospels, Translated and edited. Fifth edition. Part I. Paper covers. John Hodges. Is. net. NYE, G. H. F. The Church and Her Story. New and re- vised edition. Paper covers. Simpkin, Marshall. Is. 6d. net. PALMER, JoBIN. Catechisms for the Yonng. Third Series: The Prayer Book. Church of England Sunday School Institute. Is. 4d PRYNNE, REv. G. R. The Truth and Reality of the Eucharistic Sacrifice. Longmans. 3s. 6d. RHYs DAVIDs, T. W. The Questions of King Milinda. Part II. Translated from the Pāli. Being Vol. XXXVI. of Sacred Books of the East, Edited by F. Max Müller. Henry Frowde. 12s. 6d. RocK, DR. DANIEL. The Hierurgia ; or the Holy Sacrifice. of the Mass. New and revised edition by W. H. J. Weale. Paper covers. Part II. John Hodges. Is.. net. - WATson, REv. DR. R. A. The Book of Numbers. Expo- sitor's Bible, seventh series. Hodder and Stoughton- 7s.6d. . ,” Simpkin, How to Study the English Bible. The One Mediator, or Sacrifice. London  ## p. 137 (#151) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. I37 History and Biography. ACCOUNTS OF THE CoRPORATION OF THE CITY OF LONDON FOR 1893. Paper covers. Charles Skipper and East. AIYA, W. NAGAM. Report on the Census of Travancore. Boards. Vol. I., Report. Vol. II., Appendix. Madras: Addison and Co. ARNOLD ForsTER, H. O. Things New and Old, or Stories from English History Standard W., Modern School Series. Cassell. Is. 6d. BELL, MALCOLM. Sir Edward Burne Jones, Bart. A Record and Review. Third edition. In special binding designed by Gleeson White. George Bell and Sons. 2Is. net. BROWN, ROBERT. The Story of Africa and its Explorers. Wol. III. Cassell and Co. CHANCELLOR, E. BERESFORD. The History and Antiquities of Richmond, Kew, Petersham, Ham, &c. Richmond : Hiscoke and Son. CowAN, PROF. HENRY. the Reformation. 6d. net. CUNNINGHAM, MAJOR-GENERAI, SIR. A. Coins of Mediaeval India, from the Seventh Century down to the Moham- medan Conquests. B. Quaritch. I58. DUCREST, MME. Memoirs of the Empress Josephine, with Anecdotes of the Courts of Navarre and Malmaison. 2 vols. Limited edition. H. S. Nichols and Co., Soho-square, W. 281 Is... net. GASQUET, FRANCIs A., D.D. English Monasteries. Sixth edition. Hodges. IS. net. HADDON, T. W. and HARRIson, G. C. Caesar’s Gallic War, Books I. and II. Edited by. 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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) 1894-11-01 Volume 5 Issue 6 Pages Page range in volume 141–168 Ngram Date Version of the date in YYYYMMDD format for use by the Ngram plugin 18941101 Ngram Text Version of the text with no HTML formatting for use by the Ngram plugin C be u t b or, (The Organ of the Incorporated Society of Authors. Monthly.) CON DU CTED BY WA. L TER BES ANT. VOL. V.-No. 6.] NOVEMBER 1, 1894. [PRICE SIXPENCE. For the Opinions earpressed in papers that are signed or initialled the Authors alone are responsible. None of the papers or para- graphs must be taken as eaſpressing the collective opinions of the committee unless they are officially signed by G. Herbert Thring, Sec. HE Secretary of the Society begs to give notice that all remittances are acknowledged by return of post, and requests that all members not receiving an answer to important communications within two days will write to him without delay. All remittances showld be crossed Union Bank of London, Chancery-lane, or be sent by registered letter only. Communications and letters are invited by the Editor on all subjects connected with literature, but on no other sub- jects whatever. Articles which cannot be accepted are returned if stamps for the purpose accompany the MSS. *- r- - -, WARNINGS AND ADVICE, I. RAWING THE AGREEMENT.—It is not generally understood that the author, as the vendor, has the absolute right of drafting the agreement upon whatever terms the transaction is to be carried out. Authors are strongly advised to exercise that right. In every form of business, this among others, the right of drawing the agreement rests with him who sells, leases, or has the control of the property. 2. SERIAL RIGHTS.—In selling Serial Rights remember that you may be selling the Serial Right for all time; that is, the Right to continue the production in papers. If you object to this, insert a clause to that effect. 3. STAMP 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 which serves for one, is forwarded without the stamp. The author may be assured that the other party to the agree- ment seldom neglects this simple precaution. The Society, to save trouble, undertakes to get all the agreements of members stamped for them at no ea pense to themselves eaccept the cost of the stamp. 4. AsCERTAIN what A PROPOSED AGREEMENT GIVES TO BOTH SIDES BEFORE SIGNING IT.-Remember that an WOL. W. arrangement as to a 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. 5. LITERARY AGENTS.–Be very careful. You cannot be too careful as to the person whom yow appoint as your agent. Remember that you place your property almost un- reservedly in his hands. Your only safety is in consulting the Society, or some friend who has had personal experience of the agent. Do not trust advertisements alone. 6. CosT OF PRODUCTION.--Never sign any agreement of which the alleged cost of production forms an integral part, until you have proved the figures. 7. CHOICE OF PUBLISHERS.—Never enter into any cor- respondence with publishers, especially with those who ad- vertise for MSS., who are not recommended by experienced friends or by this Society. - 8. FuTURE Work.-Never, on any accownt whatever, bind yourself down for future work to anyone. 9. PERSONAL RISK.—Never accept any pecuniary risk or responsibility whatever without advice. Io. REJECTED MSS.—Never, when a M.S. has been re- fused by respectable houses, pay others, whatever promises they may put forward, for the production of the work. II. AMERICAN RIGHTS.—Never sign away American rights. Keep them by special clause. Refuse to sign any agreement containing a clause which reserves them for the publisher, unless for a substantial consideration. I2. CESSION OF COPYRIGHT.-Never sign any paper, either agreement or receipt, which gives away copyright, without advice. 13. ADVERTISEMENTs. – Keep some control over the advertisements, if they affect your returns, by a clause in the agreement. I4. 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, LINCOLN's INN FIELDs. *— - -* HOW TO USE THE SOCIETY. I. VERY member has a right to ask for and to receive advice upon his agreements, his choice of a pub- lisher, or any dispute arising in the conduct of his business or the administration of his property. If the advice sought is such as can be given best by a solicitor, the member O 2  ## p. 142 (#156) ############################################ I 42 THE AUTHOR. 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 is in order to ascertain what has been the nature of your agree- ments, and the results to author and publisher respectively so far. The Secretary will always be glad to have any agreements, new or old, for inspection and note. The infor- mation thus obtained may prove invaluable. 4. If the examination of your previous business trans- actions by the Secretary proves unfavourable, you should take advice as to a change of publishers. 5. Before signing any agreement whatever, send the pro- posed document to the Society for examination. 6. The Society is acquainted with the methods, and—in the case of fraudulent houses—the tricks of every publish- ing firm in the country. 7. Remember always that in belonging to the Society you are fighting the battles of other writers, even if you are reaping no benefit to yourself, and that you are advancing the best interests of literature in promoting the indepen- dence of the writer. 8. Send to the Editor of the Awthor notes of everything important to literature that you may hear or meet with. *- ~ * & -s THE AUTHORS' SYNDICATE, EMBERS are informed : I. 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 booking fee is charged to cover postage and porterage. 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 Director by appointment, and that, when possible, at least four days’ notice should be given. 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. 8. That the Syndicate undertakes arrangements for lectures by some of the leading members of the Society ; that it has a “Transfer Department' for the sale and purchase of journals and periodicals; and that a “Register of Wants and Wanted * has been opened. Members anxious to obtain literary or artistic work are invited to com - municate 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. --sº e--- - - NOTICES, HE Editor of the Author begs to remind members of the Society that, although the paper is sent to them free of charge, the cost of producing it would be a very heavy charge on the resources of the Society if a great many members did not forward to the Secretary the modest 6s. 6d. subscription for the year. The Editor is always glad to receive short papers and communications on all subjects connected with literature from members and others. Nothing can do more good to the Society than to make the Awthor complete, attractive, and interesting. Will those who are willing to aid in this work send their names and the special subjects on which they are willing to write P or dishonest ? Communications for the Author should reach the Editor not later than the 21st of each month. All persons engaged in literary work of any kind, whether members of the Society or not, are invited to communicate to the Editor any points connected with their work which it would be advisable in the general interest to publish. Members and others who wish their MSS. read are requested not to send them to the Office without previously communicating with the Secretary. The utmost practicable despatch is aimed at, and MSS. are read in the order in which they are received. It must also be distinctly under- stood that the Society does not, under any circumstances, undertake the publication of MSS. The Authors’ Club is now open in its new premises, at 3, Whitehall-court, Charing Cross. Address the Secretary for information, rules of admission, &c. Will members take the trouble to ascertain whether they have paid their subscriptions for the year P If they will do this, and remit the amount, if still unpaid, or a banker’s order, it will greatly assist the Secretary, and save him the trouble of sending out a reminder. Members are most earnestly entreated to attend to the warning numbered (8). It is a most foolish and may be a most disastrous thing to enter into an agreement binding for a term of years. Let them ask themselves if they would give a solicitor the collection of their rents for five years to come, whatever his conduct, whether he was honest Of course they would not. Why then hesitate for a moment when they are asked to sign them- selves into literary bondage for three or five years P Those who possess the “Cost of Production" are requested to note that the cost of binding has advanced 15 per cent. This means, for those who do not like the trouble of “doing sums,” the addition of three shillings in the pound on this head. In other words, if the cost of binding is set down in our book at eight pounds, to this must now be added twenty-four shillings more, so that it now stands at £948. The figures in our book are as near the exact truth  ## p. 143 (#157) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. I 43 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. * * = ELECTION OF MEMBERS. T the first meeting of committee after the vacation on Oct. 8, twenty-eight new members and associates were duly pro- posed and elected. There have been 196 new members elected since the beginning of the year. Against these, however, must be placed the number of those who are every year struck off the list either by death, or by resignation, or by neglecting to pay their subscription. Cases have arisen in which authors have joined for the purpose of obtaining aid and redress, and have then retired when their case has been won for them. In other words, they pay a guinea, put the Society to the expense of many guineas, and then retire. Authors are earnestly entreated to remember that the society exists for the common good; that to regard it as solely a means of obtaining individual advantage is contrary to the whole spirit of the association; that to carry a single case through often costs the subscriptions of a great many members, and that were it not for the subscriptions of those who are not likely to need its services at all, the Society would not be able to exist, or would be reduced to a powerless condition. > c: LITERARY PROPERTY. I.—PAYING FOR PUBLICATION. HE advice of the Society with regard to payment for publishing is that a MS. which is refused by half a dozen good houses is probably without commercial value. The author, however, is too often persuaded that it possesses sufficient literary merit to justify him in paying for its production. He then receives an estimate from the firm to which he applies. In general this estimate is called Messrs. A. and B.’s “charge” for producing the work. It used to be called the “Cost of Production.” It is now Messrs. A. and B.’s “charge.” The charge includes a very liberal addition to the printer's bill—for themselves. It is a secret profit, and therefore absolutely indefensible. Of course a charge for services may be advanced, and may be granted, but it should be made openly. The following are quite recent examples of this method of giving estimates. They were brought to the Society, and through the machinery at the disposal of the Society the books were actually produced at the price given below, after that of the original estimate. It should be added that the actual publisher, not the person who sent in his “charges,” was in each case a fit and proper person, and that the books were produced in the best possible style of print and paper. First case.—Estimate for printing, paper, and binding ... ... ... 378 Actual sum paid for produc- tion ... . . . . . . . ... 38 Second case.—Estimate for printing, paper, and binding 39.18O Actual sum paid ... ... ... 8O Third case.—Estimate for printing, paper, and binding e tº ſº £220 Actual sum paid I 50 In the first case an overcharge was made of £40, in the second an overcharge of £IOO, and in the third of £70. In the first case the author was saved 50 per cent. On the first charge, in the second 55 per cent., in the third 32 per cent. It seems, therefore, as if it were worth the consideration of authors about to pay for their own books, whether they should bring their estimates to the Society before signing their agreements. II.—CANADIAN COPYRIGHT. The following letters have appeared in the Times. That by Mr. Lancefield may be fairly assumed to represent the Canadian view : that by Mr. Daldy the answer of one who has long worked upon the question. The subject has been referred by the London Chamber of Com- merce to a committee upon which the Society of Authors is properly represented. The letters are given at length for obvious reasons. I.—To the Editor of the Times. SIR,--I have only recently seen a letter which appeared in your valuable paper some time ago (May 3, 1894) from Mr. F. R. Daldy on the question of Canadian copyright. Some of Mr. Daldy's statements certainly require correc- tion, as the views he set forth in his letter (which letter, I understand, was printed in full in various literary journals in England) place Canadians in  ## p. 144 (#158) ############################################ 144 THE AUTHOIR. a most misleading and unfair light before your readers. In the first place, Mr. Daldy writes, he has “reason to believe that Canada has asked the Imperial Government to repeal all British Copy- right Acts so far as it is included under them and also to denounce Canada's connection with the Berne Convention.” This is correct. And why not P The B.N.A. Act of 1867 gives Canada the right to legislate on copyright, the same as on tariffs, patents, &c. The Imperial Government allows us to pass such laws as we please with regard, for instance, to patents. We assert the same right with regard to copyright, and we maintain our position strengthened by the knowledge that every argument is in our favour. Mr. Daldy's second count deserves serious con- sideration. Not content with referring sneeringly to a royalty which the Canadian Government will collect for those who refuse or neglect to secure copyright in Canada as a “visionary” royalty, he says “no consideration whatever has been shown to artists and musical composers.” A serious indictment, if true. But what are the facts P I have before me the Canadian Copyright Act of 1889, passed unanimously by sº the House of Commons and Senate of the Dominion of Canada, but to which the Imperial Government refuses sanction. This Act enacts that “Any person domiciled in Canada or in any part of the British possessions who is the author of any book, map, chart, or musical or literary composi- tion, or of any original painting, drawing, statue, sculpture, or photograph, or who invents, designs, etches, engraves, or causes to be engraved, etched, or made from his own design any print or engra- ving, and the legal representatives of such person or citizen,” may secure copyright in Canada for twenty-eight years. It would appear from this that Mr. Daldy is either grossly ignorant on this question of Canadian copyright, or that he is deliberately misrepresenting the action of the Canadian Government, presumably in order to create and foster ill-feeling in England. Again, Mr. Daldy says “that it is no more difficult for Canadian than for United States publishers to enter into contracts with authors and artists direct.” Very nice in theory, but under present conditions practically impossible to put into practice. Why? Because the United States publisher, in nine cases out of ten, when buying the market for a new book, insists on Canada being included. The Canadian people, therefore, present the satisfaction (?) of seeing their market quietly handed over by the British author or publisher to alien United States publishers. have at Surely you cannot blame us for making an earnest, decided, emphatic protest against such a practice. Canadians are not surprised at the alien United States publishers insisting on the Canadian market being included. That is their business—to get all they can, and more, too, if possible. But we are surprised at the British authors and publishers conceding to the demand of the United States publishers. And we are doubly surprised that the British authors and publishers are our principal opponents when we ask the Imperial Government for such legislation as will enable us to say to the United States publishers, “You cannot control the Canadian market except on our own terms.” We are proud of the fact that we are part and parcel of the great British Empire. The recent conference of Colonial delegates at Ottawa proves that we are alive to our responsibilities to the Empire. I submit that it is not an edifying spectacle to witness many of our brethren in England making desperate and, as I have shown, unfair attempts to create prejudice against us in our efforts to secure our book market from the grasp of alien publishers. In any case we intend to expose such attempts and to persist in our agitation, as we are con- vinced that the Imperial Government must soon see the justness of our case and grant the relief asked for. - Mr. Daldy signs himself “Hon. Secretary of the [British PJ Copyright Association.” Very many are apt to look upon him as an authority on copyright. I have already shown that his statement as to no consideration whatever being shown by the Canadian Government to artists and musical composers is untrue. He is equally unreliable when he tries to frighten British authors and artists by the statement that if the British Government yields to the Canadian demand the English relations on copyright with the United States would be upset. Mr. Daldy's argument, then, is that justice must be denied Canada because, if granted, English copyright arrangements with the United Sta'es will suffer. What utter nonsense ! But Mr. Daldy reaches the height of absurdity when he gravely asserts that “the United States Government made the consent of Canada that American copyright should run in that Dominion a leading condition of their conceding it to the British nation.” This is news to us in Canada. Our consent was never asked to any such agreement. The British Government could not give the consent of Canada without first securing that consent. Neither the British Government, Mr. Daldy, nor the Copyright Association he represents need  ## p. 145 (#159) ############################################ THE AUTHOR, I 45 think that Canada will recognise any arrange- ment without first consenting thereto. Mr. Daldy knows, without being told, that the day has gone by when the consent of Canada to a question so important as this of copyright can be taken for granted before formally securing said consent through the usual diplomatic channels. Thanking you for granting me space, I remain, Sir, yours in the bonds of Imperial Unity, RICHARD T. LANCEFIELD. Public Library, Hamilton, Canada September. II.—To the Editor of the Times. SIR,--The charges brought against me in Mr. Lancefield’s letter, published by you on the 11th inst., require, I think, an answer so far as the subject-matter of them is concerned, though I must respectfully decline to take more notice than is necessary of his personalities. He says, “I have placed Canadians in a most misleading and unfair light before your readers.” I certainly had no desire to do this, and I hope the following observations will satisfy your readers that I have not done so. He admits that Canada has asked the Imperial Government to repeal all British Copyright Acts so far as they include that Dominion, and says Canada has the right to legislate on copyright under the British North American Act of 1867. If Canada has that right, why ask England's help ? Lord Selborne and Lord Herschell, when at the Bar, on Nov. 7, 1871, advised the Copy- right Association that the above legislative authority “ has reference only to the exclusive jurisdiction in Canada of the Dominion Legisla- ture, as distinguished from the Legislatures of the provinces of which it is composed,” and they further said that the “Imperial Act 5 & 6 Wict. c. 45 (our principal Copyright Act), is still in force in its integrity throughout the British dominions.” This view is corroborated by the decision in “Smiles v. Belford ” of the Supreme Court of Upper Canada and the opinions of recent law officers of the Crown. Mr. Lancefield objects to my reference to the way in which Canada collects, or neglects to collect, the royalty due to British and Colonial authors under the Imperial Act of 1847 and the Canadian Act of Aug. 1850, approved by Imperial Order in Council made Dec. 12, 1850. Perhaps he will not be suprised to hear that this royalty has only been spasmodically collected, although the Act was passed for Canada's benefit, and she undertook to make the collection. It is notorious that many books were imported by Canada without payment of this royalty, and I have before me now a correspondence showing that a copyright owner, who was entitled to royalty since 1883, had to send an agent to Canada, who traced one payment in 1885, but the customs authorities in Canada could not even then discover the collection of royalty on any other occasion, although the work had been largely circulated throughout the Dominion before that time. The first payment of this royalty, not in full, but “on account,” was not received by the copyright owner till 1889. Can Mr. Lancefield be surprised at the incredulity of English authors as to her honestly carrying out her engagements? Mr. Lancefield quotes from the Canadian Act of 1889 to prove that artists have received due consideration. He quotes the 4th section of that Act, but omits any reference to the 5th, which says the condition of obtaining copyright under the Act is that such artistic work shall be repro- duced in Canada within one month of production elsewhere. Hence, to obtain copyright under the Canadian Act, Sir F. Leighton, or any artist, must go to Canada and reproduce his picture there within a month of publication here. A new opera must be represented there within the same time. Am I right in saying “no consideration whatever has been shown to artists and musical composers ?” Is it not a mockery to offer copy- right on such terms? Mr. Lancefield says Canadian publishers cannot acquire copyright from British authors because United States publishers buy the Canadian market with the American market. Why does not the Canadian purchaser come forward first and buy the two markets P It is all a matter of commercial competition. Mr. Lancefield seems to think authors hand over their works to United States publishers by preference. What they prefer, and what they are entitled to, is the best price for the two intermixed markets, because it is against their interests to sell either separately. This arises from American, not British, legisla- tion. Mr. Lancefield cannot expect authors to forego the value of their copyrights in America merely to help Canadian reprinters to get the printing of them. Let Canadian printers come forward earlier, before American arrangements are made, and buy both markets. I regret to say American copyright for British authors is jeopardised by the apprehension of our allowing Canadian printers to reprint copy- right books without the author's sanction, and that on most trustworthy authority. Perhaps my observation about the consent of Canada as to American copyright running there is rather unfortunately worded, as of course her consent was not required. The facts are that the United States Government asked if American  ## p. 146 (#160) ############################################ I46 THE AUTHOR. copyright ran in all British possessions, and, on Lord Salisbury assuring the United States Government that it did, the United States Government issued its proclamation giving the authors, &c., of “Great Britain and the British possessions” copyright throughout the United States. (See United States Papers, No. 3 (1891), Correspondence on United States Copyright Act.) I am glad to find Mr. Lancefield proud of Imperial unity. Will he, in obedience to its requirements, advocate “copyright unity” as far as we are able to promote it? The laws of copy- right are too much mixed up with the commercial handling of copyright property. The one gives the title to the property; the other utilises it to the best advantage. I am, Sir, your obedient servant, FREDERIC R. DALDY. Aldine House, Belvedere. III.-LITTLETON ET AL. v. OLIVER DITSON Co. The inclosed judgment from one of the circuit courts in Massachusetts, supporting the decision recently published on musical copyright, may be of interest to the readers of the Author : LITTLETON ET AL. 27. OLIVER DITSON CO. (Circuit Court, D. Massachusetts. Aug. 1, 1894.) No. 3065. Copyright—Musical compositions—Manufacture in United States. The proviso in sect. 3 of the Copyright Act of March 3, 1891, that “ in the case of a book, photograph, chromo, or lithograph,” the two copies required to be delivered to the librarian of Congress shall be manufactured in this country, does not include musical compositions published in book form, or made by lithographic process. THIs was a suit by Alfred H. Littleton and others against the Oliver Ditson Company for infringement of copyrights. Lauriston L. Scaife for complainants. Chauncey Smith and Linus M. Child for defendant. CoLT, Circuit Judge.—This case raises a new and important question under the Copyright Act of March 3, 1891 (26 Stat. I IO6). The plaintiffs, subjects of Great Britain, and publishers of music, have copyrighted three musical compo- sitions, two of which are in the form of sheet music, and one (a cantata) consists of some ninety pages of music bound together in book form, and with a paper cover. Two of these pieces were printed from electrotype plates, and one from stone, by the lithographic process. The inquiry in this case is whether a musical composition is a book or lithograph, within the meaning of the proviso in sect. 3 of the Act, which declares that in the case of a “book, photograph, chromo, or litho- graph " the two copies required to be deposited with the librarian of Congress shall be manufac- tured in this country. The Act of March 3, 1891, is an amendment of the copyright law then existing. The principal change made is the extension of the privilege of copyright to foreigners by the removal of the restriction of citizenship or residence contained in the old law, and hence it is sometimes called “The International Copyright Act. Section I relates to the subject-matter of copyright, and delares that: The author, inventor, designer, or proprietor of any book, map, chart, dramatic or musical composition, engraving, cut, print, or photograph or negative thereof, or of a painting, drawing, chromo, statue, statuary shall, upon complying with the provisions of this chapter, have the sole liberty of printing, reprinting, publishing, &c. Section 3 recites the conditions which must be complied with, and says: No person shall be entitled to a copyright unless he shall, on or before the day of publication in this or any foreign country, deliver at the office of the librarian of Congress, or deposit in the mail within the United States, addressed to the librarian, a printed copy of the title of the book, map, chart, dramatic or musical composition, engraving, cut, print, photograph, or chromo, or a description of the paint- ing, drawing, statue, statuary, for which he desires a copyright, nor unless he shall also, not later than the day of the publication thereof in this or any foreign country, deliver at the office of the librarian • OT deposit in the mail within the United States, addressed to the librarian, two copies of such copyright book, map, chart, dramatic or musical composition, engraving, chromo, cut, print, or photograph, or in case of a painting, drawing, statue, statuary, model, or design for a work of the fine arts, a photograph of same : provided, that in the case of a book, photograph, chromo, or lithograph, the two copies of the same required to be delivered or deposited as above shall be printed from type set within the limits of the United States, or from plates made therefrom, or from negatives, or drawings on stone made within the limits of the United States, or from transfers made therefrom. From the language of these provisions it seems clear that “book” was not intended to include “musical composition.” In the section which enumerates the things which may be copyrighted, “musical composition ” is mentioned as something different from “book,” and we find this same dis- tinction twice observed in the preceding part of the section which contains the proviso. It is as reasonable to suppose that “book” and “musical composition ” were as much intended to refer to different subjects as “map, chart, engraving,” and other enumerated articles. If Congress, in the proviso, had intended to include a musical composition among those copy- righted things which must be manufactured in this country, it should have incorporated it in the  ## p. 147 (#161) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. I 47 list of things subject to this restriction. The omission in the proviso of “musical composition,” as well as of “map, chart, engraving,” and other things before enumerated, is very significant, as intimating that Congress never intended to extend this provision to any of these articles. And so, with respect to “lithograph,” if Congress had intended to cover by that word a musical compo- sition made by the lithographic process, it should have expressed its meaning in clear and unam- biguous terms, in view of the language used in other portions of the statute. If there is any doubt as to the meaning of the statute, it is proper to examine the history of legislation on this subject, in order, if possible, to discover the intent of Congress. As the bill passed the House of Representatives, this proviso was limited to “book,” but when it reached the Senate an amendment was offered and passed extending the proviso to various other subjects of Copyright, as “map, dramatic or musical compo- sition, engraving, cut, print,” &c. A conference committee was appointed, and a compromise was agreed to enlarging the house provision by the addition of “photograph, chromo, or lithograph,” and the bill was finally passed in this form. In the debate in the Senate, reference was made to the fact that musical compositions had been eliminated from the proviso. The first and funda- mental rule in the interpretation of statutes is to carry out the intent of the Legislature if it can be ascertained, and I think an examination of the proceedings in Congress shows that it was intended to exclude musical compositions from the operation of this proviso: (22 Cong. Rec. pt. I, p. 32 ; pt. 3, pp. 2378, 2836; pt. 4, p. 3847.) “Book” has been distinguished from “musical composition ” in the statutes relating to copy- right since 1831 : (4 Stat. 436.) The specific designation of any article in an act or series of acts of Congress requires that such article be treated by itself, and excludes it from general terms contained in the same act or in subsequent acts: (Potter, Dwar. St. pp. 198, 272; Homer v. The Collector, I Wall. 486; Arthur v. Lahey, 96 U.S. 112 ; Arthur v. Stephani, Id. 125; Vietor v. Arthur, IO4 U.S. 498.) If, in a popular sense, and speaking particularly in reference to form, “book” may be said to include a musical composition, the answer to this proposition is that where two words of a statute are coupled together, one of which generically includes the other, the more general term is used in a mean- ing exclusive of the specific one : (Endl. Interp, St. sect. 396; Reiche v. Smythe, 13 Wall. 162.) The reasoning upon which this rule of specific designation is based is that such designation is WOL. W. tions to the Survey of the Literature of the Reign. expressive of the legislative intention to exclude the article specifically named from the general term which might otherwise include it: (Smythe v. Fiske, 23. Wall. 374, 38o ; Reiche v. Smythe, 13 Wall. 162, 164.) The English cases cited by the defendant to the effect that “book” includes “ musical composition '' are not material in the present controversy, because the statute law of the two countries is different. The early English statute of 8 Anne, c. 19, says, in the preamble, “books and other writings,” while, in the modern English statute (5 & 6 Wict. c. 45, s. 2), “book’’ is defined to include various specific things, as “map, chart, sheet of music,” &c Nor do the American cases cited (Clayton v. Stone, 2 Paine, 382, Fed. Cas. No. 2872 ; Scoville v. Toland, 6 West. Law J. 84, Fed. Cas. No. 12,553; Drury v. Ewing, I Bond, 540, Fed. Cas. No. 4095) help the defendant. In none of these cases has the question ever been determined whether a musical composition is a book. It must also be remembered that the question now presented is not strictly whether a musical composition can ever be regarded as a book, but whether Congress meant in the Act of March 3, 1891, to include musical composition within the terms of the proviso referred to. Nor do I think the dictionary definitions of “book” render us much assistance, because the word is used in so many different senses. It may refer to the subject-matter, as literary composition ; or to form, as a number of leaves of paper bound together; or a written instrument or document; or a particular sub- division of a literary composition; or the words of an opera, &c. Looking at the natural reading of the statute, the intent of Congress, and the rules which govern the construction of statute law, I am of opinion that the plaintiffs have complied with the provisions of the Act of March 3, 1891, respect- ing the three musical compositions complained of, and that the defendant should be enjoined from reprinting, publishing, or exposing for sale these compositions, or any essential part of them, as prayed for in the Bill. Injunction granted. IV.-ContLNUATION BY ANOTHER HAND. The following advertisement appeared in the New York Critic : - MASTERPIECES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.-Entirely New and Finely Illustrated Editions.—A History of Our Own Times, from the Accession of Queen Victoria to the General Election of 1880. By Justin McCarthy, M.P. With an Introduction, and Supplementary Chapters bring- ing the work down to Mr. Gladstone's Resignation of the Premiership (March, 1894); with a New Index, and Addi- By G. P  ## p. 148 (#162) ############################################ I48 THE AUTHOR. Mercer Adam, author of “A Précis of English History,” &c. Profusely illustrated with new half-tone portraits of states- men and littérateurs. 2 vols., 12mo, handsome cloth, $3.oo; or, in three-quarter calf, $5.00. Popular edition, 2 vols., 12mo., without illustrations, cloth, $1.50. This advertisement was forwarded on to the offices of the Society by Mr. Justin McCarthy, M.P. Mr. McCarthy is indignant, and very naturally so, at the course the American publishers have thought fit to adopt, and all persons who are interested in the maintenance of literary property will no doubt support Mr. McCarthy's view as strongly. The work was published prior to the American Copyright Act, and therefore fell a lawful prey to the American reproducer. It has been selling in America for some years past in a cheap paper-bound edition. The author may perhaps have felt hurt that a work, the outcome of his brain, should be so freely circulated without bringing him in any- thing, but in those days, when books were pub- lished in England, the author produced his work with his eyes open to the possible consequences. But here insult has been added to injury, and Mr. McCarthy’s work has not only been appro- priated, but has also received the honour of an intro- duction, and several additional chapters to bring it up to date, from the pen of G. Mercer Adam. Surely it would have been an easy and courteous matter for the publisher to have written a line to the author or his English publisher to ask whether he had any views as to the continua- tion of the work. - Neither Messrs. Chatto and Windus nor Mr. McCarthy have had a line of notice, and the advertisement of the book in its present American form was the first intimation of what had taken lace. It is needless to say that there is no legal remedy, as the pnblishers have in their adver- tisement fully owned up to the additional chapters and their authorship. If this had not been done, but the work with added matter had been published under Mr. McCarthy's name—a pro- ceeding which has been known to take place with the works of other English authors—he might, perhaps, have had, some remedy under the American case quoted in last month's Author, p. 117, and the question might have been discussed under the law of trade marks and misleading the public. It is not worth while going into this side of the question, as even this point is doubtful. The American publisher has avoided this difficulty by openly avowing the facts. . But the unfortunate author, who has for some time been meditating the completion of his work, has had the American market taken away from him. Since the above was written Mr. McCarthy’s publishers, Messrs. Chatto and Windus, have received a letter from the American publisher, printed below. This letter bears out all the points put forward above, and explains how little regard is shown for the author and originator of a work, and how little thought or care may be bestowed upon the simple and familiar process of using for a man’s own profit the work of another man's brain—especially when there is no fear of legal consequences. Oct I I, 1894.—Dear Sirs, I am in receipt of your letter of the 1st. Oct., and am somewhat surprised that your remonstrance on behalf of the author of the “History of Our Own Times” should be addressed to us for issuing a continuation of the work. There are any number of editions of this work, which is not copyrighted, published in this country, and, therefore, it appears to me your remonstrance for continuing a non-copyright work is extremely ill-founded. Had I known that Mr. McCarthy intended to write a con- tinuation of his work, I should, of course, have been much pleased to have negotiated with him or his publishers for the American copyright, but under all the circumstances I can- not think that I have dome either him or you such an injury as entitles you to write me in the way you have, and I remain, —Yours very truly, CHARLEs W. Gould, Receiver.— Messrs. Chatto and Windus. -*--~~~~~ -------- LETTER FROM PARIS. AM writing this on the eve of my return to Paris, in a room full of the disorders of departure. The weather is so fine that it might be July rather than mid-October, and the sea is still very tempting for long and hazardous swims. But the vines are all leafless in my garden, and in the fields around the Indian corn has been harvested ; and, after all, as go one must, it is better to leave the country with a good im- pression and under smiling circumstances, than to outstay Nature's welcome and see in the farewell moment, a sullen face. “It is two days since we returned to Paris, and though my Parisienne is delighted to find her- self in her town once more, my little Edmée and I continue to regret the golden horizons of our peaceful Champrozay.” So writes Alphonse Daudet to me. In the same letter he says that he wishes to converse with me about “la perfide Albion,” which he has never seen, but wishes to visit before he “passes his rifle to the left.” I should not be surprised if, as a result of our con- versation, he were to pay a visit to England ere long. In looking over Daudet’s “Lettres de Mon Moulin’” the other day, I came across a quotation from his favourite Montaigne, which he applies  ## p. 149 (#163) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. I49 to his friend the Provençal poet, Mistral. It occurred to me that the advice is so good, that for those of our readers who do not know, it may well be here reproduced : “Souvienne-vous de celuy à qui comme on demandoit à quoy faire il se peinoit si fort, en un art qui me powvoit venir à la cogmoissance de guére des gens. J'en ay assez de peu, repondict-il. J'en ay assez d’un. J'em ay assez de pas un.” No better consolation could be found by the man of letters, who, doing his best, does not secure a success of popularity. But he must do his best. He must peiner fort. A group of distinguished Frenchmen were the other day discussing in my presence the young littérateur of to-day, who, after setting forth some great idea for a book, will add, with a sigh, “If only some publisher would give me an order for it.” It never occurs to him to write the book, for the sake of writing it, with the conviction that when written it will surely find both a pub- lisher and a public. We were all surprised to read Mallarmé's name in connection with the proposal that the State should inherit all lapsed copyrights and republish books for the general profit. Surprised, because of all living men of letters, Stephane Mallarmé is perhaps the one who has ever least troubled about the property side of literature. His own magnificent writings he printed at his own expense, in a most luxurious fashion, for himself and a very few friends. He has probably never received a sum of forty pounds, all reckoned, from the publishers. The proposal seems an ill-considered one. Fancy what a bitter stepmother the State, moved by odious political considerations, would be towards the work of certain authors. The power granted by this proposal, if it were carried into effect, would be tantamount to one of life and death, and the immortality, after which most writers strive as their highest and best reward, would be at the disposal of Government officials. With what glee would these censors condemn to obscurity the works of all those whose opinions clashed with the opinions which the Government desired to promulgate, and how lavishly would the writings of Prudhomme and Company be spread abroad One power might, to my thinking, be granted to the Government, namely, the right of levying on the profits of those who publish an author's works after the copyright in these has become public property, a trifling sum, sufficient to keep the grave of this author in decent and respectable order. If out of all the money which the pub- lishers have gained by publishing Oliver Goldsmiths's works a few pounds had thus been exacted, London would not to-day have the WOL. W. shame of Goldsmith’s abandoned and ruined grave, which anyone may see in the Temple, and blush at our English sordidness. The De Maupassant memorial subscription, which had never attained a figure in any way com- mensurate to the very modest requirements of the committee, was handsomely increased the other day by a donation of £200, subscribed by a person who expressed a wish to remain unknown. Poor De Maupassant seems to have passed into oblivion. His books are little asked for, and the dealers in the photographs of celebrities have ceased to keep his portrait in stock. One dies fast in these days. Poor Henry Hermann. He spent some years in France, and was at one time the collaborator of D. C. Murray. His forte was in the creation of plots, but he was less successful in delineation of character, description, and elaboration. Owing to an infirmity of the eyes he was forced to dictate to a secretary, and would grow quite excited as he dictated. “That’s literature, my boy,” he would exclaim, after composing some passage which pleased him particularly. When I knew him he had fallen on penurious days, and it was mournful enough to see so old a man, who had been so liberal in his days of fortune, often worried for the wherewithal to pay his rent or to buy his dinner. His courage, his industry, his cheerfulness of spirits were unflagging, and an excellent example. . It occurs to me that we of the Society of Authors might subscribe the trifling sum neces- sary for restoring Goldsmith’s grave. The whole expense would barely exceed £20, so that one hundred admirers, at four shillings each, could put the matter right. - I was interested in Mr. Hill's suggestion for a new form of paper for the typewriter, because a few days before the Author for last month came into my hands I had had exactly the same idea. I admit that I had not thought of the double roller for duplicating purposes. On reflection, however, I had come to the conclusion that the loss of time in cutting the length of paper, after it had been written on, into suitable takes, would be greater than the time lost at present in filling the machine with the sheets as supplied by the manufacturers. Certainly for the writer who prides himself on great production it would be pleasant, on rising from his machine, to see coiled on the floor, say eight yards of copy, but the coils might be cumbersome, and I can even imagine a fin de siècle Laocoon writhing in the embrace of a paper serpent. As it is, the type- writer produces too fast for a man to use it for his best work, and it is only by careful revision that typewritten copy can be made fairly prºble P  ## p. 150 (#164) ############################################ 150 THE AUTHOR. One would accordingly prefer to hear of the inven- tion of a drag or break to check its speed. At times, certainly, where speed is the requisite, the machine renders excellent service. One remembers T. P. O'Connor’s “Life of Parnell,” which was produced so quickly; and I myself, on a day when I was very hard pressed, achieved 25,000 words of a translation in twelve hours. Léon Daudet’s “Les Morticoles '' is now in its seventeenth edition, of a thousand copies to the edition. This mean £400 to the good already, apart from royalties to come, both from further editions and from republication in the provincial papers. As Léon is only twenty-seven years of age he may be said to have enjoyed exceptional good fortune. I know of no French writer of standing whose début can, in point of success, be compared to his. We will not speak of Xavier de Montépin, who from the age of twenty mever made less than two thousand a year, because we do not consider him a writer. A circumstance of which we English may be proud is that of all foreign novelists it is our great George Meredith who is most esteemed by the French. I don’t mean to say that his works have a large sale in France, but I can vouchsafe the fact that the cultured who know English have his books, and that those who cannot read English are always glad to hear him discussed. His name is constantly referred to in the literary papers, and he is very evidently an influence in France. Does George Meredith know this P. There is also great curiosity about Thomas Hardy, and at the Authors’ Club dinner to M. Zola last year, Zola told me that he should advise Charpentier to arrange for a French translation of Hardy’s works. I believe that a French publisher who would produce a cheap edition of translations from our best English authors would make money. The French are sick of pornography, and are hungering for more solid fare. Young Léon's success is a proof of this. Unfortunately the French writers who know English so perfectly as to be able to give an adequate version of Meredith say, or Hardy, are very few ; on the other hand, French publishers do not care to pay anything like a fair price for translation. Eight pounds, or, in a liberal moment, ten, are considered a fair price for translating an ordinary novel. Hachette bought “David Copperfield” for twenty pounds, and paid the translator a similar sum, and this was a great event in hackdoms Translating is good exercise for writers who are afflicted with the knowledge of other languages than their own. I use the word “afflicted ” advisedly, for it is an established fact that the linguist never writes his own language as well as the writer who knows no other tongue *-- - He loses the sense of value of words, he falls into curious constructions, and may even, unconsciously be guilty of laches in grammar. In translating he has to pull himself together, to strive after the genius of his own tongue, to remember its charac- teristics, forgotten in the Babel of his brain. Amongst recent publications I notice a volume of essays by Maurice Barrés, chez Charpentier. It is entitled “Du Sang, de la Volupté et de la Mort.” Well, well, well RoBERT H. SHERARD. *-- ~ * “DISCOUNT PRICES.” IN 1852. HE frugal book-buyer will have noticed that for some time past attempts have been made by publishers, not by any means of the smaller sort, to abolish the system of “dis- count prices.” This question is not to be re- garded as a formal business detail, affecting “the trade ’’ alone, it is closely connected with authors’ and readers’ rights, and it seems not unlikely that a serious controversy may ensue upon this movement in the book trade. As the whole question was raised and discussed some forty years ago, it may be profitable to follow in some details the features of the older crisis. The practice of booksellers giving discount off publishers' prices was first commented on at the beginning of this century, and increased with the improvement in communications, till in 1848 a Booksellers’ Association was formed to counter- act it. The prime movers in the scheme were not retail booksellers but publishers, and they were supported by nearly the whole body of book- sellers and publishers in London. In July, 1851, a stringent agreement was entered into ; the sub- scribing publishers, bound themselves to supply books at trade price to members of the Asso- ciation only; the booksellers agreed not to give more than IO per cent. discount to private Customers, or 15 per cent. to book societies. The trade discount being admittedly 33 per cent. on an average, it is evident that a considerable pro- fit was left for the booksellers. Anyone offending systematically against the regulations was to be expelled. The rule worked laxly from the first, for on the one hand members put a loose inter- pretation on the word systematically, and gave as much as 20 per cent. discount to large purchasers, without incurring the displeasure of the Associa- tion. Occasionally, however, the severest measures were taken against offending mem- bers, and, finally, one case threw the whole of the trade into a ferment. One member, an importer of American books, thought it would be  ## p. 151 (#165) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 151 *: more profitable, instead of disposing of his wares to “the trade” at the customary large discount, to sell directly to the public, charging them cost price, plus a percentage for profits. The matter was taken up by the Association, and the member, proving contumacious, was expelled (Jan. 1852). In his fall, however, he had with him the sympathies of the public and of part of the trade. Hereupon a fierce newspaper war sprung up, the Times and the Westminster Review particularly taking up the cause of the rebellious Associates in the public interest. Such was the heat of the quarrel that the “trade” became anxious, for their own sakes, to patch it up, and : was resolved to submit the matter to arbitra- 1Oll. Lord Campbell, George Grote, and Dean Milman were selected as arbitrators “for the purpose of deciding whether the Booksellers' Association should be carried on under its then regulations or not, it being understood that the decision of Lord Campbell and the other literary gentlemen should be binding on the Committee, who agreed, if the decision were adverse, to convene the trade and resign their functions” (April 8). The arbitrators first met on the 15th of the same month, but the Association had it all its own way on that occasion, their opponents absenting themselves on the ground that they had been summoned only at the last moment; or, in some cases, that compromise was out of the Question. Lord Campbell refusing to sum up when only one side had been heard, the meeting was adjourned till May 17. Meanwhile, on May 8, a meeting was held at the rebellious member's house, with Charles Dickens in the chair, in opposition to the Association, when Lord Campbell, George Grote, and Dean Milman were selected as arbitrators (April 8). The Times report of this meeting is curious to read. The great novelist, in opening the proceedings, said that at first he had been disin- clined to associate himself with the agitation, as it appeared to be purely a booksellers' question, but that he had acceded, seeing that a principle was at stake on which he felt very strongly : “that every man should have free exercise of his thrift and enterprise.” Mr. Babbage (the “tabulator,”) appeared as the champion of “Manchester Chum,” and wanted to know why books should be excepted from the beneficent operation of Free Trade, and moved a resolution accordingly. Tom Taylor, “speaking as a book-worm, a mere consumer of books, inclined to think that the booksellers must follow the farmers, and give in to Free Trade. Professor Owen, seconded by Professor Lankester, put a resolution, which was unanimously passed, that the regulation of retail prices acted unfavourably by adding to the already high prices of books on science, which have a limited circulation. George Cruikshank had no practical suggestion to make, he merelv enjoined peace and goodwill. Mr. Dickens' letter, conveying the resolutions, was laid before the arbitrators, when proceedings were resumed to listen to the case against the Association. The able summing-up of Lord Campbell on behalf of the arbitrators affords a convenient summary of the views prevalent on either side. He thought the regulations enforced by the Association to be primá facie unreasonable, since to fix the price at which the retailer was to sell was a derogation from the right of ownership which he had acquired. Again, the regulations were said to be voluntary, but he believed, and had been assured by correspondents among the retailers, that they were not effective without coercion, which took the form of refusing to supply to non-members, and thus preventing them from earning a living. The advocates of the existing system had admitted that in order to prove the justice of the regulations, it would have to be shown that bookselling was different from other trades, and had attempted this by saying that the authors were protected (by the Copyright Acts) and so should the dealers be. Lord Campbell pointed out that the only pro- tection given to authors was that which the law. gave to property of every description. What weighed most with him, he said, was the peculiar mode in which the wares in the book trade was distributed. There was, no doubt, a great advan- tage to literature in the existence of respectable book shops all over the country, and, doubtless, their practice of having books in stock for inspection, which under a system of unlimited competition they might not be able to keep up, often produced purchases that would otherwise not have been thought of. He hoped, however, that the lessening of profits would be accom- panied by enhanced sales, and so by greater prosperity in the trade. It had also been asserted that although the removal of the regulations might not affect the sale of works by well-known writers, “that the meritorious, but second-rate, could not without a law against underselling, be ushered into the world.” Even so, said Lord Campbell, we should deny the justice of aiding dull men at the expense of men of genuis. - “For these reasons,” said the arbitrators, “we think that the attempt to allege the alleged exceptional nature of the commerce in books has failed, and that it ought to be no longer carried on under present regulations. We do not intend to affirm, however, that excessive profits are received  ## p. 152 (#166) ############################################ I 52 THE AUTHOIR. in any branch of the bookselling trade. . . . We likewise wish it to be distinctly understood that our disapproval of the “regulations ° extends only to the pretension of the publisher to dictate the terms on which the retail book- seller shall deal in his own shop, and to the means adopted for enforcing the prescribed minimum price. They add further: “The publishers are not bound to trust anyone whom they believe to be sacrificing his wares by reckless underselling.” Within ten days from this decision the associa- tion was dissolved, and the practice of giving 2d. in the shilling discount for cash became imme- diately widespread. It seems not improbable that the facility thus afforded was one of the prime factors in the weakening of the credit system, which up till then held nearly all retail transac- tions in its enervating grasp. *- - - NOTES AND NEWS, R. SHERARD in his Letter from Paris suggests that the members of the Society should themselves subscribe to repair the tomb of Goldsmith. He estimates that £20 would cover the expense. If members between them will guarantee that sum an estimate shall be made. Perhaps a single member would be willing to pay the whole amount—it is not a great sum— and it would be a service to the honour of literature. Perhaps twenty would guarantee one pound each. Anyhow, I hereby invite the readers of the Author to send me a promise, not a cheque, of so much if necessary; and then I will try to ascertain what is wanted to be done and what it would cost, and whether the new Master of the Temple would give his consent to the thing being done in this way. It is late to speak of Oliver Wendell Holmes. But it is impossible for the Author to appear, even three weeks after his death, without a word. Our words shall not be many. Holmes was one of the very few authors who enjoyed the personal love of all his readers. Greater writers there are still living—greater poets, greater novelists, greater essayists. There are none who live so deeply in the affections of their readers. This kind of influence is a gift; it cannot be acquired or learned, or imitated. How many—how few— living writers possess this gift P. In Holmes’s Case it was accompanied, or caused, by a singularly sunny and cheerful disposition. He neither spoke ill, nor thought ill, of anybody. The little spitefulnesses which so largely enter into the literature of many writers, and effectually deprive them of personal charm, were entirely wanting in Holmes. He was the Goldsmith of his age. -**-*- The following is from the biography of Froude in the Times of Oct. 22 : - “Froude could not refrain from a few incidental thrusts at the insincerity which, according to him, is the besetting sin of the clergy of all denominations. It so happened that just about this time his friend and brother- in-law, Charles Kingsley, was resigning the chair of Modern History at Cambridge, and in his farewell discourse denounced historians for their partisanship, carelessness, and habitual mis- representation. The opportunity was too good to be lost, and an academical wit, said to be the present Bishop of Oxford, circulated some lines here which, though well remembered in University circles, have not often been printed, and may therefore be quoted here:— While Froude assures the Scottish youth That persons do not care for truth, The Reverend Canon Kingsley cries “All history's a pack of lies.” What cause for judgment so malign f A little thought may solve the mystery; For Froude thinks Kingsley a divine, And Kingsley goes to Froude for history.” The following verses have also been recovered by the writer of the paper in the Times. They are by Froude, and appeared in Fraser's Magazine for May, 1862. They were written to his wife:— Sweet hand that held in mine, Seems the one thing I cannot live without, The soul’s own anchorage in this storm and doubt, I take them as the sign. Of sweeter days in store, For life and more than life when life is done, And thy soft pressure leads me gently on To Heaven’s own Evermore. I have not much to say, Nor any words that fit such fond request; Let my blood speak to them, and hear the rest, Some silent heartward way. Thrice blest the sacred hand, Which saves e'en while it blesses; hold me fast; Let me not go beneath the floods at last, So near the better land. Sweet hand that stays in mine, Seems the one thing I cannot live without, My heart's one anchor in life’s storm and doubt, Take this and make me thine. I suppose that, if the modern school of history is right, the whole of English history will have to be re-written, thanks to the newly recovered or newly studied documents. The re-writing of  ## p. 153 (#167) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. I 53 history will afford excellent occupation to a good many scholars now in their cradles. When one considers the immense accumulations of other historical documents — cuneiform bricks and tablets, inscriptions in all languages under the sun, letters, legal instruments, diaries, memoirs, and autobiographies, it is clear that all history will have to be re-written. As the public libraries will then be numbered by thousands, and as every library will have to take a copy of every new history, it is certain that the historian's lot will not be an unhappy one. Froude may cease, under these circumstances, to be an historical authority: so also may Macaulay, Freeman, and several others. But Froude will not cease to be a model of fine, picturesque, and vigorous English. There was a very pretty paper in the Spectator of Oct. 20th, called “The Literary Advantages of Weak Health.” The title was clumsy. It should have been called “The Bridle of Theages.” This bridle—as those who have read Plato's Dialogues ought to know—was the ill-health which kept Theages, the friend of Socrates, out of politics, and constrained him to follow philosophy. On this peg the writer points out very carefully how this same bridle has constrained others besides Theages to lead the retired life of meditation and experi- ment. Among those thus bridled he mentions Darwin, Pusey, J. A. Symonds among writers of our time; and of past time, Virgil, Horace, Pope, Johnson, Schiller, Heine, Pascal. hand, Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Dryden, Milton, Scott, Tennyson were all men of healthy consti- tutions, and even more than the average strength. It is certain that a sickly frame does not make a good writer: it is also certain that some minds work better in the retirement which ill-health forces upon one, and the excitement of society and social engagements cannot be good either for one who pursues philosophy or for one who cultivates imagination. One would not desire the Bridle of Theages; still, if it is laid upon our shoulders, we may remember how it has been used by some as a stimulus for work. America has her monuments sacred to literary associations, and America, like England, is fond of pulling them down and destroying them. The cottage in which Edgar Allan Poe lived and worked, at Fordham, is for sale with its grounds. It is laid out in “4% city lots”—eligible lots, because they are “on one of the main thorough- fares of the ‘Greater New York,' within three minutes' walk of the railroad and the electric line, less than half an hour from Grand Central Depôt, and in the midst of a growing popula- On the other tion.” The whole has been offered to a certain literary man for 3500 dollars cash and 30OO dollars mortgage. The literary man unfortu- nately does not see his way to buy it. A suggestion has been made in the New York Critic that it would be a graceful thing for editors of magazines to bring out occasionally a “ consolation’ number, containing only papers which had been rejected. But unless the “consolation’’ number was of colossal dimensions there would be no consolation, except to a few dozen—and what are they among so many ? They are an experimental people in Chicago. They have started a publishing firm, of which the directors are called “Author-Publishers,” a double-barrelled name, which may mean either that they are authors as well as publishers, or that they are publishers of authors. We wait for information on this point; also on the special merits and methods of these publishers. But they have certainly improved on our methods, because they announce themselves as their own literary agents. They conduct a literary bureau, in which they offer to read, correct, and criticise MSS.; to select—i.e., we suppose, to invent— plots and dramatic situations; to aid in securing publishers—other than themselves?—to explain the meaning of agreements, cost of production, royalties, &c.; to look after copyright, and other useful things. In these pages I have always given my advice in favour of getting the business arrangements done by competent and trustworthy agents. Therefore one cannot but wish success to this agency. But that such an agency should form part of a publishing business is quite a new departure. The following from the Century Magazine is a dream of Poe concerning the future of magazines. He does not venture to dream of a circulation of more than 20,000. Yet it was a fine dream:— Before quitting the Messenger I saw, or fancied I saw, through a long and dim vista, the brilliant field for ambition which a magazine of bold and noble aims presented to him who should successfully establish it in America. I perceived that the country, from its very constitution, could not fail of affording in a few years a larger proportionate amount of readers than any upon the earth. I perceived that the whole emergetic, busy spirit of the age tended wholly to magazine literature—to the curt, the terse, the well-timed, and the readily diffused, in preference to the old forms of the verbose and ponderous and the inaccessible. I knew from personal experience that lying perdu among the innumerable plantations in our vast Southern and Western countries were a host of well-educated men peculiarly devoid of prejudice, who would gladly lend their influence to a really vigorous journal, provided the right means were taken of bringing it fairly within the very limited scope of their  ## p. 154 (#168) ############################################ I 54 THE AUTHOR. observation. Now, I knew, it is true, that some scores of journals had failed (for, indeed, I looked upon the best success of the best of them as failure), but then I easily traced the causes of their failure in the impotency of their conductors, who made no scruple of basing their rules of action altogether upon what had been customarily done instead of what was now before them to do, in the greatly changed and constantly changing condition of things. In short, I could see no real reason why a magazine, if worthy the name, could not be made to circulate among 20,000 subscribers, embracing the best intellect and education of the land. This was a thought which stimulated my fancy and my ambition. The influence of such a journal would be vast indeed, and I dreamed of honestly employing that influence in the sacred cause of the beautiful, the just, and the true. Even in a pecuniary view, the object was a magnificent one. The journal I proposed would be a large octavo of 128 pages, printed with bold type, single column, on the finest paper; and disdaining everything of what is termed “embellishment” with the exception of an occasional portrait of a literary man, or some well-engraved wood design in obvious illustration of the text. Of such a journal I had cautiously estimated the expenses. Could I circulate 20,000 copies at $5, the cost would be about $30,000, estimating all contingencies at the highest rate. There would be a balance of $70,000 per annum. -º-º-º-º- Are we really returning to our old love—fair Poesy P. It almost seems so. Edition after edition comes out of certain young poets—Le Gallienne, Norman Gale, John Davidson, and a few others. A few years ago they would have had to pay for the production of their verse. Now, it is to be hoped, the payment is on the other side. It may be that the editions are very small—anything else “may be ;” one thing remains certain—that there is a revival of interest in new poetry; new poets are talked about ; as for the standard of modern verse, that is certainly high ; it is to the credit of poets born in a less happy time that they have handed down the lamp trimmed and burning bright. Is it necessary, one would ask, always to speak of young poets as “minor poets P” Surely a great poet is not neces- sarily one who produces long poems. The young men do seem to confine themselves almost entirely to short poems; but if these short poems can be placed beside those of a “great '' poet, without suffering from the comparison, surely they them- selves must also be great. Certainly I have read poems by one young poet at least which seemed to me worthy of being placed beside anything. Miss Frances Power Cobbe, in her book of recollections, speaks of the limitations of literary influence. She was disappointed at the apparent failure of her books and papers—all of which had a purpose—to move the hearts of people. What are the limitations, if any, of literary influence # Carlyle, for instance, has had an amazing in- fluence upon the thought of the last fifty years. His only limitation was in himself. He had a message; he proclaimed it; then proclaimed it again and again in book after book. When he went outside that message nobody heeded him. Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe exercised an enormous influence over the whole English- speaking world. The reason was that her book was opportune; it came at a moment when every- body was thinking and talking of the slavery question. Sir John Seeley has exercised an enormous influence, first in placing old truths in new language, and next in making people realise the growth and the grandeur of the empire. The only limitation to his influence is himself. So long as he has a thing to teach, we shall listen. He gained that influence solely by showing in his books that he was a teacher. There is, in fact, no limitation at all to literary influence. It is only the first step that is troublesome. One has to persuade the world to listen, and one has to be provided with something to teach the world. This done, the rest is easy, and there is no bound whatever to the extent of the influence which follows. Of course, there is another point. The teaching must be adapted to the time and to the people. He who would preach Carlyleism in the eighteenth century would presently sit down with the sadness of one who feels that it really is no use going on. And if “Uncle Tom's Cabin’” had appeared in 1750, nobody would have read a work so low and grovelling. Then, if one is not a prophet, what is the good of advocating, preach- ing, or arguing P Because it is always useful to keep on teaching, however poorly or unsuccess- fully, the things that people should learn, because many things can only be taught by long and patient repetition, and by many teachers in different ways. And, again, no writer can estimate or learn the influence which his own work has possessed. Therefore, one may harm- lessly assume that it has been world-wide, and go on happy in that belief. =ººº- Another literary association. It is called the “Rose Club,” and it owns an organ called “The Briar Rose,” which appears every three months. Members are privileged to send in three papers every year for the editor's inspection and criti- cism. A critical notice of members’ papers will be published with every issue of “The Briar Rose.” Members lucky enough to be accepted are paid at the rate of two guineas for a story, and one guinea for an essay. The first number of “The Briar Rose” contains eighteen pages; two stories, two essays, and a poem. There are no critical notices in this number. The club is for women only.  ## p. 155 (#169) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. I 55 Whatever Mr. Welch, Librarian to the Cor- poration of London, says on the subject of Free Libraries must be received with attention. Therefore, the whole subject of Free Libraries being most important and most interesting, I have printed in another column the report of . his recent address as given in the Times. For my own part, I think he fails to recognise the enormous educational value of fiction. It is from novels that a very large section of the com- munity derives its ideas, its standards, its manners, its respect for literature, art, and science. The Free Libraries may have been founded on the conventional theory that every reader is a student. This is not so ; every tenth reader—perhaps every hundredth reader—is a student; the rest are reading for amusement. If Mr. Welch will look round the circle of his own acquaintance and friends, how many will he find who follow a hard day's work with a hard evening's study? Perhaps, none. Why, then, does he expect or hope to find this phenomenon among working people P. It is in the power of every library—it is the duty of every library—to keep out trash, whether in the shape of novels or any other kind of literature. But the theory that public libraries should be maintained for students alone cannot for a moment be allowed. They are educa- tional and they are recreative. It is quite as useful a function for the libraries to provide a hundred men of the working class with an evening's recreation as it is for them to find books of reference for half a dozen students. We must reserve until next month the autumn announcements of American books. This list, considered with care, will suggest many points of interest. At present one only may be noted— the proportion of English to American books. It is impossible to escape the conclusion that the Copy- right Act has given a great impetus to American work. While English work could be had for nothing, the American author in every branch was fatally overweighted. This obstacle removed, we begin to see what we expected—the great bulk of the literature of the States written by their own people, and only the exceptionally useful and popular authors of this country being published there. This proportion we may expect to find every year greater in favour of American writers. At the same time there will be found on both sides of the Atlantic a great and always increasing demand for the work of the first and best. An analysis in advance of the list shows the following numbers and comparative authorship : History, thirty-three works; seven by English writers, twenty-six by American. Biographies and Memoirs, thirty-four works; ten by English writers, twenty-four by American. General Literature, forty-eight works; fourteen by English writers, thirty-four by American. Poetry, thirty-four works; seven by English writers, twenty-seven by American. Fiction, seventy-seven works; twenty-one by English writers, fifty-six by American. Art and Music, thirteen works; four by English writers, nine by American. Travel, Adventure, and Description, thirty-three works; twelve by English writers, twenty-one by American. - Education and Text-book, eighty-five works; all by American editors and writers. Politics, Sociology, and Law, twenty-one works; five by English writers, sixteen by American. Theology and Religion, fifty-two works; sixteen by English writers, thirty-six by American. Science and Nature, thirty-six works; three by English writers, thirty-three by American. Mechanics and Engineering, twenty works; nine by English writers, eleven by American. Medicine and Hygiene, ten works; three by English writers, seven by American. Games and Sports, seven works; English writers, four by American. WALTER BESANT. three by SPRING TIME IN THE WIKING DAYS, NORWAY. SPRING and the sun are returning and winter is past; Aoi The bonds he has flung round the earth are loosened at last; Aoi Soft blows the breeze o'er the mountain tops, melting the Snow ; Swoln are the rivers and, foaming and frothing, they flow Seaward. Right weary are we of the land and it's, Oh For the creak of the wind in the cordage aloft, and the flap of the sale by the mast ! Aoi ! Seaward the breezes blow, bidding us idle no more, Aoi ! Curling and flecking with foam-flakes the wide ocean floor. Aoi ! Earth was our sojourn awhile, but the sea is our home. Hark! how he calls us on viking-cruise over the foam, As, surging and seething, he grinds at the beach. We will roam, And our longship no longer shall yearn for the waves, as she frets high and dry on the shore. Aoi Gather and run her down over the rollers of pine, Aoi ! Down to the foam-tossing breast of the welcoming brine. Aoi! Upward to clasp her he flings his white arms in wild glee ; Downward she plunges, till knee-deep we stand, with the sea Laughing and leaping and curling round ankle and knee. Oh! sweeter the smell of the salt sea-waves than the scent and the savour of wine ! Aoi ! From “Sagas and Songs of the Norsemen.” - By ALBANY F. MAJOR  ## p. 156 (#170) ############################################ I56 THE AUTHOR. FREE PUBLIC LIBRARIES, N Thursday evening, Oct. 18th, a meeting of the Library Association of the United Kingdom was held at the Mansion-house, when a paper was read by Mr. Charles Welch, librarian to the Corporation of London, on “The Public Library Movement in London; a review of its progress, and suggestions for its consoli- dation and extension.” Mr. Richard Garnett, LL.D., presided, and delegates attended from numerous public libraries in the metropolis. Mr. Welch observed that it seemed at first that London would vie with the great municipalities in the kingdom in supporting free public libraries, when, in 1857, only two years after the passing of Ewart's principal Act, the parishes of St. Margaret and St. John, Westminster, united to establish a public library. Twenty-four years elapsed, how- ever, before another library was started, this time by the suburban parish of Richmond, to be followed by Twickenham in 1882. The year of her Majesty's jubilee gave a great impulse to what had then become a popular movement, and its subsequent progress inspired the hope that, in spite of the remarkable obduracy of certain parishes, the time was not far distant when every district of our great metropolis would enjoy the blessing of a well-stored library. Taking the whole fifty-four divisions of the county of London, they found that twenty-seven parishes, or divisions, had established public libraries, while twenty-six had hitherto declined to do so. In the remaining district, Southwark, the divisions of St. Saviour and Christ Church only had established libraries, the remaining parishes having, up to the present, held aloof from the movement. The City had been provided by the Corporation of Londom with an excellent reference library at Guildhall, and had also been furnished, by endowment from the City Parochial Charities Commission, with three other admirable institutions in Bishops- gate, Cripplegate, and St. Bride's, Fleet- street, to which extensive lending libraries were to be attached. With reference to the prejudices in London against the movement, beyond the question of any increase in taxation there was a stronger and more deep- seated objection, which was held very widely among men of culture and lovers of good litera- ture and loyal promoters of education. Their opposition was based, not upon the principle under- lying free library legislation, but upon its develop- ments as seen in the present condition and manage- ment of the public libraries throughout the country. Having quoted from the debates during the passage through Parliament of the measure for establishing free public libraries, he said he thought it would be clearly evident that the inten- tion of Mr. Ewart himself, and of his supporters in Parliament, was to provide for the education and intellectual advancement of the people and only in a subsidiary degree for their “innocent recreation.” At the request, however, of the editor of London, the librarians of seven- teen free public libraries in the metropolis made a return in April last, showing the classes of books read in the homes of the people. From this it appeared that the issue of fiction, as com- pared with other classes of literature reached a general average of 75 per cent., and in nine districts over 80 per cent. of the total issues. In connection with the management of the lending libraries established under the Free Libraries Acts in London, they were struck by the fact that the student had been ousted from his rightful place by the inordinate favour afforded to the demands of the general reader and the devourer of fiction. The principles of management which had made possible the statistics which he had brought under their notice had, he was convinced, alienated from the free library cause in every district the support of many friends of intel- lectual progress, and were at present a serious hindrance to the growth of the movement in the metropolis. Would it be too much to ask the novel reader to provide himself with the current fiction of the day and resort to the library for the masterpieces of fiction of the present and bygone times P Should Parliament be approached for permission to raise the limit of the library rate to 2d. (a course which he thought seemed most desirable), any such measures should undoubtedly be accompanied by a compulsory proviso that a definite proportion of the amount available for the purchase of books should be devoted to the pur- poses of a reference library. The present con- dition of the free library movement in London, and the erection of new libraries, which was continually proceeding in every district, suggested most strongly the need of some scheme for con- verting this aggregation of institutions into a systematic and harmonious system to provide for the needs of the metropolis as a whole. The popularity of the two existing free public libraries —those of the British Museum and the Guildhall —prove that similar institutions, placed in the midst of the homes of the people, would prove a boon of the highest kind. He felt most strongly that the present haphazard system in which our London libraries were growing up, owing to the different extent and circumstances of the various districts which maintained them, must end in confusion, perhaps (in some cases) in partial or complete failure; while, on the other hand, a well-considered scheme of mutual help and effort,  ## p. 157 (#171) ############################################ THE AUTHO/8. I 57 the details of which might well be evolved from a general conference of the metropolitan library authorities, would result in placing London in a position second to no city in the world in respect of facilities for literary reference and research. —The Times. *— — —” AUTUMN ANNOUNCEMENTS. M*: SAMIPSON LOW AND CO. announce twenty-five new books, to- gether with several new volumesin Low’s Half-Crown Series of Boy’s Books, and a half-a- crown series of famous books of travel. Among the new works are “The Life of J. Greenleaf Whittier,” by S. T. Pickard ; “Lord John Russell,” by S. J. Reid; “Strange Pages from Family Papers,” by T. F. Thiselton Dyer; and fourteen novels. The Clarendon Press announce forty-seven new works and editions. These are mostly works of scholarship and education. Among them is the final volume of “Realm of India,” “Russell Colvin,” by Sir Auckland Colvin ; two more volumes of Professor Skeat's edition of Chaucer; two more letters of the New English Dictionary; and Mr. Hastings Rashdall’s “ Universities of the Middle Ages.” Messrs. Rivington, Percival, and Co. announce thirty-three works, nearly all are educational. Among them is Canon Taylor's “Names and their Histories.” Messrs. Dent and Co. announce sixteen works, chiefly reprints and new editions. Among the new books are “Annals of a Quiet Valley in the Wordsworth Country,” by Mr. William Watson; “Overheard in Arcady,” by R. Bridges; and “Studies in Literature,” by Mr. Wright Mabie. Messrs. T. and T. Clark announce ten new works, all theological. Messrs. Ward, Lock, and Bowden announce twelve new books, besides a reprint of Henry Ringsley's novels, and a new volume of the Waverley novels. Among the new books is Mr. Douglas Sladen’s “On the Cars and Off”; Mr. Bertram Mitford’s “Curse of Clement Wayn- flete; ” and Mr. George Meredith’s “Tale of Chloe.” Mr. Elkin Mathews announces seventeen new books, chiefly essays and poems. Among the authors are Mr. Wedmore, Mr. Lionel Johnson, Mr. Selwyn Image, Mr. Dowson, Mr. A. Galton, Mr. S. Hemingway, Mr. Quilter, Mr. W. B. Yeats, Mr. Rothenstein, Mrs. Radford, Mr. Bliss Carmen, and Mr. R. Hovey. “Revolted Woman: Past, Present, and to Come,” is by Mr. C. G. Harper, Messrs. Bemrose and Sons announce two books. Messrs. W. Blackwood and Sons announce fifteen new books. Among them are three biographies and five novels, including two by Mrs. Oliphant, and the “Son of the Marshes.” Messrs. Allen announce nine new works, inclu- ding a book on the “Portuguese in India,” by F. C. Danvers; on “Buddhism in Thibet,” by Surgeon-Major Waddell; a Bengali Manual; new volumes of the Naturalist's Library; and two novels. Messrs. Bliss, Sands, and Foster announce mine books. There are two novels by Mrs. Caird and Miss Clementina Black; the continuation of the “History of the United States Navy,” and a book on Strikes. Messrs. Nelson and Sons have eleven new books, besides new prize books and atlases. The most important are Dr. Wright's book on Palmyra ; a new Concordance to the Bible, by the Rev. J. B. R. Walker; the “Voyages and Travels of Capt. Basil Hall,” and five stories. Messrs. Luzac have four learned works. Messrs. W. Andrews have seven works, mostly antiquarian. Messrs. Warne and Co. announce twenty-six new editions or new works, without counting many children’s books. Among the new editions are the Waverley Novels, “Cameos of Litera- ture,” which will be a reprint of Knight's famous “Half Hours with the best Authors; ”a new library edition of Wood’s “Dictionary of Quotations; ” a revised edition of Lears “Nonsense Songs and Stories; ” and four or five reprints of novels. Messrs. Jarrold and Sons announce eleven new books; additions to certain series; the “Green- back; ” “Elashes of Romance; ” and “Unknown Authors; ” uniform editions of the novels of Helen Mathers and Fergus Hume ; and their novels outside the series. Messrs. Skeffington and Co. announce fourteen books, of which twelve are religious. There are two novels. Messrs. Browne and Browne, of Newcastle, announce a “History of the Chartist Move- ment.” In the “Autumn Announcements” of our last number we attributed to Messrs. Chapman and Hall the production of fifteen new books. The  ## p. 158 (#172) ############################################ I58 THE AUTHOR. chairman of the company points out that they are producing thirty-one instead of fifteen new books. The mistake was caused by the “announcements” of that firm being entered in three different columns of the Athenaeum, of which only one was seen by our compiler. The complete list of thirty-one is exclusive of new editions, nor does it include reprints of “stock” books, such as Dickens, Carlyle, and Meredith, of which an unusual number are this year published. In the October number of the Author it was stated as remarkable that out of fifty-one books announced by the Cambridge University Press there should be not one mathematical or scientific book among them all. The mathematical and scientific books were in another list. There are twenty-four of them. Among them are the seventh volume of the collected Mathematical Papers of Arthur Cayley ; the Scientific Papers of John Couch Adams; a Treatise on Spherical Astronomy, by Sir Robert Ball; on Electricity and Magnetism, by Prof. Thomson ; on Hydro- dynamics, by Prof. Lamb; the tenth volume of a Catalogue of Scientific Papers, compiled by the Royal Society of London; the Practical Phy- siology of Plants, by F. Darwin and E. H. Acton; on a Practical Morbid Anatomy, by H. O. Rolleston and A. A. Kanthack ; on the Dis- tribution of Animals, by F. E. Beddard; on Physical Anthropology, by Alexander Mac- alister; and the Elements of Botany, by F. Darwin. In this and in the last number of the Author we have classified the announcements made in the Athenæum by various publishers of their autumn books. The list seems somewhat smaller than that of last year, which was to be expected from the general depression everywhere reported. At the same time not so much shrinkage in production as shrinkage in sales would be the first result of such a depression. Almost all the better known names are repre- sented in the list. For instance, of historians, Critics, travellers, philosophers, and antiquaries, we find the names of Canon Atkinson, Rev. Robert Burn, Justin McCarthy, T. F. Thiselton Dyer, W. Cunningham, Archdeacon Farrar, J. T. Jusserand, Dean Hole, Frederick Harrison, Pro- fessor Freeman, Professor Froude, Professor Gardiner, Canon Liddon, Max Müller, Professor Maspero, Henry Norman, Sir Frederick Pollock, Professor Flinders Petree, Bishop of Peter- borough, J. Addington Symonds, Sir J. R. Seeley, Leslie Stephen, Colonel Malleson, John Westlake, Robertson Smith, Professor Skeat, Canon Taylor, H. Traill. Among the novelists and poets there are, among others, Sir Edwin. Arnold, Mrs. Alexander, F. Barrett, Amelie Barr, Robert Barr, Walter Besant, William Black, Clementima Black, R. D. Blackmore, Marion Crawford, S. R. Crockett, Mrs. Caird, R. Bridges, Mrs. Charles, Sir H. Cunningham, Egerton Castle, Sarah Doudney, George du Maurier, Conan Doyle, G. M. Fenn, Baring Gould, Edmund Gosse, Dorothea Gerard, R. Lehmann, G. Meredith, G. MacDonald, Christie. Murray, John Oliver Hobbes, Anthony Hope, Mrs. Lynn Linton, Helen Mather, L. Pendered, W. E. Norris, Gilbert Parker, Standish O'Grady, “Rita,” Adeline Serjeant, G. A. Sala, Hesba. Stretton, Sarah Tytler, Stanley Weyman, Douglas Sladen, William Watson. - BOOK TALK, R. R. B. MARSTON'S new work on. “Walton and the Earlier Fishing Writers ” (Elliot Stock, The Book Lover's Library) will certainly add to his repu- tation as an authority on the literature of the angler, and will form an instructive companion to the magnificent edition of “The Compleat. Angler,” published by him some years ago. From A.D. 1420, when Piers, of Fulham, wrote a curious tract on the subject, through the works of Dame Juliana Berners, Leonard Mascall (pioneer of fish culture in England), Blakey, John Denny, Gervase Markham, William Lawson, and Cotton, down to the ever-famous work of “Old Izaak,” Mr. Marston takes his readers in the pleasantest manner possible. He tells us that the “Compleat Angler” was published originally in 1653 at the price of Is. 6d. What is a first edition worth nowadays P. It would appear that 3235 is about a fair figure, though as much as 33 IO has been paid. In 1816. a “first" could be bought for four guineas As Mr. Marston pointedly asks, “What will such a one be worth, say, in 1993 P” Not the least interesting feature of an extremely interesting work is the modest preface in which our author tells us something of his own early days as an angler, and of his youthful acquaintance with fishing writers. He also takes the opportunity of warning would-be collectors against spurious first. editions, of which he declares that there are many in the market, mostly “made in Germany.” Truly a charming work, and one deserving a place in every fisherman’s library. It is got up with great care on wide margined paper, and is a credit to the publisher by whom it is issued.  ## p. 159 (#173) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. I 59 In another column will be found certain lines taken from a new volume of verse by a new poet— Mr. Albany F. Major. The whole volume is full of strong and spirited verse. We have had plenty of verse in the minor key, let us welcome one who can sing of life in action and in battle, and in enjoyment of both action and battle. The little book is published by “David Nutt in the Strand.” A bard of a lighter kind is Mr. Anthony C. Deane, who has just republished, under the title of “Holiday Rhymes,” a collection of very sprightly verses, which have already appeared in Punch and many other papers and magazines. It is as pleasant a collection as one could wish. Mr. Deane can command laughter, which is a truly admirable gift; he is always cheerful and always genial; he can be sarcastic without the least discoverable touch of bitterness. Greatly to be envied is the man who can stand outside, look on, and laugh, and make even the combatants laugh. Even when Anthony Deane laughs at that sacred institution, the Author, he can laugh with a sympathetic light in his eye. Mrs. Spender's new novel, “A Modern Quixote,” has been published by Messrs. Hutch- inson in three volumes. The same publishers have issued a cheap edition, at 2s., of her last novel, “A Strange Temptation.” Mrs. Edith E. Cuthell’s one volume story—a yachting story—called “The Wee Widow’s Cruise,” will be issued by Messrs. Ward and Downey. Mrs. Cuthell has also written a chil- dren's story called “Only a Guardroom Dog.” which is to be illustrated by Mr. W. Parkinson, and published by Methuen and Co. Miss Clara Lemore's new novel—in three volumes—called “Penhala, a Wayside Wizard,” is now ready at all the libraries. It is published by Hurst and Blackett. Mr. Standish O'Grady’s Irish romance of the Elizabethan period, entitled “Red Hugh's Captivity,” will begin to run in the weekly Irish Times in January, 1895. “What is Education ?” Mr. Walter Wren asks (Simpkin and Marshall) the question, and answers it, giving his own ideas on the subject. Education is, to begin with, a thing personal. No man can be educated; he can be shown the way to educate himself, it depends upon himself whether he ever does become an educated man For instance, the first law of education is to notice things; things that you read, things that you hear, things that you see ; not to pass over things without understanding them. This then is education of the body, the mind, and the spirit. As regards the second. Education of the mind must do two things—(1) bring out, develop, and strengthen the powers of the mind, just as a proper course of training in games and athletics brings out and strengthens the powers of the body; and (2) it should teach useful know- ledge. These notes are worthy of expansion into a book. Before closing up his work on the old A.B.C. Hornbook which is to contain something like two hundred illustrations, Mr. Andrew Tuer, of the Leadenhall Press, E.C., asks to be favoured with notes from those who may remember the horn- book in use, or who may have in their possession examples which he has not yet seen Information about spurious hornbooks, from the sale of which certain persons are at present said to be reaping a golden harvest, is also sought. - John Gladwyn Jebb—Jack Jebb—was not born in the days of Queen Elizabeth, and he did not seek the Spanish Main with Drake. He was born fifty years ago, and he died last year. During his fifty years of life he had more adventures than any novelist would dare to invent—not even Rider Haggard, who writes an introduction to the Life of Jack Jebb. Indeed, one is astonished that the novelist did not lay hands on the MS., and bring it out with a few additions as a novel. The hero is wasted and thrown away in a mere biography. It is, indeed, an astonishing book, astonishing that in these days so much adventure and danger should be possible. There is still hope for the boy who desires the life of danger. Mexico lies open; and there is Central Africa. In the former the boy can follow the footsteps of Jebb ; in the latter, of Selous. Coulson Kernahan’s “Sorrow and Song” is a collection of essays originally written for the Fortnightly Review and other papers, and recast or re-written for this volume. They are papers on Heine, Rosetti, Robertson of Brighton, Louise Chandler Moultrie, and Philip Marston. Mr. Kernahan is the first writer, so far as I know, to draw attention to the beauty and purity of Mrs. Moultrie's verse. She has the rare poetic touch ; the thing that can never be imitated, or bor- rowed, or learned, or stolen. Of living American poets, Mrs. Moultrie stands in the first rank. There are not many, indeed, who are worthy to stand beside her. We neglect the American poets. Will Mr. Coulson Kinnahan undertake the pleasing task of presenting to English readers some who desire to be known in this country as well as their own P. Among these, for instance, are R. W. Gilder and Professor Woodberry, both of whom ought to be better known by us.  ## p. 160 (#174) ############################################ I6O THE AUTHOR. I recommend “Baron Verdigris” as a topsy- turvy book. The author describes it as a romance of the reversed direction. He shows, in fact, a new and hitherto undiscovered danger in applied mathematics. The book is calculated to confirm in their prejudice all that large class which does not like “sums.” Speaking as one who does like sums, especially when they are in “X” and “y,” I found the book diverting and ingenious, but was saddened by the reflection that I might my- self have made similar discoveries. It is said that the sale of “The Manxman” has reached the number of 45,000 copies. This is probably the highest number ever attained in this country in so short a time by a six shilling volume. It is, however, surpassed by the sale of “Trilby’’ in the United States. The number reached by “Trilby’’ is said to be 100,000. In the three-volume form, in which it has been judged expedient to produce it here, it is in great demand. The St. James's Gazette has discovered that “Adam Bede,” which enjoyed a similar measure of success, ran through 16,OOO copies in nine months. The terms offered by Messrs. Blackwood to its successor were: £2OOO for 4000 copies of three volumes, 3150 for IOOO at 12s., and £60 for IOOO at 6s. These terms, the St. James’s Gazette points out, amount to royalties of 20 to 25 per cent. To be exact, the royalties are 31%, 25, and 20 per cent. respectively. From the same paper we learn that Miss Wills, daughter of Dr. C. J. Wills, the author of “Persia as it is,” has written, from personal experience, a book on Eastern life called “Behind an Eastern Weil.” Mr. William Watson’s new volume will be called “Odes, and other Poems” (John Lane). William Westall, who is spending the winter at St. Moritz, in Upper Engadine, and may remain abroad for a year or two, has placed his literary interests in the hands of Messrs. A. P. Watt and Son, to whom all communications should be addressed. A short time ago a certain Swiss paper “ran’” “Josef im Schnei,” an old story by Auerbach, without making any preliminary arrangement with the publishers, or intending to pay for the serial use. But the publishers, getting wind of the piracy, demanded an honorarium of 200 marks, to which the proprietors of the Swiss paper demurred ; whereupon the publishers brought an action against them and obtained a verdict for 200 francs. The incident is note- worthy, as showing the advantages to authors and publishers of international copyright treaties. Only a few years ago foreign authors had no protection whatever in Switzerland, their works could be reproduced without let or licence, and Swiss newspaper proprietors were not slow to take advantage of the fact. Some of them still obtain their feuilleton matter surreptitiously from foreign sources, and are not always, as in the present instance, brought to book and made to pay. “In Furthest Ind,” by Sydney Grier (Black- wood and Sons), is a remarkable tour de force by a young writer, whose work has hitherto been confined to short stories for the magazines. It is a finely-conceived romance of travel and adventure in the latter half of the seventeenth century, as told by the hero himself in the very language, as it were, of his own day. Edward Carlyon, whose father fought and bled for Charles I., goes out to Surat as a “writer’’ in the East India Company’s service, and spends twenty years in India, during which he meets with many strange adventures, and has more than one hair's-breadth escape from a cruel death. Every detail of the story and its local surroundings seems to have been studied with infinite care, and worked in with due regard to the general effect. The interest is well sustained on the whole, and some, at least, of the characters—especially Dorothy —are really alive. And, as one reads on, one seems to discover in the author's style a certain grace and harmony of its own which, as in “Esmond,” count for much more than a clever masquerade. A story which ran as a serial through The King's Own is now to be issued in book form by Parlane and Co., Paisley, under the title of “Covenanters of Annandale.” The book will be beautifully illustrated with views of the haunts of the Covenanters in the hills and glens of Upper Annandale. A short story, by the same author, will shortly be published by Hunter and Co., Edinburgh, as a Christmas booklet. It is entitled “A Swatch o' Hamespun.” The author, Agnes Marchbank, has, at present, serials in the Ladies’ Journal, Scottish Reformer, and the Plough. A new serial from her pen will shortly appear in Word and Work (Shaw and Co., London). Brig. One of the most important of the illustrated books which Mr. George Allen contemplates issuing this autumn is the limited edition de luate of Spenser's “Faerie Queene’’ in large post quarto form, with illustrations by Mr. Walter Crane. It is to be published in monthly parts. It is a tale of Bothwell  ## p. 161 (#175) ############################################ THE AUTHOIR. I6 I CORRESPONDENCE. I. – Nov ELS AT PopULAR PRICEs. – WILKIE CoLLINs’ OPINION. N the interesting compilation of novels issued from the year 1750 to 1860—which appeared in September's Author — during the first forty-two years of this period the ruling price was 3s. a volume. In those days, them—when, if I mistake not, there was a heavy duty on paper, now taken off—this price must actually have compensated author and publisher. And as the cost of production must have been more then than now, with no monster circulating libraries existing, it must be presumed that the novels in those days had a large circulation, and were pur- chased by their readers. At present novels are borrowed and not bought, on account of their high price. As readers now must be greatly in excess of those in the eighteenth century, it surely must follow, as “the night the day,” that good fiction at 28., 2s. 6d., and 3s, a volume would reach the masses, who are forced to amuse themselves with penny dreadfuls. In the year 1883 I had a long correspondence with the late Wilkie Collins on the subject, and I transcribe one of his letters, which will prove interesting just now, when one-volume novels threaten to supersede those in three volumes. Your views on the question of publication have been my views for years past. I have tried thus far in vain to induce publishers to see the advantages (to themselves as well as to literature) of effecting a reform already esta- blished in all other civilised countries. I can do nothing by myself. I should be powerless for this plain reason, that my time and energies are wholly absorbed in writing my books. I can only wait and hope for the coming man who will give me my opportunity. The vicious circulating library system is unquestionably beginning to fail, and the recent issue of sixpenny magazines shows an advance in the right direction. ' ' ' f It is superogatory for me to comment on the opinion of this great authority. To my mind a popular book must always be a cheap book, in spite of a prevailing prejudice that what is cheap cannot be good. The circulation of a favourite work of fiction would increase a hundredfold if it could be bought at 2s. or 2s. 6d. Everyone does not belong to Mudie's, and the purchasers amongst the inhabitants of Greater Britain number legion, and our novels would gain in excellence and interest by being shorter and crisper. In fact, one might actually look forward to a time when the novelist will actually write a story without having any need to garnish it with interminable descriptions, dull moralisings, or tedious conversations, when, instead of writing a novel with a purpose, his only purpose will be to write a novel. ISIDORE G. ASCHER. II.--—“NEw.” One of a coterie of “new” authors has lately advanced the idea that the “incident’’ novel is a product of to-day; that to our medical author more than anyone else we owe the modern “incident” novel. It seems, too, to be received in the new school of critics that a certain quality of dry wit now in vogue is “new” humour. Are not both these crude ideas fallacies? We might easily speak of a still living giant to prove the error of these “new * ideas, but we will be content with the dead. Between thirty and forty years ago—about the time our “new” author alludes to as that when “incident " was bad art—a book burst on the public : a book which is still read, and which is and will be con- sidered one of the masterpieces of the century— “The Cloister and the Hearth.” Will any “new” writer be bold enough to advance the statement that this is not a novel of “incident P” It brims over with it; with that strong dramatic incident which thrills the reader. Here also may be found the “new” humour. You say “no P’ “Look else.” “He dearly loved maids of honour, and indeed paintings generally.” “Est ce toi qui l’a tu,” and what follows. But why particularise, the book teems with instances, of which the two mentioned happen to cross my memory first. Then incident . The fight upon the stairs with the Abbot and his gang, to pick out one amongst many; who can read this and his nerves not crawl? Was “Hard Cash,” with its pirate encounter, no book of incident P Or “It is Never too Late to Mend?” and do we not find the “new” humour flashing upon us from any one of these books? Ay! humour and incident too, yet so biended with scenes of touching pathos, and all else that goes to the making up of a novel, that each is a masterpiece. Is it necessary to mention Charles Kingsley and “Westward Ho; ” is “incident’’ wanting here * Would not any living writer be proud to have written that great chapter “How Amyas threw his sword into the sea P’’ Need we go further And yet we are to be told that because Thackeray and Trollope followed other methods, the “incident’’ novel is some new thing; the “incidentalist”, a new genius. We might go still further back towards the beginning of the century, and instance “Ivanhoe.” But enough. There is nothing, now, new under the sun any more than there was in Solomon's day. As in fiction so in music. Writers, even against their volition, plagiarise. So it is with the “incident’’ novel, and with the “new” humour. ALAN OsCAR.  ## p. 162 (#176) ############################################ I62 THE AUTHOR. III.-ARE THEY LosTP An acquaintance of mine sent some fifteen papers to a learned society now nearly four years ago, and from that day to this she has tried in vain to learn their fate. They were translations, and of their scientific value she was ignorant more or less ; but they had involved considerable labour, besides the writing of at least 20,000 words. It was not a question of money, as she knew that the society was too poor to pay, even if they thought the papers worth using. It was something like two years before she discovered the member in whose hands they had been placed. He informed her that a selection was to be made by himself and the editor of the quarterly in which the selected papers were to appear. Another interval, and towards the close of the third year two of the papers actually made their appearance, prefaced by a long introduction, from which it appeared that they were of some value. -- More months, more inquiries. Then five or six papers were returned without a word, and the remainder are—where P Nobody deigns to say. The publisher of the quarterly, who is in no way responsible, has kindly inquired for them more than once, but to no purpose. And yet one little post-card would relieve an anxious soul and settle the question of their fate. Are they lost, or burnt by accident, or committed to the waste-paper basket P Or—are they going to be used at the rate of two every four years P One would like to know, if only for curiosity’s sake; and the worst, however heartrending, would be better than prolonged uncertainty. Meanwhile, it is melancholy to reflect that some poor publisher might have been quite pleased to loring them out. & - IV.-SLIPSHOD ENGLISH. A correspondent (F. H. P.) writes to point out the following specimens of slipshod English in one number of an English magazine: “M. had succeeded to re-establish,” &c. “He eagerly pursues the aim to abolish.” “We advise to consult,” onitting the names or persons advised. “Have left definitely the country’ for “have definitely left.” - W.—ON CRITICAL AND EDITORIAL AMENITIES. I commit to paper, without fear or prejudice, my experience of the amenities of certain literary men in our boasted Nineteenth Century ! Aw premier, a well-known critic, after praising my poems, and including me in a list of the poets of the day, suddenly showed his teeth and refused to read my last volume of poems, or to answer my letters. And this without the shadow of a reason for his change of front; on the contrary, I always wrote most warmly and giate- fully to him for his kindness, as he must admit. Again, I sent, not long ago, a poem to a monthly magazine, and, not hearing of its fate, about a month later I sent the editor a post card inquiring about it. This post card was returned to me with “Refused,” written across it. Why? Once more, a ballad of mine was recently inserted in a certain journal, which had appeared in another periodical six years ago, and also in one of my books, but was never paid for. As this book had been recently reviewed in this journal, I naturally thought they would have seen it there. The acting editor, on finding that it had appeared before, asked me to explain. On my doing so, he not only refused my apology, but wrote very rudely to me, as I considered. So much for the gentlemanly feeling and courtesy of this acting editor | Yet, again, there is a certain gentleman quite free from “prejudice ’’—we have his word for it —who cut up a fairy tale of mine in a journal now extinct. On my writing a line to him to say that I had heard that certain persons were enchanted with the same tale, and that I felt sure he would be pleased to hear it, he simply returned the printed extract I sent him without a single word of any sort or kind. How manly and generous, and how like a gentleman this was Without prejudice, forsooth ! Again, the editor of a Radical evening country paper, for whom I have written many articles and poems gratuitously in days gone by, and others which were paid for, and who professed to value me as a contributor very highly, not only gave me no review of my last book of poems, but (though I wrote most courteously to him more than once) never sent me a line in reply These are only a few instances of the many discourtesies I have received. What must the shade of Thackeray (a true and courteous gentle- man) think of some of our modern editors P On the other hand, I would instance the Westminster Gazette, the Minstrel, Public Opinion, Fun, Vanity Fair, the Weekly Sun, and others as being most fortunate in having editors who are courteous and kind in the extreme. I may mention that the critic first referred to does notice books in the columns of a weekly journal, so he could have mentioned mine had he chosen to AN AUTHOR. [Our correspondent’s complaints, it seems to us, unless the facts are not all stated, may be  ## p. 163 (#177) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. I63 answered offhand without reference to the editors referred to. For instance, (I) a critic may change his opinions and may not see the necessity of explaining at length why he has done so. (2) An editor must decline hundreds of papers every year, but it would be absolutely impossible for him to write his reasons to every contributor. (3) No journal likes to publish verses which have already appeared elsewhere. The writer should have stated the fact in sending the poem. (4) Next, a reviewer who has expressed an opinion on a book would certainly not change it because somebody else was said to hold an opposite opinion. (5) An editor might resent being asked for a review of a book. It is a pity that politeness is not everywhere observed towards contributors. But in the cases quoted our corre- spondent apparently complains without good reason. It is a common belief that an editor will consider unfinished, or half finished, work; that he will sit down and point out where a paper is deficient; that he will act as a judicious coach; that he will give his reviewer's written justifica- tion for his review. Let it be remembered that an editor can do none of these things. If our correspondent would consider the position of the editor, he would withdraw at once half the above complaints.—ED. *-- * ~ * r- - - NEW BOOKS AND NEW EDITIONS, History and Biography. ATKINSON, REv. J. C. Memorials of Old Whitby, or Historical Gleanings from Ancient Whitby Records. Macmillan. 6s. met. BAKER, JAMEs. A Forgotten Great Englishman, or the Life and Work of Peter Payne, the Wycliffite. Illus- trated. The Religious Tract Society. 5s. BEAULIEU, A. LOREY. The Empire of the Tsars and the Russians, translated from the third French edition by Zénaïde A. 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Title A name given to the resource The Author, Vol. 05 Issue 06 (November 1894) Subject The topic of the resource <em>The Author</em>, Vol. 05 Issue 06 (November 1894) Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015013732253" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015013732253</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Publication Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1894-11-01-The-Author-5-6 publication The Author https://historysoa.com/files/original/5/271/1894-12-01-The-Author-5-7.pdf ae5281340fbad7e8b1f515a621eb21e2 PDF Text Text �������������������������������� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Author Subject The topic of the resource <em>The Author</em> Description An account of the resource A digitised run of the Society of Authors' monthly periodical, <em>The Author</em>, 1890<span>–</span>1914, made available together for the first time.<br /><br />Currently users can browse issues and <a href="https://historysoa.com/items/browse?search=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Index&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;tags=&amp;exhibit=&amp;date_search_term=&amp;submit_search=Search+For+Items&amp;sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CTitle">indices</a> (not available for all volumes). Full text search for all issues, and other additional search functionality, will be added in 2022. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1890–1914 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context The-Author-Issues Publication Date The date of an event (in YYYY, YYYY-MM or YYYY-MM-DD format) 1894-12-01 Volume 5 Issue 7 Pages Page range in volume 169–200 Ngram Date Version of the date in YYYYMMDD format for use by the Ngram plugin 18941201 Ngram Text Version of the text with no HTML formatting for use by the Ngram plugin C be El u t b or, (The Organ of the Incorporated Society of Authors. Monthly.) CON DUCTED BY WALTER BES.A.N.T. VoI. W.-No. 7.] DECEMBER 1, 1894. [PRICE SIXPENCE. For the Opinions eaſpressed in papers that are signed or initialled the Authors alone are responsible. None of the papers or para- graphs must be taken as earpressing the collective opinions of the committee unless they are officially signed by G. Herbert Thring, Sec. 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The Society, to save trouble, undertakes to get all the agreements of members stamped for them at no ea pense to themselves eaccept the cost of the stamp. 4. AsCERTAIN WHAT A PROPOSED AGREEMENT GIVES TO BOTH SIDES BEFORE SIGNING IT.-Remember that an "VOL. W. arrangement as to a 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. 5. LITERARY AGENTS.–Be very careful. You cannot be too careful as to the person whom yow appoint as your agent. Remember that you place your property almost un- reservedly in his hands. Your only safety is in consulting the Society, or some friend who has had personal experience of the agent. Do not trust advertisements alone. 6. CosT OF PRODUCTION.——Never sign any agreement of which the alleged cost of production forms an integral part, until you have proved the figures. 7. CHOICE OF PUBLISHERS.—Never enter into any cor- respondence with publishers, especially with those who ad- vertise for MSS., who are not recommended by experienced friends or by this Society. 8. FUTURE WORK.—Never, on any account whatever, bind yourself down for future work to anyone. 9. PERSONAL RISK.—Never accept any pecuniary risk or responsibility whatever without advice. Io. REJECTED MSS.—Never, when a MS. has been re- fused by respectable houses, pay others, whatever promises they may put forward, for the production of the work. II. AMERICAN RIGHTS.—Never sign away American rights. Keep them by special clause. Refuse to sign any agreement containing a clause which reserves them for the publisher, unless for a substantial consideration. 12. CESSION OF COPYRIGHT.-Never sign any paper, either agreement or receipt, which gives away copyright, without advice. 13. ADVERTISEMENTs. – Keep some control over the advertisements, if they affect your returns, by a clause in the agreement. 14, NEVER forget that publishing is a business, like any other business, totally unconnected with philanthropy, charity, or pure love of literature. You have to do with business men. Be yourself a business man. Society's Offices :- 4, PORTUGAL STREET, LINCOLN's INN FIELDs. *-- - -* r- - --w HOW TO USE THE SOCIETY, I , VERY member has a right to ask for and to receive advice upon his agreements, his choice of a pub- lisher, or any dispute arising in the conduct of his business or the administration of his property. If the advice sought is such as can be given best by a solicitor, the member Q 2  ## p. 170 (#184) ############################################ 170 THE AUTHOR. 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 is in order to ascertain what has been the nature of your agree- ments, and the results to author and publisher respectively so far. The Secretary will always be glad to have any agreements, new or old, for inspection and note. The infor- mation thus obtained may prove invaluable. 4. If the examination of your previous business trans- actions by the Secretary proves unfavourable, you should take advice as to a change of publishers. 5. Before signing any agreement whatever, send the pro- posed document to the Society for examination. 6. The Society is acquainted with the methods, and—in the case of fraudulent houses—the tricks of every publish- ing firm in the country. 7. Remember always that in belonging to the Society you are fighting the battles of other writers, even if you are reaping no benefit to yourself, and that you are advancing the best interests of literature in promoting the indepen- dence of the writer. - 8. Send to the Editor of the Author notes of everything important to literature that you may hear or meet with. *- --" r- ºr ~, THE AUTHORS’ SYNDICATE, EMBERS are informed : I. 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 booking fee is charged to cover postage and porterage. 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 Director by appointment, and that, when possible, at least four days' notice should be given. 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. 8. That the Syndicate undertakes arrangements for lectures by some of the leading members of the Society; that it has a “Transfer Department" for the sale and purchase of journals and periodicals; and that a “Register of Wants and Wanted ” has been opened. Members anxious to obtain literary or artistic work are invited to com- municate 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. *- - -e a- - -º NOTICES. HE Editor of the Awthor begs to remind members of the Society that, although the paper is sent to them free of charge, the cost of producing it would be a very heavy charge on the resources of the Society if a great many members did not forward to the Secretary the modest 6s. 6d. subscription for the year. The Editor is always glad to receive short papers and communications on all subjects connected with literature from members and others. Nothing can do more good to the Society than to make the Awthor complete, attractive, and interesting. Will those who are willing to aid in this work send their names and the special subjects on which they are willing to write P Communications for the Author should reach the Editor not later than the 21st of each month. All persons engaged in literary work of any kind, whether members of the Society or not, are invited to communicate to the Editor any points connected with their work which it would be advisable in the general interest to publish. Members and others who wish their MSS. read are requested not to send them to the Office without previously communicating with the Secretary. The utmost practicable despatch is aimed at, and MSS. are read in the order in which they are received. It must also be distinctly under- stood that the Society does not, under any circumstances, undertake the publication of MSS. The Authors’ Club is now open in its new premises, at 3, Whitehall-court, Charing Cross. Address the Secretary for information, rules of admission, &c. - - Will members take the trouble to ascertain whether they have paid their subscriptions for the year P If they will do this, and remit the amount, if still unpaid, or a banker's order, it will greatly assist the Secretary, and save him the trouble of sending out a reminder. Members are most earnestly entreated to attend to the warning numbered (8). It is a most foolish and may be a most disastrous thing to enter into an agreement binding for a term of years. Let them ask themselves if they would give a solicitor the collection of their rents for five years to come, whatever his conduct, whether he was honest or dishonest? Of course they would not. Why then hesitate for a moment when they are asked to sign them- selves into literary bondage for three or five years P Those who possess the “Cost of Production ” are requested to note that the cost of binding has advanced 15 per cent. This means, for those who do not like the trouble of “doing sums,” the addition of three shillings in the pound on this head. In other words, if the cost of binding is set down in our book at eight pounds, to this must now be added twenty-four shillings more, so that it now stands at £948. The figures in our book are as near the exact truth  ## p. 171 (#185) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 171 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. *-i- * ~ * g- > -s; LITERARY PROPERTY. I.—CANADIAN CoPYRIGHT. N Thursday, Oct. 18, a meeting of the sub- committee on Canadian copyright was held at 4.15 p.m. at the offices of the Incorporated Society of Authors, 4, Portugal- street, W.C. Mr. F. R. Daldy took the chair, and the other members were all present. The secretary read over the minutes of the former meeting, and they were signed by the chairman. Mr. Daldy then proceeded to give a statement of what took place during his visit to America and Canada. He informed the committee that un- fortunately he had arrived too late for the Ontario Conference, but that he had taken the opinions of a good many people in Canada, and, with the exception of a small ring of printers, he found that the people were ignorant of the steps that were being taken with regard to Canadian copy- right. In America, the opinion was very strongly opposed to the change in the law, and Mr. Daldy stated that he was informed on good authority that any such change as was suggested by the Canadians would be likely to prejudice American copyright in the British Dominions. Mr. Thring, the Secretary of the Society of Authors, confirmed this statement through a letter he had received privately from America. Mr. Daldy then stated that he had made a few observations on Sir John Thompson's report at the end of each paragraph, and he handed the members of the committee a copy of these observations, and requested that they would look carefully into the matter and make their own additions, so that at the next meeting the whole question could be finally gone into and settled. The meeting was then adjourned until the following Thursday to enable the sub-committee to study the report and formulate their reply. At two subsequent meetings of the sub-com- mittee an exhaustive answer to the report, taken paragraph by paragraph, was prepared, and also a covering letter, both of which documents were to be approved by the general committee and for- warded to the Government Department com- mittee. At a full meeting of the general committee, held at Mr. Murray's house in Albemarle-street, on Oct. 30, when Mr. Murray was voted into the chair, the report and covering letter were dis- cussed and finally approved, and it was resolved that they should at once be forwarded to the Colonial Office. It is hoped that at a later date the Marquis of Ripon will receive a deputation representing all the copyright interests. The committee of the Society will be careful that authors’ interests are adequately cared for on this deputation. II.-DEPUTATION ON CANADIAN CoPYRIGHT. Lord Ripon received at the Colonial Office, on Monday, Nov. 26, an influential deputation from the London Chamber of Commerce, and its four publishing trade sections, the Society of Authors, the Copyright Association, and the Printsellers' Association, which were represented by the following gentlemen: Mr. H. O. Arnold-Forster, M.P., Mr. E. M. Underdown, Q.C., Mr. Walter Besant, Mr. W. H. Lecky, Mr. G. Herbert Thring, Mr. F. R. Daldy, Mr. John Murray, Mr. T. Norton Longman, Mr. E. Marston, Mr. Edwin Ashdown, Mr. H. R. Clayton (Novello, Ewer, and Co.), Mr. Arthur Lucas, and Mr. A. Tooth. Sir ALBERT K. Ro1.1.1T, M.P., president of the London Chamber of Commerce, in introducing the deputation, expressed their thanks to Lord Ripon for the opportunity which had been afforded them of considering the despatch from Sir John Thompson, the Canadian Premier, demanding Imperial legislation which would explicitly confer upon the Parliament of Canada the power to legislate on all matters relating to copyright and to repeal the Imperial statutes in force on the subject. There was no feeling of hostility towards the Canadians on the part of the deputation; but while Canada had the right to legislate on those points which concerned her own printers and publishers, it was strongly felt that the proposed legislation was of a much wider character, and violated established principles upon which the whole copyright law of the empire had hitherto been determined. Prior to the Berne Convention the colonies were consulted, and each gave its consent to joining it. They therefore felt that this was an Imperial matter, and could not be satisfactorily dealt with on the lines suggested by Canada. They wished to protect literary property, in which the rights of authors and publishers, though not, perhaps, so tangible  ## p. 172 (#186) ############################################ I 72 THE AUTHOR. as in the case of trade marks, were nevertheless quite as real, and the violation of which would involve injustice to them. Besides these con- siderations, the feeling with regard to the Canadian Act of 1889, which Sir John Thompson desired her Majesty’s Government to assent to, was that if it were passed it might create a precedent the effect of which would be almost unlimited. Mr. E. M. UNDERDown, Q.C., said the Canadians appeared to take the view that Imperial copyright infringed the rights of certain publishers in their country. There was no question as to copyright being property, and a most valuable one, and it seemed impossible to realise at this time of day that any nation should desire to disregard the rights of that property. It was to be regretted that the United States should have attached a manufacturing profit as a condition of copyright, an example which was sought to be followed by one of our own colonies. He was afraid they must characterise Sir John Thompson's demands as a pure attempt to further a particular trade—the Canadian re- printers—and he saw no reason which would justify her Majesty's Government in breaking away from a convention affecting the whole of the Empire. France, as a member of the Berne Convention, might also have cause of complaint because two millions of the Canadians were French and spoke that language. They should jealously guard the principle of copyright as property. Mr. WALTER BESANT pointed to the present condition of literary property in the English- speaking countries, and the effect which would be produced by such changes as were contemplated by the Canadians. They had at last succeeded, after fifty years of struggle, in obtaining from the United States an Act granting international copyright. By that Act they had obtained the protection of their works from piracy; they could bring them out in America, just as they did here; they could make arrangements and agreements with American publishers just as they did here with English publishers, and American authors had equal rights in this country. So what was ours became theirs by legal contract, and in the same way what was theirs became ours. We must remember that the new condition of things made the literature of the whole English-speaking world a common possession. It was an enormous possession. It was the possession of I2O million people, and as education spread and more readers came in every year—more by hundreds of thousands—it would become far more important for all concerned. Therefore it was above ail things necessary to watch over and guard with the utmost jealousy those newly-acquired rights. From the author's point of view the question was most serious, Where the foreign author had no rights he became a most deadly rival to the native author, because he could be produced for nothing. The American authors had only ceased to suffer from this cause during the three years since the Act was passed. They were already showing the increase of vitality and strength which was to be expected when they could com- pete with English authors on fair terms. Again, great as was the audience of our own Empire, the American audience was greater still. In a very short time, when the American publishers had settled down to the new conditions, a popular English author would find his best audience in the States. If, however, Canada had a separate Copyright Act of her own, what would happen? The separation of Canada from the States was by a long and imaginary frontier. It was impossible to keep Canadian books out of the States, or books printed in the States out of Canada. Then would begin again the old miserable game of cheap reprints vying with other cheap reprints. The American proclamation which gave English authors copyright would be torn to pieces. The piracies would go on again. Once more the Americans would publish our books for nothing. American authors who were now enjoying the new system which allowed them open competi- tion with each other and with British authors on fair terms would fall back upon the old state of things in which they used to compete against the book got for nothing. Worse still, all the old bitterness and recriminations would be revived. The question was, in short, should a country of five millions be allowed to wreak all this mischief and wrong upon a world of 122 millions in order to enrich two or three publishers by underselling the Americans? Mr. H. R. CLAYTON said that musical com- posers and publishers were specially affected by copyright questions. While the fact of there being 2,OOO,OOO French-speaking Canadians was important, the language of music was universal. The music publishers had availed themselves to a large extent of the Canadian Copyright Act of I875, which authorised the exclusion of American editions, but in spite of that they could not keep them out. He specially addressed himself to Sir John Thompson’s arguments in regard to the collection of authors’ royalties, and pointed out the great difficulty of collecting them. Sir John had suggested that English publishers preferred the American to the Canadian market; but the fact was that it was impossible to divide the two. Mr. F. R. DALDY said he had had an oppor- tunity while in America this year of consulting the  ## p. 173 (#187) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. I 73 American Authors’ Association and the leading publishers, and he found that the feeling against the Canadian view was such that the American Minister in this country had been requested to ascertain officially what course Great Britain intended to adopt. It was declared that to accede to Canada’s request would more than jeopardise the President’s proclamation. What they said was, “We have given you a great boon; we gave it to you on the faith of the statements of the British Government that the copyright privileges which you gave us would run through- out the British dominions.” The difficulty of collecting the authors’ royalty under the proposed Act would be almost insuperable, especially in connection with stories passing through periodi- cals and newspapers, or even given away gratis. Mr. H. O. ARNOLD-TORSTER, M.P., concurred with previous speakers, and pointed out what would be the consequences if other parts of the Empire were allowed the privileges sought by Canada. The MARQUIs OF RIPON, in reply, said they would not expect him to give any opinion on the question at the present time. He was very glad to receive the deputation, because it was his duty to hear both sides. Sir John Thompson was now in England, and he proposed to have a full dis- cussion with him at the earliest opportunity; but he was anxious, before he entered into that dis- cussion, to hear the views of such important bodies as those which were represented by the deputation. Of course they would understand that the desires expressed by one of the great colonies were entitled to the most serious con- sideration of the Imperial Government, while, on the other hand, that the Government was bound not to overlook the interests of persons to whom the world was so much indebted as the repre- sentative authors and publishers who formed that deputation. He had no hesitation in pro- mising them that the views that had been expressed, and which might be expressed on the other side, would receive the serious consideration of her Majesty's Government.—Times, Nov. 27. III.-CAPE TOWN COPYRIGHT. T. Some change in the Cape copyright law, as it affects the sale of books, is an imperative neces- sity, and we trust that steps will be taken to make the desirable amendment without the loss of another session. Under the present law the sale of pirated editions of books is not prohibited, and, consequently, unscrupulous booksellers are able to do a lucrative business in this unholy traffic of men's brains, The existing law is a farce, and it would be interesting to ascertain what purpose the Legislature sought to serve by it. The Customs levy a special duty of 20 per cent. On foreign reprints of British copyrighted works, half of the proceeds to go to the owner of the copyright. We have never known of any account of this curious impost being rendered to the public, or of any list of remittances to authors being published. But supposing the system to be fully carried out, see what an inane system it is. A copyright work of Ruskin's is worth let us say, Ios. It is kept out of the colony by the substitution of a pirated edition at Is. 6d. We levy one shilling, and send sixpence out of it to Mr. Ruskin to compensate him for the loss of sale of a Ios. book on which the author's profit—Mr. Ruskin is generally his own publisher--would be no small part of the price. Nothing could be simpler than to prohibit alto- gether, as in the United Kingdom, the importa- tion of pirated books, photographs, or pictures. Nothing less will prevent what may be seen in Cape Town windows to-day — the unblushing vending of pirated matter. If nothing else will avail, let us invoke the great name of Imperial Federation in aid of reform. — Cape Argus, Wednesday, Oct. 17. II. Since our remarks appeared in Wednesday’s issue on the above matter, we have ascertained that the 20 per cent. ad valorem duty levied by the Customs on foreign reprints of British copyright books and music amounted in the years 1892 and 1893 (according to the Statistical Register) to the magnificent total of £17 and £27 respectively, and that not half but the whole thereof is gene- rously distributed among the owners of the copyright—in number some dozen or score of persons or firms. We also learn that this 20 per cent, duty is levied on the value of the pirated editions themselves, costing in America often no more than a few cents. per volume, so that instead of Ruskin receiving, as his share, 20 per cent. on the value, Ios., of one of his books, that is—2s., he would actually receive no more than 2O per cent. on the American cost of, say, 20 cents. Of the pirated volume, or 5 cents.-a truly tuppenny ha'penny kind of compensation. It is a marvel that such a state of things has been tole- rated so long. It may also well be questioned whether the Customs really secure the payment of the 20 per cent. duty on all copyright works that enter the Colony. In fact we do not see how they can, unless they search through every case imported from Europe and America, which in prac- tice is impossible; nor would importers stand it and at the same time they would be required to have the titles of everyone of the thousands of  ## p. 174 (#188) ############################################ I 74 THE AUTHOR. copyright works at their finger ends.-Cape Argus, Friday, Oct. 19. IV.-PHOTOGRAPHIC CoPYRIGHT. (Before Mr. Justice CoILINs, without a jury.) ELLIS v. OGDEN. Mr. Alfred Ellis, the plaintiff in this action, is a well-known photographer in Baker-street. The defendants, Messrs. Ogden, Smale, and Co., are the publishers of the Ludgate Monthly. The action was brought for an injunction to restrain the defendants from publishing certain photo- graphs, taken by the plaintiff, in their magazine, and for damages. There appeared for the plain- tiff Mr. Scrutton ; and for the defendants Mr. Ruegg. Mr. Scrutton, in opening the case, said that the persons the publication of whose photographs was complained of were Mr. Harry Nicholls and Mr. Charles Kenningham. Both of these gentle- men were well-known actors, and, at the request of the plaintiff, they (at different times) went to his studio to be photographed in character. There was no suggestion of payment. At the end of each sitting Mr. Ellis asked them to sit in plain clothes. This they did. They received copies of all the photographs taken, as a present, and each of them had subsequently bought copies of the plain clothes photographs, for which they had paid “reprint” prices. Mr. Nicholls had sent one of these to the Ludgate Monthly, and it had been published in a number containing an article upon him. Mr. Scrutton referred to section I of the Copyright (Works of Art) Act of 1862 (25 & 26 Vict. c. 68), and maintained that on those facts the copyright in these photographs was the property of the photographer. Mr. Ellis gave evidence in support of the above facts, but Mr. Nicholls and Mr. Kenningham were both called by Mr. Ruegg, and they stated that it was they who asked for the plain clothes sitting. They went with the intention of being photographed on their own account when the character photographs were finished. The plain clothes photographs sent them previous to those paid for they regarded merely as proofs. Mr. Ruegg argued that these photographs were not, as were the character photographs, taken by the photographer for himself, but they were “made or executed for or on behalf of another person, for good or valuable considera- tion ” within the words of the above-mentioned statute. The learned judge said that he had before him a pure question of fact. Looking at the evidence, he had no doubt that the account given by Mr. Nicholls and Mr. Kenningham was correct. It was really not material who first suggested the plain clothes sitting. These gentlemen went to the studio intending to take the opportunity of being photographed in plain clothes. They were so photographed, they received proofs, and they paid for copies. Nothing was said or done to give the copyright to the plaintiff, Judgment must be for the defendants, with costs.—Times, Nov. 16, 1894. W.—ELLIS v. OGDEN—OPINION OF Counse:L. I write on the assumption that the Author will contain a report of the case of Ellis v. Ogden, recently tried before Mr. Justice Henn Collins. In that case a theatrical celebrity, having gone to a photographer to be taken in costume, was also photographed in plain clothes, either at his request or at that of the photographer, was subsequently presented with copies of his portrait, and later on bought others; and the question at issue on the trial of the action was whether the copyright in the portrait so produced belonged to the photographer, or whether it became the property of the sitter, the photograph having been “made or executed” on his behalf “for good or valuable consideration.” In the case before him, and from the facts given in evidence, Mr. Justice Collins drew the conclusion that the photograph was so executed as to give the celebrity in question the copyright in it. No doubt the learned judge was right; he had, according to the Times, conflicting testi- mony before him, and he believed one side and not the other. What I venture to question is the justice of the dictum attributed to him in the Times report that “It was really not material who first suggested the plain clothes sitting.” I venture to submit to you, and to your readers, that it is absolutely material who makes the first proposal in such a case. To put it broadly, I say that one of two things happens. Either the celebrity says (in substance) to the photographer, “Take me and give me copies of my portrait, and you may sell other copies as your reward,” in which case the former employs the latter and acquires the copyright; or the photographer says to the celebrity, “Let me take you and sell copies of your portrait, and I will give you copies of it as your reward ;” in which latter instance I submit that the photographer employs the celebrity as a sitter; or purchases permission to photograph him, and so should acquire the copyright in the production. If I am wrong, does not the following anomaly result P. A photographer takes a “snap shot ” at a celebrity without “by your leave or with your leave,” and thereby gets a picture of which he will own the  ## p. 175 (#189) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. I 75 copyright. Another photographer who takes the same celebrity, but courteously asks permission first, and in acknowledgment of it presents some copies to the sitter, loses thereby the copyright in the picture he takes; that is, he loses it, if the inference of fact in his case follows the lines of Ellis v. Ogden, and that will be the case if the question “Who first suggested the sitting P” is disregarded. In any case photographers will do well to get agreements drawn and submit them for signature to celebrities who visit their studios before they proceed to take their pictures. E. A. A. VI.--THE Cost of PRODUCTION. A paper appeared on Nov. 3rd in a penny weekly on the production of novels. It took the form of an interview with a publisher, and it presented all the appearance of a genuine inter- view with an honourable man ; that is to say, not one who falsifies his accounts or charges for advertisements for which he has not paid. In the course of this interview the question of cost arose. The following is the publisher's estimate:— The book contains 482 pp., crown 8vo., pica type. The cost for composition, printing, and paper would be £68 IOS., author's corrections extra; binding, 319 15s. per IOOO copies; blocks for binding, 383 Ios. On referring to our own “Cost of Production,” we find the figures come out as follows:– £ s. d. Composition—3 I sheets, at 19s. 6d. a sheet ... ... 29 I4 9 Printing, at Ios. 5d. a sheet 16 2 II IPaper & © º 24 16 O Binding . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 I I O £IOI 14 8 We shall have to revise our “Cost of Pro- duction.” Our estimate for such a book is £IOI 14s. 8d. Compared with £9 I I 5s., the pub- lisher's estimate. The secretary also reports that he has had in his hands estimates the items of which were much below those in our volume. WII.-A LETTER FROM I)R. JoHNSON. The New York Critic (Nov. Io, 1894) pub- lishes, under the heading of the “Boston Letter,” by Mr. Charles Wingate, a hitherto unpublished letter by Dr. Johnson. It was sold by Messrs. Puttock and Simpson in the year 1886 and was bought by an American. The following is tendered by Mr. Wingate as a correct copy:— “SIR,--I will tell you in a few words, what is, in my opinion, the most desirable state of copy- WOL. W. right or literary property. The Authour has a natural and peculiar right to the profits of his own work. But as every man who claims the protection of Society must purchase it by resign- ing some part of his natural right, the Authour must recede from so much of his claim, as shall . be deemed injurious or inconvenient to Society. It is inconvenient to Society that a useful book should become perpetual and exclusive property. The judgment of the Lords was therefore legally and politically right. But the Authour's term of his natural right might without any inconvenience be protracted beyond the term settled by the statute, and it is, I think, to be desired : “I. That an Authour should retain during his life the sole right of printing and selling his work. This is agreeable to moral right and not inconvenient to the publick. For who will be so diligent as the Authour to improve the book, or who can know so well how to improve it P “2. That the Authour be allowed by the present Act to alienate his right only for fourteen years. A shorter time would not procure a sufficient price, and a longer would cut off all hope of future profit, and consequently all solicitude for correction or addition. “3. That when after fourteen years the copy- right shall revert to the Authour, he be allowed to alienate it again only for seven years at a time. After fourteen years the value of the work will be known and it will be no longer bought at hazard. Seven years after possession will therefore have an assignable price. It is proper that the Authour be always invited to polish and improve his work, by that prospect of recovering it which the shorter periods of alienation will afford him. “4. That after the Authour's death his work should continue an exclusive property, capable of bequest and inheritance, and of conveyance by gift or sale for thirty years. By these regula- tions a work may continue the property of the Authour, or of those who claim for him, a term sufficient to reward the writer without any loss to the publick. In fifty years far the greater number of books are forgotten and annihilated, and it is for the advantage of learn- ing that those which fifty years have not destroyed should become bona communia, so to be used by every scholar as he shall think best. “In fifty years almost every book begins to require notes, either to explain forgotten allusions and obsolete words; or to suggest those dis- coveries which have been made by the gradual advancement of knowledge, or to correct those mistakes which time may have discovered. “Such notes cannot be written to any useful purpose without the text, and the text will fre- I&  ## p. 176 (#190) ############################################ 176 THE AUTHOIR. Quently (?) be inspected while it is any man’s property. “I am, Sir, your humble servant, “SAM JOHNSON.” *– ~ *-*. - - - THE “NET’” SYSTEM. T has been decided by the Committee to ask the opinion of every member of the Society upon the great and important change pro- posed by certain publishers in their dealings with booksellers. It is to be hoped that every member will take the trouble to consider the question, and will forward his opinion to the Secretary. Mem- bers will, of course, understand that it is a question very materially affecting their interests. It has been, so far, suggestive that the approval, or the opinion, of authors on the subject has not even been mentioned. Certain publishers are writing about it, the rest prudently abstain ; certain book- sellers hold one opinion, others hold the contrary. No one seems to consider that the opinion of the persons who should be principally concerned is worth the trouble of asking or inquiring. The following letters are submitted as containing the views of three out of the four parties concerned in the proposed change. The first two are written by authors of repute ; the “Publisher ” belongs to a very important house; the booksellers are what they represent themselves to be, dependent upon the business which they carry on. T.—FROM AN AUTHOR. I am very glad to hear that the committee propose to ascertain the consensus of opinion among members of the Authors’ Society on the question of “met” prices. I presume that a general meeting will be held for the purpose. The very decided opinion which I myself enter- tain on the matter has two grounds. In the first place I hold that all such restrictive interferences with freedom of contract are inevitably mis- chievous in the end; and, in the second place, I hold that the particular restriction now sought for will be detrimental alike to authors and to the public. Those authors who have not carefully con- sidered the question might, I think, not unfitly be guided by the decision which authors arrived at in 1852. If at that time, after inquiry and consultation, it was decided by a number of leading authors, literary and scientific, that the system of fixed prices from which no discounts were allowed was detrimental to them, the con- clusion that such a system, if now re-established, would be detrimental, is at any rate a highly probable one; for there have, so far as I know, taken place no changes which may be supposed to make the conclusion held valid in the one case invalid in the other. But it need not take long to form an inde- pendent judgment. There is often an irrational cry against middlemen, though middlemen are, in the majority of cases, very useful persons. But in all cases middlemen must be kept in order. They, of course, pursue their own interests, and, if allowed, will satisfy those interests at the expense of those they serve. This is obviously the case with the middlemen who constitute the various classes of the book trade as with all others. On the face of it, therefore, any proposal of change made by them must be looked upon with great suspicion. That a disadvantage is threatened in the present case will at once be seen when the essen- tials are divested of all details. It is contended that retail booksellers must have greater profits assured to them. These greater profits must be at the cost of some among the several parties concerned. At whose cost then P Those con- cerned are the writers, the readers, and the several classes of traders who come between them. Of these classes of traders one is to have greater gains. Will these greater gains come from the other classes of traders ? Will the publishers, for instance, sacrifice part of their profits for the benefit of retailers ? Certainly not. They can practically make their own terms, and will sacrifice nothing, if they do not even take a share of the extra gains. Will the sacri- fice be made by the wholesale bookseller? It is unlikely; for he, too, has power in his hands to make his own bargains, and can take care he does not lose by the change. There remain then the public and the authors, one or both of whom must suffer a loss that the retailers may gain. That the public will suffer a loss is clear, if the discounts now made from advertised prices are denied to them; for it is absurd to suppose that advertised prices will be lowered to balance the absence of discounts. If that were done publishers would gain nothing. Clearly, then, the loss would be borne directly by the public. But eventually a loss would also be borne by the authors. It is impossible that the prices of books can be raised to buyers without to some extent restricting the sales. “This book is advertised at 12s.,” says the buyer to the retailer. “That is too much ; I must go without it.” “But,” says the retailer, “you can have it for 9s.” “For 9s., you say. I can afford 9s. You may let me have it.” Conversations of this kind, or thoughts corresponding to such conversations, must be of  ## p. 177 (#191) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 177 continual occurrence. Obviously, therefore, if discounts are given many more copies of a book are sold than would be sold in the absence of dis- counts, and of course diminution in the number of copies sold is diminution of the author's profit, though the rate of profit remains the same. Alike, then, on our own behalf and on behalf of the public, we are, I think, bound to oppose the attempt to establish “met ’’ prices. -->e--> -- II.-FROM ANOTHER AUTHOR. The question must be considered from four points of view. 1. That of the book-buying public:— At present the buyer obtains all books for cash at a reduction of 25 per cent. For a book advertised at 6s. he pays 4s. 6d. In fact, it is with books as with everything else, a large discount has to be made in selling them. It is now proposed that no discount at all shall be allowed. It is not proposed, however, that a book now published at 68, shall be published hereafter at 4s. 6d. It is only stated that a book which would have been published at 7s. 6d. will in future be published—say, at 6s. It has also been suggested that the 6s, book shall henceforth appear at 5s., without any discount at all. In other words, the immediate effect upon the public will be to raise the price of books. It is a time of trade depression, likely to become worse. Is it probable that the public will continue to buy what they can do without, when the price is raised ?. It does not seem probable. Again, there are only a certain limited number of people who can afford to buy books or anything else outside the mere necessaries of life. Between them they can only afford to spend a certain amount of money every year on books. The amount varies somewhat from year to year with good years and bad years, but there it is. If the price of books is raised the amount spent every year will perhaps be the same, but the number of books bought will be less. Who is benefited, therefore ? Another way to comsider the subject is this: For many years we have been gradually diminish- ing the price of books; this diminution has been helped by the discount bookseller; people have become accustomed to the cheapness of books; they are attracted by their cheapness; they are becoming, as their means allow, a people of book buyers. But if the books which are cheap become dear, the growing spirit of book buying will receive a check that may throw us back for years. And there is no doubt that the desire of the promoters of this movement is to make books dearer than they are, "WOL. W. 2. From the author's point of view :— Since the first effect of the change will be to increase not only the price to the public, but also the price to the bookseller, the author will have to revise his system of royalties, or his method of sale should he sell his book outright. This may be a gain to him. But if fewer books are sold on account of these high prices, the change may be a loss to him. It will be for him personally to decide whether he will consent to an application of the “net ’’ system to his own work. 3. From the publisher's point of view:— He will undoubtedly gain on every book. But will he dispose of so many P This doubt will probably make many publishers hesitate before they adopt the hard and fast “net” system. One may also ask why, seeing that of all trades publishing is the most lucrative, its followers should not be satisfied with what they have, and forbear the risk of losing it in the hope of getting Ill Ol’62. 4. From the bookseller's point of view:— We may leave the booksellers to regulate their own business. But there are one or two points, apart from those urged above, which should make them hesitate. They will undoubtedly, like the pub- lisher, gain something on each book sold. But will they sell so many ? And if their customers are going to get no discount for cash, will they not decline to buy at all P A shrinkage of the trade will most certainly follow the adoption of the “met ’’ system, whether it will be perma- ment shrinkage or not remains to be seen. And who is to prevent a bookseller from giving dis- count P No one. It will be impossible to prevent him. He may not advertise the fact, but he will have to do, and then the bookseller will be in the pleasing position of paying more and getting less. At present he pays, probably, 38, 7#d. apiece on taking a dozen copies of a 6s. book. He sells them at 4s. 6d. each. There is a profit of Io; d. on each. If the 6s. book were reduced to 5s. net, he would give the publisher, say, 3s. I Id. for it, and would sell it at 5s. Increased profit, 2#d. But the discount would inevitably come in. The customer who has always before had 25 per cent. will not be contented with less than 15 per cent., or 9d, on each book, which he carries off for 4s. 3d. Decreased profit, 3d. Another consideration is the fact that by this change, if it is effected, the bookseller becomes the slave of the publisher. Books are put into his hand which he is to sell if he can at a certain stipulated price. There is no longer left any elasticity of trade, any freedom, any enterprise. Every bookseller will become a mere clerk, distri- buting and collecting. | R 2  ## p. 178 (#192) ############################################ 178 THE AUTHOR. In whatever way the change may work, there can be no doubt that trade restrictions are injurious, oppressive, and must in the long run be broken through. Meantime great mischief may be done to author, bookseller, and the book- buying public. III.-FROM A PUBLISHER. The question of net prices is far more important to the bookseller and to the author than to the publisher. To the majority of the booksellers the matter is one of life and death, of existence or extinction; but the publisher can accommodate himself, more or less, to this or any system. The matter has been sufficiently threshed out in the newspapers for every business man, at least, who has read the articles and correspondence, to understand the financial and trade bearings of the question; I need not, therefore, trouble your readers with a repetition of these details. It is, perhaps, well to state that the free-trade principle is hardly involved on either side of the question. It would be if the price of a book under the discount system were not a purely fancy and artificial price, fixed by the author through his agent, the publisher. In other words, the price of a book is not necessarily settled by the cost of production, as the price of tea, coffee, wheat, or other natural productions is fixed. It is fixed arbitrarily, at present, at a higher figure than the mere cost of production and the expectation of a fair profit would justify, in order to meet the tremendous reduction which the existing artificial discount system and the ordinary and concurrent trade allowances make compulsory. The buyer, therefore, who thinks that he gets his book cheaper because he gets an enormous discount reduction is under a delusion. He gets it neither dearer nor cheaper. He does not buy a commodity under cost price—which, of course, is economically impossible—he only gets an artificial reduction on a commodity whose price has already been artificially raised. The argu- ment, therefore, of a writer in a leading news- paper, who signs himself “Free Trader,” that the discount system helps the reader to cheap books, is fallacious. It is founded on an entire economical misconception of the facts. The present system of selling books was no doubt an excellent system when conditions were quite different to what they are now. The net system, which it is sought to substitute for it, is an attempt to replace a system which has become antiquated by one which is in every respect consonant to the doctrines of economical science. The selling price will, if the net system be introduced, be nearer the figure representing the cost of production than it now can be, and, what is of infinite importance to author, publisher, and reader, it is a system by which the average bookseller can make a fair living. In this lies the crua of the question. The present discount system is killing out the small bookseller. Some of the very large firms in the trade thrive by it, for reasons that are obvious enough to commercial men, and, of course, one great firm that holds the railway monopoly thrives by the system, but it is extinguishing the country bookseller. Mr. Collier, of the very im- portant firm of Stanford, of Cockspur-street, in the course of a recent interview in the Daily Chronicle, stated that, approximately, some 200 country booksellers survive out of I2OO that did business in books some twelve or fifteen years ago. This is a most pregnant fact. It means simply this: that twelve or fifteen years ago an author, without spending a penny in advertise- ments, could, through a strong publisher, bring his wares into the hands of the reading public through 1200 channels. This for a good book might easily mean the sale of a handsome edition. Now all books—good, bad, and in- different—mustincura preliminary expense of from £15 to £60 in advertisements, simply in order that they may be known. It is a direct loss of so much in money to the author, and it is, of course, an indirect loss, to be counted in hundreds and thousands of pounds, to the publisher; but to the booksellers—to the majority of booksellers— it is worse than loss—it is ruin. That is why publishers wish for the ending of a system which is interfering with their best and cheapest channel of distribution. All other objections to the discount system are feeble in comparison to this one : that it is pushing out of existence the tradesman who is acting as distributing agent to the author. - IV.-FROM A DISCOUNT BOOKSELLER. I think it is Mr. Andrew Lang who has a “pet growl" that no bookseller knows his business. I have the misfortune to have a shop in a main thoroughfare in London, and had I ten times the amount of brain even of Mr. Andrew Lang I should not be able to know, to remember anything like, the names of a part only of the books that exist. I wish Mr. Andrew Lang would take my place for one week, to listen to the hundreds of books that are asked for daily, and to which at least 60 per cent I have to give the negative answer, that I have not got the book in stock. After the week's experience I think Mr. Andrew Lang would have a better opinion of booksellers. There can be no question but that all the grievances of both the bookseller and the publisher lie in the fact that  ## p. 179 (#193) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. I 79 there are a very great deal too many books pro- duced. If we booksellers could turn over our stocks once a week, like the butchers and the bakers, or once a month, or even once a year, we should have no cause to complain that, after giving 25 per cent. discount to the public off the published price of the book, it does not leave us a living profit. I buy my books so that I am quite con- tent with the profit I make even after selling them at 3d. in the Is. discount. “A London Book- seller,” writing in the Athenæum on Nov. 17th, says, “That it gives no pleasure to the bookseller to sell his books at a discount of 25 per cent., or any other per cent. ; his gorge rises at it.” Rather, my gorge rises when I sell a book at its net price, because I know I am not selling in the cheapest market, and that my customer, when I tell him the book is issued at a net price, and no discount is allowed, is incredulous, and doubts by his manner that I am making a larger profit. No Englishman likes to be “dome.” If you go into a chemists, or grocers, or anywhere, and buy an article marked at Is. for Is., and passing along the street see in another window the exact article marked at Io;d., you feel you have been “had " or “dome,” and your gorge rises at it, and you mentally determine not to patronise that first shop again. It will be the same with this net system in the publishing of books, which, I regret to see, so many booksellers are inclined to hail as a salvation of their business. They will find, as “An Author’’ writes in the Athenæum of Nov. 24 “that the unforeseen always occurs,” so that their last state will be worse than their first. To be despotically told by the publisher that such and such a book is published at Is. net, and if you sell it below that price you shall not have any other of his books, is a system of tyranny that cannot be quietly submitted to. W.—FROM A RETAIL Books ELLER. That the present movement for the introduction of books published at net prices and the abolition of all discount is decidedly retrogade, and instead of having the effect of placing the new book trade on a firmer basis will prove the indirect means of making it worse than ever, as everyone who thinks of the matter seriously will own, as the public, finding they cannot get their books from the bookseller (who is the middleman) at a less price than the publisher will supply them, will naturally write direct to the publisher to have the book they require promptly sent to their homes post paid, quicker and much more ex- peditiously than their bookseller would deliver it. Publishers who are most in favour of the net system state that a book now published, say, at 7s. 6d. net would, under the old system, have been issued at IOS. This, I fear, is not the case. It is merely said to delude the public. Take the following instance, and see whom this extra profit benefits. Recently a book was issued by Professor Drummond called “The Ascent of Man,” and which is published at 7s. 6d. net. The bookseller has to pay 6s. 3d, net for every copy; thus he makes a profit of Is. 3d. Under the old system the book would have been 7s. 6d., subject to 25 per cent, discount=5s. 8d., and would have been bought by the bookseller at 5s. 4d., thirteen copies as twelve, and a discount of 5 per cent. On settlement of his quarterly account. This would make its net cost 4s. 8d., giving a profit to the bookseller of Is., which is quite as much as he can expect. Now, under the old system the bookseller gets Is. profit, sells his book more readily, and satisfies his customer, who knows he is buying in the cheapest market (which is itself an indispensable consideration). Under the met system the bookseller gets Is. 3d. profit (3d. more) and does not satisfy his customer, who imagines he is not buying at the cheapest market, and goes away doubting and dissatisfied. On the other hand, the difference to the publisher is very considerable, under the old system he gets 4s. 8d. net from the bookseller, under the net system he gets 6s. 3d. net, which is Is. 7d. more in his pocket. Undoubtedly the publisher would like such a system established, which all goes to enrich him, unless the author demands a share of the plunder in the shape of increased royalties, which are rightfully his. Again, in these days of excessive competition, will the public tamely submit to this increased price on their books P Certainly not. Already many publishers are sending their printing, &c., to the continent. Messrs. Nester, of Nuremburg, have so successfully competed with all English producers of children's colour printed and other books, that they have practically ousted all others from the field, and have this especial market entirely in their own hands. What then is to prevent (if all books are to be published at net prices) some energetic continental firms printing and flooding the English market with cheap editions of non-copyright books, &c., and by their success, which will be indisputable, they will be able to approach our English authors and pro- duce copyright books in such a way as to upset the whole system of publishing. Our publishers may find their headquarters for the production of English books will be in Berlin rather than London. Under these circumstances would it be wise for us booksellers to sell our books at published prices P Decidedly not; the more discount given,  ## p. 180 (#194) ############################################ I8O TIIB, AUTHOR. the cheaper the books are offered to the public, the brisker will be the trade, and the better for everyone. VI.—FROM A LoNDON Books ELLER. That certain books may with advantage be issued at net prices, such as professional and technical books and books of a special character, for which there can be no large demand, every bookseller will I think agree, but it is much to be regretted that any bookseller should be in favour of the abolition of all discount for cash purchases. Until very recently there was a great outcry against the Civil Service, and Army and Navy, and kindred stores marking not only books, but goods of every kind, down so that by very serious competition to all small traders it was said that their “occupation was gone,” and they would have to shut up shop; time has shown that these stores have built up enormous businesses by simply supplying their goods at the lowest remunerative prices for cash payments. Their motto has been the very true one of “small profits and quick returns,” and now the booksellers of both London and the country at large are clamouring for higher prices, the abolition of discount, and that all books be published at net prices, and such prices strictly adhered to, whether their customer come into their shop cash in hand, and pays for and carries away his purchase, or has the purchase booked to his account, which he pays quarterly or half yearly, &c. Why, it is in direct opposition to all the principles of business: the cheaper you can sell your books, the more discount you offer to the public, the greater will be your turnover, and the better it will be for publisher, author, and bookseller, because for both publisher and bookseller the more copies of a book sold, even at a low profit, will pay better than few copies at a higher profit, and will cause the public to buy with more confidence and with brisker demand; and the better for the author, because the greater the number of copies sold the more royalties he will receive. The present state of the trade is not to be much in- proved, a bookseller can give 25 per cent. discount and then have quite as much profit (in fact much more than many trades) as he can reasonably expect; but it is not this question of discount that cripples the bookseller and makes him find his trade so unprofitable, it is the great multi- plicity of books that are published, and conse- quently the tremendous stock he has to keep ; in no other trade has so much capital to be invested in stock, and much, alas ! dead stock. The book is subscribed to him by the publisher, he has to use his own judgment if it will take, he may order seven copies to get the half copy, or thirteen to get the odd copy. If the book takes, and goes off readily, he has to buy many other dozens, but for one success there are how many failures; the bookseller sells six or nine of his dozen copies, and the rest remain on his shelves, taking up much room and increasing stock in a decidedly undesirable manner, thus he finds year after year his stock growing, and every day, especially at this season of the year, scores of new books coming out, and of which he must take a certain proportion of the known authors into stock, so that he finds all his capital and profit has to be put into his stock, and he cannot make any head- way in improving his position in the world. This, I cannot help thinking, is the real cause of the dissatisfaction of my brother booksellers, not the question of discount; sell your books as cheaply as you can, and sell as many copies as you can, is my advice to all booksellers. Neither publisher Inor author can do without us, the very best adver- tisement a book and its author can have is to be “on view º' on the shelves of every book shop in the kingdom, where the public can take it down and look at it ; it is half the sale. Sell cheaply and avoid met books is my advice. > * r3 NOTES AND NEWS. R HALL CAINE has very kindly sent me his recent address delivered before the Philosophical Institution, Edin- burgh, on Nov. 17, with permission to use any part of it for this paper. The pressure on our limited space prevents any use of it in this number, but I hope to avail myself of Mr. Hall Caine's permission next month. It is impossible to know or to ascertain the reasons which guide a Prime Minister in his award of pensions in the Civil List. We will suppose that, unlike most of his predecessors, he is anxious to administer the grant in the interests of literature, science, and art, and not to foist upon the list widows and daughters of the Naval, Military, and Civil Services, for whom provision should be made elsewhere. It is true that an unfortunate clause—“ and other persons who may be worthy of Her Majesty's bounty’— or words to that effect, seems to justify the placing of all the world on this list; but the fact remains that the grant was intended for literature, science, and art, and that the claims of persons belonging to these three branches of intellectual effort must precede all others. Now here is a case which has recently  ## p. 181 (#195) ############################################ THE AUTHOIR. I81 been laid before Lord Rosebery. A petition was sent in to him signed not numerously, but by a dozen names commanding, one would think, respect and consideration. The petition was in favour of an old man, a very old man. He is eighty- five years of age : he has been working all his long life on literature. Fifty years ago a book was pub- lished by Charles Knight on some of the many aspects of Tondon. It was a huge book in six royal quarto volumes ; the book is a classic ; it has survived to the present day; no one who reads about London at all can afford to do with- out this book. Exactly half of it was written by this man. How many of us expect to be read in fifty years time? Again, he has written novels. Of his novels three or four survive, and are still in demand after thirty or forty years. How many novels iive for thirty or forty years? Can you, dear reader, conceive a case more loudly calling for a place upon the Civil List P Again, I say, that we know not what other cases there were under the consideration of Lord Rosebery. Whatever they were, it is clear that they were even more worthy of assistance than this case, because he has written through his secretaries to say that he will give this man nothing. It is worth noting that the letter signed by the twelve men and women of letters received no acknowledgment, and that the secretaries did not think it necessary to inform these people of the result of their unfortunate letter. These are the courtesies which the literary class are accustomed to receive from officials. Who are they P Literary chaps. Take no notice of them Modern Poets.—It seems quite a long time since we heard of a certain poetical journal, or treasure house of poetry, brought out monthly. It was formerly The Poets' Magazine, then it became Lloyd’s Magazine, after the name of the proprietor, Mr. Leonard Lloyd. It has now become Modern Poets, but the proprietor does not inform us whether the life of his magazine has been continuous, or interrupted by intervals of sleep, or, as it is a poetic magazine, of trance. However that may be, Modern Poets now appears quarterly; and if “sufficient good poetry and prose are received to fill its pages” the magazine is to appear monthly. The really attractive feature—that which separates the paper, and distinguishes it from commoner journals—is that while such mean spirited magazines as the Con- temporary, or Longman's, actually pay con- tributors—hire the poor degraded wretches—this magazine expects its contributors to pay the editor. Noble creature He will be hired by his contributors; in the interests of literature he will dare all and endure all. Every contributor, therefore, sends up a form signed. It is thus conceived: Sir, Wishing to contribute to your magazine, I send you M.S. entitled and in the event of its acceptance for an appearance in your next number I agree to purchase — dozen copies of the magazine (Signed) An appearance in this magazine will, doubtless, be highly prized by the contributor. Fifty dozen at least, at sixpence, which is £15, is not pay too high for a magazine article. One has heard of £50. Let the contributor value his article himself, and order as many dozen at sixpence each as will amount to that sum. In another place will be found a few observa- tions on the proposed “Net” system. It is very much to be hoped that all members will forward to the secretary their opinion and their reasons. The two points which seem to concern authors most are (I) whether the adoption of the “Net” system would materially raise the price of books; and (2) whether the rise in prices would not so far check the sale of books as to counterbalance any advantage gained by an increase in price. There are other questions, such as the danger of interfering with the great advance made during the last few years by the public as buyers of books; the danger of interference with the course of trade; the danger of making the bookseller a mere mechanical distributor—in other words, of con- verting what used to be a centre of literary information into a railway stall; and the doubt whether a “Net’ system can ever be enforced— in other words, whether the bookseller would not go on as before giving discount for cash. Mr. Sherard sends word that in his reference to the Goldsmith tomb he was mistaken. As for me, I was under the impression that some- thing was wrong with the tomb. So there is, but not what we supposed ; the name is clearly cut, but unfortunately it is not certain that the tomb is Oliver's. Under these circumstances one has only to express thanks to those who kindly offered their assistance. A new monthly magazine is to be started. It offers the unprecedented attraction of an astro- logical horoscope free for all subscribers, with the privilege of asking three astrological questions. After this we may expect another, which will tell the fortunes of every subscriber by the oracle of coffee grounds with the right of asking three  ## p. 182 (#196) ############################################ I 82 THE AUTHOR. questions on the domestic omens, such as crossed knives, spilled salt, and the influence on fate of black cats, piebald horses, and the man with a squint. Mr. Gosse has arrived at a time of life which prompts to serious reflections on the flight of time. Everybody at forty gets these reflections. “Wait till you come to forty year.” They pass, these reflections; in the fifties one feels younger than in the forties. Perhaps, in the sixties, one may feel younger still. We ought to, considering how short a time remains for cheerfulness. How- ever, the motto to the new volume of verse, “In Russet and Silver,” is quite in the vein of the forties: - Life, that, when youth was hot and bold, Leaped up in scarlet and in gold, Now walks by graver hopes possessed In russet and in silver dressed. Whether in russet and silver or in scarlet and gold, it is the same music and the same musician; the certain touch and the unexpected phrase; the true word to fit the thought ; the perfect dexterity and mastery of the metre ; these are qualities which we have long since recognised; and as yet there is no sign of any younger poet— “in scarlet and in gold *-disputing the supe- riority of Mr. Gosse in these essentials. The Authors’ Club distinguished itself on the 19th Nov. by holding its monthly dinner in honour of Anthony Hope. The room, which is too small for such festivities, was quite full, and there were but two speeches, that of the chair- man, Mr. Oswald Crawfurd, and that of the guest of the evening. Among the men of distinction who have thus been entertained are Zola and Rudyard Kipling. And now comes Anthony Hope. It is a pleasing feature of the club to pay this tribute to men who have risen or are certainly rising. Authors are too often accused of jealousy and spite. There was no show either of jealousy or of spite in the dinner of the 19th, but only the general desire to recognise and to honour good work wherever it is found. The club, which is now two years old, may be lcoked upon as established. The rooms are extremely pleasant, and have a position as central as can be desired. The members are all connected with literature. Up to the present it has been more of a lunching than a dining club. Every- body is supposed to know everybody else, and the club is essentially cheerful. As stated above, the rooms are too small, they will only accommodate fifty at a dinner. But if another hundred members were to come in additional rooms could be had, and there would be more elbow room. Clad in a garb of golden-green, with a charac- teristic portrait of the subject for frontispiece, is Mr. Robert Sherard’s book on Alphonse Daudet. It may be thought that Daudet exhausted the subject himself in his “Trente Ans de Paris; ” that, however, is not the case ; there is a great deal in this volume that is not in the “Trente Ans.” The author has received contributions from Madame Daudet, from Léon Daudet, from Edmond de Goncourt, from Ernest Daudet, and from Alphonse Daudet himself. The result is a full biography and a most interesting account of a most remarkable man. The best excuse for writing the book is found in the concluding words of the preface: “Since Alphonse Daudet has honoured me with his friendship, I may say, with- out exaggeration, that my life of exile has been transformed. It is, perhaps, also on account of my admiration and my affection for this great- hearted man of letters that I have worked to make others know him as I do.” WALTER BESANT. >e c3 NOTES FROM PARIS, HE following letter, which I have just T received from my friend Alphonse Daudet, is the best answer that I can give to many questions which have been asked of me as to his intention of visiting London next year: Oui ; mon bon. Sherard, j’ai l'espoir au printermps prochain, si je ne suis pas trop invalide de venir voir londres, mais non pas de me montrer ä Londres, ce qui est bien différent. Je serais heureux de vous avoir pour compagnon et cicerone tº mais je vous demanderai de me mettre à l'abri des curiosités du reportage, ce sont des vacances que je compte prendre et je suis bien décidé à me pas donner de repré- sentation dans ce beau pays que je suis si désireux de connaitre. These things being so, we may hope to see M. Daudet in London in a few months. In my great admiration for Emile Zola, I feel sorry in saying that the opinion in Paris is one of doubt as to the possible value of a book on Rome, written on information collected during a fortnight's visit. It is generally thought that Rome, from all points of view, and as a whole, is a large subject, and that its comprehension can hardly be effected in a fortnight. It must be added, however, that Zola intends to spend a long time over this book, and that “Rome,” the second volume of “Les Trois Willes” series of novels, will not appear till 1896. We were all much shocked to hear of the death  ## p. 183 (#197) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 183 of Francis Magnard, the editor of Le Figaro, for he seemed in full strength, with years of life and activity before him. Yet certainly he looked very grey and worn when I last saw him. The Figaro was a fighting paper, and all fighting exacts nerve and muscle and uses and wears. He was a con- scientious and a most hard-working man, who gave himself up entirely to his paper. Most of his time was spent at the office in the Rue Drouot. I am afraid I cannot agree with those who have written in praise of his daily leaderette in the Figaro. It was writing after the style and in the manner of thought of Joseph Prudhomme. But good editors of large papers are rarely good writers. Willemessant, the founder of the Figaro, could not string six lines of tolerable prose together, yet he was certainly one of the best editors who ever lived. Magnard wrote very quickly, though his work seemed laboriously evolved. He told me once that he always asked himself, on sending the paper to the press, what Willemessant would have thought about the number, both as a whole and in detail, and felt quite nervous on the subject, so completely had he been disciplined by his former chief. I may add that Magnard used to deny being a Belgian by extraction, and used to get very angry when he was attacked as such in the rival papers. I may also add that M. de Rodays, the present editor, had been designated by de Villemessant in his will to succeed Magnard, in the case of the latter's retirement or death. M. de Rodays’ successor was also named in the same clause. The biggest succés de librairie of the year in Paris has been Marcel Prevost’s novel “Les Demi-Vierges.” It is, I see, in its 15oth edition. Exceptionally these are editions of only 500 copies, whereas the French edition usually con- sists of IOOO copies. The book is exceedingly well written, but the subject is a nauseating one, and this success is not one on which his friends can congratulate M. Marcel Prevost. J. H. Rosny, who is translating George Moore's novel “Esther Waters ” for publication in feuil- leton form in Le Gaulois, is by many, including Daudet, Zola, and de Goncourt, considered one of the first writers of French fiction living in France to-day. His “Le Bilateral” is undoubtedly a masterpiece, complicated as its style and bitter as is the author's philosophy. Rosny has had a very troubled and miserable life, and lives none knows where. He hides his address, and is under- stood to be in unfortunate circumstances. His books do not sell well, and he is indifferent to popularity, in which respect he may be compared to J. K. Huysman. I heard a story in Paris the other day of how a literary “ghost " revenged himself on a too WOL. W. unscrupulous employer. He had been engaged to write a feuilleton, for which his employer, a very well-known Parisian novelist, had received an order. The original arrangement was that the ghost should receive a penny a line—the well- known Parisian novelist, it may be mentioned, was to receive fivepence a line, and, of course, he signed the story with his own illustrious name; but after some instalments had been printed, the ghost was informed by his employer, who, in the meanwhile, had found out that his hack was in desperate circumstances, that in the future he would only be paid one halfpenny a line. He was forced to submit, but at once introduced into his story two fresh characters, whose names were simple transpositions of his employer's name and his own, of which one was a well-known novelist and the other a starving literary hack, and showed how the novelist engaged the hack to write a serial story at the rate of a penny a line, and afterwards reduced this to a halfpenny a line, and how the hack to revenge himself introduced, under transposed names, into this serial two fresh characters, one of which was a novelist and so on. The novelist sweater was away enjoying himself whilst these instalments were appearing, and one can imagine his feelings on his return to Paris. It is needless to add that the story was considerably revised before being republished in volume form. Why are almost all the books supplied to the public in England bound P Is not the French system of publishing all works merely in paper covers preferable? To begin with, an unbound book can be supplied cheaper than a bound book. Then, many book buyers like to bind their books according to their own taste in the matter of binding. Some like the bindings of their books to be in some degree symbolical of their contents, who would bind Haggard in red, George Ohnet in pale blue, Poe in black, and so on. Others like uniformity, and, indeed, so varied are the colours of book backs as sold to-day, that a library shelf often presents a ghastly combination of colours. There is, of course, a great deal to be said on both sides of the question. At the same time, I do not think that the bookbinders would lose by the change. . They would have less cheap binding to do, but far more reliures d'amateur, which are really profitable. -- f have been told that my note on Oliver Gold Smith's grave in last month's Author is un- founded and uncalled for, that the grave is in good condition, and well kept. I am not of this opinion, nor am I alone in this respect. “What would you more?” I have been asked. Well, to begin with, a railing round the tomb. I saw a butcher's boy sitting on it the other day. * * S  ## p. 184 (#198) ############################################ 184 THE AUTHOR. I have heard the strange story since I came to London of a high judicial functionary who many years ago published, with one of the most reputable firms in London on the half-profit system, an important work on an important political question. It is several years since any account was rendered, and though the book had then passed through eight editions, all that the high judicial functionary received as his share was Is. 7#d. The book has been selling since, but the author has never received another penny. And he is not very satisfied, and says things about publishers which are not judicial nor quite justi- fiable. Weyman has made up his mind to take a year's complete rest as soon as “The Red Cockade" is finished. I am told that this is the very best thing this genius has ever written, by people who have read the opening chapters, now in Jerome's hands. Apropos of the title of this book, are we about to pass from the “yellow * to the “red.” Every- thing was yellow a short while ago in matter of literature. And now, in matter of literature, things are mostly red. There are Weyman’s titles in red, there is Morley Roberts's “Red Earth,” there is Francis Gribble’s “The Red Spell,” there is a novel called “The Crimson Sign,” and, of course, there is Conan Doyle’s “Round the Red Lamp.” In the future all things may be green, as most bindings are, by the way, at the present hour, and so it shall go on. I am very glad to hear that John Davidson's last book of poems is selling exceedingly well; 500 copies were taken before the book was pub- lished. Many people, as a mere commercial speculation, are buying up copies of the “Ballads and Songs.” All this is well, for John Davidson, a poet and a most genial man, has fought a hard fight, and merits success and ease. His life has been a life of heroism. R. H. SHERARD. *~ * ~ * r- - --> NOTES FROM NEW YORK. New York, Nov. Io. HE death of Dr. Holmes not only caused the usual feelings of personal loss aroused when any honoured author leaves us," but additional sorrow was felt since with his decease the great New England group of authors ended. In the early part of this century, when Irving, Cooper, Bryant, and Fitz-Greene Halleck lived in New York, the literary centre was here, but before the middle of the century Emerson, Tongfellow, Whittier, Lowell, Hawthorne, and FIolmes revealed themselves, and the glory of the school as well as of a life that we deplore. New England group was greater than that of the Rnickerbocker school, as the New Yorkers had been called. Professor Norton, of Harvard College, recently remarked that, “they all wrote with a moral. They had, too, a touch of Puritanism. They were stirred to write often not so much from the impulse of the imagination as because they were impelled to teach some lessons and do some good that way. It was just at the war period, and all continued on the same side. They were all warriors in a sense.” Thus it is the closing of a Since Dr. Holmes wrote “Old Ironsides " the popula- tion of the United States has quadrupled, and the country can no longer be said to have one literary centre. In all directions have sprung up authors who write what has been called “ local fiction,” that is to say, they chiefly devote their efforts to depicting the life around them. This is a recent development, and, although there is now no one great group, there are many more accomplished authors than there were formerly, and the average of merit is undoubtedly higher. It is a sign that good times are coming when the fall publishing trade opens well, as it has this year. Whether or not publishers suffer much during a business depression is a question often debated. Some contend, that books being a luxury, people either go without in hard times or else use the free libraries. Others think that during financial depression books are sent as presents where expensive jewellery would have been purchased in prosperous years. This year, illustrated gift books, held back by hard times, make the list of announcements very large. Leading houses report that trade is at least normal. It seems to have recovered from the stagnation of the last two years, and bids fair to be better month by month as business revives. There is no boom yet, and probably will not be for a year or two longer, but the conditions are healthy. - Among the more important announcements are “The Warfare of Science,” by Mr. Andrew D. White, which has attracted much attention as the successive chapters appeared in the Popular Science Monthly; “Edwin Booth,” recollections of his daughter, with his letters to her and his friends, a part of the correspondence of which we have had a foretaste in the Century, and which revealed the great actor in a singularly noble and spiritual aspect ; “The Life and Art of Joseph Jefferson, together with some account of his ancestry and of the Jefferson Family of Actors,” by Mr. William Winter, a revision on the briefer biography published ten years ago; “Portraits in Plaster,” by Mr. Laurence Hutton, with  ## p. 185 (#199) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 185 seventy-two reproductions of death-masks of famous men and women from the author's own collection of these gruesome objects, which is the largest private collection in the world; “Ilife and Letters of John Greenleaf Whittier,” the authorised biography, by his literary executor, Mr. Samuel T. Pickard ; “The Sherman Letters,” a most interesting correspondence between General Sherman and his brother, Senator Sherman, covering the entire war period; “Familiar Letters of Henry David Thoreau,” edited by Mr. Frank B. Sanborn, who wrote the volume on Thoreau in the series of “American Men of Letters;” “Riverby,” another volume of delightful out- door papers, by John Burroughs, the gifted disciple of Thoreau; “In the Dozy Hours and other Papers,” by Miss Agnes Repplier, whose terse little essays have gained her wide fame; “Four American Universities,” Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Columbia, by Professors Norton, Hadley, Sloane, and Brander Matthews; “Character and Development of the Universities of Germany,” a most illuminative account by Professor Paulsen, translated by Professor E. D. Perry. Roberts Brothers have just brought out the first two volumes of a new translation of “Molière's Dramatic Works,” by Miss Katharine Prescott Wormeley, whose admirable translation of Balzac, now nearly completed, has won for her wide commendation. Longmans, Green, and Co. announce a series of “College Histories of Art,” edited by Professor John C. Van Dyke, of which the first volume to appear is the editor's own on the “History of Painting;” and the Scribner's are going to bring out the “Art of the American Wood Engraver,” by the late Philip Gilbert Hamerton, who brought to this subject a most unusual breadth of knowledge. Stone and Kimball, of Chicago, are about to issue the first complete edition of the “Works of Edgar Allan Poe,” newly collected and edited, with memoir, notes, &c., by Mr. Edmund Clarence Stedman and Professor George Edward Wood- berry; of the ten volumes to which this edition is going to extend, three are ready, and to these very probably will be added a single supple- mentary volume containing the correspondence between Poe and his friends, which will be edited by Professor Woodberry. Mr. Edmund Clarence Stedman after two years' work has finished his “Victorian Anthology,” which contains represen- tative poems by the authors discussed in his “Victorian Poets.” Americans have always made a specialty of works of reference. Three important books of this class have been lately published here. One is a supplement to the “Century Dictionary"—a seventh volume—called the “Century Cyclopædia of Names,” a pronouncing and etymological dic- tionary of names in geography, biography, mytho- logy, history, art, fiction, &c., edited by Mr. Benjamin E. Smith, who was managing editor of the “Century Dictionary,” under the late Pro- fessor Whitney. In this great work, upon which the entire editorial force of the Century has long been engaged, for the first time all the varieties of information usually obtained in bio- graphical dictionaries, geographical gazetteers, lists of characters in fiction, &c., have been arranged in alphabetical order and gathered into One volume. The selections have been made with especial regard to the wants of the general public, thus the central facts are given in large type, and in Smaller type such information as will help to a more complete understanding of the subject. Another is “A New and Complete Concordance in the Dramatic Works of Shakespeare,” by Mr. John Bartlett, to whom we are already indebted for his admirable “Dictionary of Familiar Quota- tions.” The third is Mr. S. L. Whitcomb's “Chronological Outlines of American Literature,” the first attempt to set down the chronological sequence of American books. It is on the plan of Ryland’s “Chronological Outlines of English Literature,” but on a much more liberal scale. A fourth elaborate book of reference could not be got ready in time for the fall trade. This is the great “Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiqui- ties,” which Professor Peck, of Columbia College, is editing for Harper and Brothers. It is to be fully illustrated, and will probably appear in the Spring. The British novelist is to have better showing than usual next year in American magazines, although a large percentage of the serials will be by American authors. Mr. Thomas Hardy’s “Sim- pletons’’ is the chief serial of Harper's Monthly. In Harper's Weekly Mr. Stanley J. Weyman's romance, “The Red Cockade,” begins in the first January number, and will be followed in July by Mr. Brander Matthews's novel of New York, “His Father's Son.” In Harper's Bazar the first serial is Maarten Maartens’ “My Lady Nobody,” and the second is a southern story, “Doctor Warwick's Daughters,” by Mrs. Richard Harding Davis. In Scribner's will appear Mr. George Meredith’s “Amazing Marriage,” and Mr. Barrie's “Sentimental Tommy,” besides Mr. Howell's shorter serial, “The Story of a Play.” The Century's two serials are both by American authors—“Casa Braccia,” by Mr. Marion Craw- ford, and “An Errant Wooing,” by Mrs. Burton Harrison; and so are the two stories announced by the Atlantic, Mrs. Mary Halleck Foote's “The  ## p. 186 (#200) ############################################ 186 THE AUTHOR. Thumpeter,” and Mrs. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward’s “A Singular Life.” - It has never been the custom of our magazines to limit their serials to fiction alone; indeed, some of their greatest successes have been with works such as no British magazine ever ventures upon. The War series of the Century doubled its circulation in twelve months; and forty years ago a Life of Napoleon gave Harper's its first impetus. Now the Century begins a Biography of Napoleon, by Professor W. M. Sloane, which has been in preparation for five years, and during two of that period special agents have been ran- sacking Europe for illustrative material. The Century will also contain Mrs. Van Rensel- laer's series of papers on the French Cathedrals, for which Mr. Joseph Parnell has made many striking illustrations. Scribner's will contain, beginning in the January number, “The History of the Last Quarter-Century in the United States,” by President E. Benjamin Andrews, in which he has endeavoured to cover that period of history about which we are apt to know least— from the time school histories end (usually with the War of the Republic) up to the present year. The Atlantic will shortly publish a series of papers by Mr. John Fiske on Virginia, “The Old Dominion and her Sister Colonies.” An interesting copyright trial has just ended. A New York daily paper, the World, printed, before its official use, the ode written by Miss Harriet Monroe, of Chicago, for the dedication of the World’s Fair buildings, two years ago. The purloined version contained typographical errors, which the author claimed had injured her in purse and reputation. In his charge the judge told the jury that little pecuniary damage had been proved, but added that punitive damages might be awarded if the defendant had been guilty of disregard of property rights. The verdict of the jury fixed the damages at £IOOO. As Miss Monroe received £200 from the World’s Fair Commissioners for her ode, she will have gained £1200 by one brief occasional poem. We are often said to be a book-buying nation, and it is evidence in favour of this assertion that nearly 100,000 copies of “Trilby’’ have been sold in less than ten weeks. So enormous has been the demand for Mr. Du Maurier's book that the Harper's Christmas publishing has been greatly retarded by the fact that they have been obliged to keep thirteen presses on “Trilby’’ alone. A sale like that indicates that “Trilby’’ has con- quered not only the regular reading class and the broad general public, but also the absolutely unliterary public. A gentleman on the train the other day overheard a girl talking to three young men. “Oh I have you read “Trilby ?’” she asked one of the men. He admitted that he had not, whereupon the young woman declared that. it was “just too lovely.” Who wrote it?” in- quired the second man. “Well,” the girl replied, “it’s translated from the French of a man named Moriar, and it's illustrated by a man named * 5 y Whistler. HALLETT ROBINSON. *- ~" -* w wºrs PHILIP GILBERT HAMERTON. A PERSONAL REMINISCENCE. By Mr. Justice ConDí, WILLIAMs (of Mauritius). N spite of the blinds and the persiennes, the I afternoon September sun streamed into that little café at Autun, where we sat drinking bocks, and playing dominoes, and jabbering as only Frenchmen mostly jabber. g The ever watchful patron bustled up to me, and said, mysteriously—“See that gentleman who has just entered? He is a compatriot of yours.” There, at a table by himself, sat a brown-bearded, middle-aged man, looking cer- tainly, except for the flowing ends of his necktie, not one bit like a Frenchman. As the witty dean said, “One doesn’t go abroad to meet one’s compatriots.” As a rule, to tell the honest truth without affectation, I generally, for divers reasons, give mine a wide berth, But there was a wise and kindly look about this man's bronze and honest face, and withal a humorous twinkle in his eye as he calmly surveyed his noisy surroundings, which urged me to take the other place opposite to him at his small round table. So, when our game was over, I consoled my little Louise with a Monde Illustré and a groseille, and went and sat there. Of course, I knew the “Portfolio,” and Mr. Hamerton, by name, but I had forgotten that he lived in France, and near Autun; if, indeed, anybody had ever told me so. . However, the ice once broken, and it was very easily broken, we proved to have many friends and many sympathies in common ; and, although ten years my senior, he seemed to take quite a paternal interest in me when he heard that, at five-and-twenty years of age, I had become the editor of a daily newspaper in England. Next day I walked three miles out of Autun, to his pretty country place to breakfast, and made the acquaintance of his charming family—his wife, a French lady, two bi-lingual sons, and a little daughter. Afterwards we talked for a long time in his small study, or studio—literature and art equally well represented upon its bookshelves and in their surroundings. Had I understood  ## p. 187 (#201) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 187 more about etching and lithography, I should have been more deeply interested. But never was a more modest and less egotistical man than Philip Gilbert Hamerton, And seeing that newspapers and books mainly interested me, he talked little save of newspapers and books. But before we parted he placed in my hands, as a souvenir, an early copy (in the Tauchnitz edition) of “Mar- morne,” just then on the point of publication. As I grasped his hand I looked up to the wooded hills of Le Morvan, which formed a sombre back- ground to his cheerful country villa. “It must be lonely, here, in the winter P” “Yes,” he said “but what does that signify P I am always occupied.” “Any wolves or wild boars about P’’ “There are some,” he replied, and laughed at a reminiscence. “One frosty moonlight night last January, I went out to lock the stable, and met a lean, grisly wolf, face to face, just upon the threshold of this door. We seemed both very vastly astonished, and we both drew back a pace or two involuntarily. Then I said to the wolf, on the impulse of the moment: What on earth are you doing here? Perhaps it was being addressed in English that frightened him, I don't know ; but without taking further notice of my query, he turned round and walked slowly away.” #: $: :}; $: $: $: Note that at same café at Autun, some fourteen years later, an Englishman entered just as two or three tradesmen, habitués of the place, were taking their post-prandial gloria, “Monsieur has doubtless come to inspect the antiquities?” volunteered one of them, after the pause which, in a small community, often follows the sudden entrance of a strange newcomer. “No ;” I said to the patron —not the same patron as of yore—“but, before I venture as far as the Maison du pré, I would ask you for news of Monsieur Hamerton.” 4. There was quite an excitement in the place. Hamerton, with his quiet sympathetic ways, a long resident, a distinguished Anglais, yet the husband of a Frenchwoman, was a popular man in Autun and all round it. Who else could have survived, scathless and untouched, as he did survive, all the jealous suspicion, and even overt antagonism, which were visited upon nearly every other Englishman living in provincial France during the closing months of the Franco-German struggle P “Ah ! it was most unfortunate. Monsieur had no luck. He had sustained a malheur epou- vantable, Monsieur 'Amerton (they never could manage that H), so respected as he was, and after so long a residence in the partage, had left that very day finally for Paris.” And it was a rather remarkable thing that, after so long an absence, having corresponded with my friend at very rare intervals, I should have dropped down upon Autun on the very eve of his final depar- ture. He had not actually gone—but his family and his furniture had, as I learned from good Monsieur Thomasset, of the Hotel des Negociants —and he himself was staying with a friend. I would not disturb him—I left a card for him, and on I sped to Santenoy to “assist” still older friends at their Burgundy autumn vintage. A telegram from Hamerton brought me back to Autun next day. Would I come and spend his last Autun night with him at Thomasset's interesting hotel, where you are escorted up to your bedroom walking over the gravestones of monks and abbots P Of course I went, and am thankful that I went. And a long, long talk we had over that extra bottle of Chambertin, de omnibus rebus et quibusdam aliis. He had had his share of misfortune, and sad misfor- tune. One of the two bright boys I had met at his table years before, a youth of high intelligence and promise, and Professor of English at a Lycée, had put an end to his life at his rooms in Paris, leaving behind him no sort of clue as to the why and the wherefore. So we were led to talk of the great mysteries of Life and Death—about matters concerning which men of middle age do not often open their hearts one to another. Later, when sauntering forth to the café, we drifted to more material subjects, and I spoke of his long career as poet, painter, and author. I remember that he said, not bitterly, but with a touch of mournfulness, after some remark of mine about the knighthood that certain distinguished English writers surely ought to have been offered, that he himself was weak enough to feel some touch of regret that he, whose work was the English work of an Englishman, could only, when the occasion demanded his wearing it, stand before the world the possessor of a French decoration for his services to art and to literature. He removed from Autun (the Augustodonum of the Romans) to Boulogne et Seine in Paris, and a friend of his in England was the recipient of his appreciative acknowledgment of these lines addressed to Hamerton in his new Parisian home : The Seine to Saone gives greeting ! O'er the sea I pen Lwtetia's welcome home to thee; And, with the wish, would fain the hand extend, Word-painter, picture-painter, poet, friend What though her vine leaves seared by autumn's blast, Awgwstodomºwm weeps her glories past— Though, “round the house ’’ thy graceful pen portrays, Fond mem'ries linger of departed days P The city’s joy outweighs the country’s pain– Awgustodomwm's loss is fair Lwtetia's gain!  ## p. 188 (#202) ############################################ I88 THE AUTHOR. And the other day—not thirty days ago—the same friend received from him a warm letter of welcome on returning to England after many years of judicial work abroad. He wrote cheer- fully, yet spoke of illness, of diagnosis by a Paris doctor of “hypertrophy of the heart,” and of the necessity of “following a regimen for the rest of my days.” Not for long. In a fortnight he was dead, A_*— * - _*. s—º a------5 - BOOK TALK. HE REW. CANON CHARLES D. BELL, D.D., rector of Cheltenham, has produced a new volume of verses, called “Diana's Looking Glass, and other Poems.” Canon Bell’s verses are always, to use the words of one of his critics, “sweet and wholesome.” After the low level in which we are plunged by some of our younger poets, it is pleasant to stand once more upon the heights and to feel that there are higher levels, and still higher, to be reached. times the natural note of sadness, there is never despair. Let the poet speak for himself. Come let us wake sweet Echo with a song. Here she lies sleeping, waiting for our voice, So call her loudly with a courteous tongue, That coming forth she may with us rejoice. For Morning walks in beauty o'er the dale, And Night's bright glories 'fore her splendours pale. Nymph of the hills, awake, awake Melodious answer to us make. What shall we sing to please the maiden shy, And lure her from the secret solitude, In which she dwells, withdrawn from every eye, Amid the deep recesses of the wood In whose green boughs is heard the joyous lay Of merry birds that greet the dawn of day P Echo, sweet Echo, hear no strain, Thy voice is bliss ; thy silence pain. Or shall we sing of love P. How Corydon, The shepherd boy, the fair Althea woo'd, How beauteous Thyrsis fair Nerissa won, Or fleet Alpheus Arethusa pursued, Or Cynthia stooped from heaven with look of love, While slept Endymion in the Latmian grove. Hark, comrades, hark with such a theme Steal softly on the dreamer's dream. “A Swatch o' Homespun,” by Agnes Marchbank (Edinburgh, R. W. Hunter), is a little story of a weaver in a Scotch village. The writer should be able to do better than this with study and work. Meantime she is working with good materials, and in the true spirit. “Tales of Famous Men” is the title of a series of papers which Mr. Joseph Hatton is writing for the Idler. They will be of a reminiscent cha- racter, with plenty of anecdote to justify the general title; and Mr. W. H. Margetson will If there is some- illustrate them. Mr. Hatton’s new novel, which is running in the weekly press of the old world and the new, will be published in March by Messrs. Hutchinson, who have already sold four editions of this author's latest book, “Under the Great Seal.” Mr. Hutchinson told a St. James’s Budget interviewer recently that his first great success as a publisher was with Mr. Hatton's “By Order of the Czar,” which is now in its fifteenth edition. Mr. Walter Wren has had to inform the secretary that a person is going about pretending that he is a relative of Mr. Wren, and that he is a member of the Incorporated Society of Authors. There is no member of the society named Wren. “Maud Marian, Artist” (Religious Tract Society), is a very pleasing and delicately written story by Eglanton Thorne, author of the “Old Worcester Jug,” &c., &c. The scene is laid at Rome. It is a book written and chiefly intended for girls. “Cavaliers and Roundheads in Barbados,” by N. Darnell Davis (Argosy Press, Georgetown, British Guiana), is a chapter in colonial history that was well worth the trouble of writing. The early history of Barbados is practically unknown to us. For instance, had it been known, a hundred years ago, that the right to be taxed only by their own representatives was recognised in the case of Barbados in 1652, it would not have refused to the Americans in the year 1770. There would have been no Declaration of Independence and no war. Frank Stockton's new book, called “Pomona, ’’ (Cassell), went through the first edition in advance of publication. Boys, and those who make Christmas presents to boys, are here with invited to make a note of Max Pemberton's book of adventure, “The Sea. Wolves.” “The Highway of Sorrow,” by Hesba Stretton, and * * * is a work to be noted either for buy- ing or borrowing, and certainly for reading. A second edition of Mrs. Oliphant’s new novel “Who was Lost and is Found” (Blackwood and Sons) is announced. In Mr. Fairman Ordish’s “Early London Theatres '' (Elliot Stock) we have a work of original and patient research. It is worthy of a long article in the Quarterly Review. The author has made himself the sole authority for the future on the subject of the earliest theatres of London. The Navy Records Society have in preparation a second volume of State Papers relating to the  ## p. 189 (#203) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 189 Spanish Armada; they will next publish a volume of Naval Accounts of the Fifteenth Century. Mr. W. M. Conway has in preparation an account of the walk which he made last year from end to end of the Alps. Miss Frances Wood sends some extremely pretty Christmas cards. They are reproductions from Raphael, with verses under each. They are published by Messrs. Carr and Mason, Brunswick Works, Leamington. Mr. W. H. Besant, F.R.S., D.Sc., has in the press the ninth edition of his “Geometrical Conics,” and, as a supplement, his “Solutions of the Examples in the Geometrical Conics.” Certainly one of the most beautiful books of the season is Archdeacon Farrar’s “Life of Christ as Represented in Art.” It is illustrated by a long catena of early Christian symbols, mediaeval figures, pictures of the great masters, and by the painters of our own day, some of whom will perhaps be called great masters five hundred years hence. It is a book which should command a wide and immediate success. The publishers are Messrs. A. and C. Black. Readers are requested to make a note of “Robert Southey,” by John Dennis (Messrs. Bell.) Four biographies from one publisher (Edward Arnold). The first is “Alphonse Daudet,” by Robert Sherard; the others are Augustus Hare's “Maria Edgeworth,” Dean Hole’s “Memories,” and the Memoirs of Sir John Macdonald, by his Private Secretary. “The Memorials of St. James's Palace,” by Edgar Sheppard (Longmans), in two volumes, is really a splendid work. It is rather dear, but what is 36s. to one who loves his London P Another book for a student of the Great City is “London and the Kingdom,” by Reginald R. Sharpe, D.C.L. Dr. Sharpe is Records Clerk in the office of the Town Clerk of the City. The book is written from personal investigation of the City archives. It is a book for historians rather than itself a history. The second volume of Dr. Traill’s “Social England’’ is now ready. One is pleased to read that the book has already gone into a second edition. In translating Professor Errera’s “Russian Jews,” Miss Bella Löwy has executed a task of love. The book is an appeal for civilised treatment, fervid in its facts, which are startling, and convincing in its arguments, which are self- restrained in temper. One does not realise until the map is laid open how very small a space of the vast Russian Empire is open to the Jew for residence. He may live in Little Russia, West Russia, and South Russia; altogether over an area, very thinly populated, of one thousand miles in length by three hundred in breadth. In these pages one may read a story of persecution and oppression without parallel even in the Middle Ages. But there are charges brought against the Jews. They are moneylenders. “Yes,” replies Professor Errera in effect, “ some of them, no doubt. But four-fifths of them have no money to lend; and, besides, they are more honest than the Christian moneylender.” They sell spirits. They were made to do so. The nobles manufactured the spirit; the Jew was told to sell it. They are tricky in business. Their persecutions have made them so. And so on. The book is published by David Nutt, Strand. Professor Brander Matthews sends his new book, “Wignettes of Manhattan.” If for the pictures of New York alone, it would be a desirable volume. As a study for a stranger in New York manners, with their little differences compared with our own, the book is equally desirable. Perhaps, however, most desirable for the short stories and sketches which it contains. There is a most exciting story of a fire. There is the sketch of the broken-down man and his last dinner at Delmonico's ; and there is a visit to the slums, which is admirably done. There are more, but these will do. Here is a dainty little volume (Roxburghe Press, 3, Victoria-street, Westminster), dainty binding, dainty print, dainty paper—all to set off the translation by Julia Preston, of “The Moun- tain Lake, by the late Fredrich von Bodinstedt,” whose portrait is presented as a frontispiece. Von Bodinstedt is not widely known in this country. Indeed, of late years a strange indiffe- rence to German belles and lettres and poetry seems to have fallen upon us. The attempt of Miss Julia Preston to make a poet of meditation rather than action, and of emotion rather than passion better known, deserves encouragement. Her versification is simple and generally graceful. Here, for instance, is a little thing : When the Gates of Paradise wide open stand, Some pious souls for their reward drew near ; And a mingled multitude from every land IBow humbly down in hope, in doubt, or fear. I only of all the waiting sinners there, Shall at those portals without fear abide ; Long since on earth by thee, my Angel Fair, The Gates of Paradise were opened wide. “A Bread and Butter Miss,” by George Paston, author of “A Modern Amazon'' (Osgood, M“Ilvaine, and Co.), is a one-volume story, a  ## p. 190 (#204) ############################################ I 90 THE AUTHOR. simple, pretty little story of a girl going to stay at a country house for the first time in her life, and her adventures there. “Three Generations of English Women,” by Janet Ross, tells the story of Susannah Taylor, Sarah Austin, and Tady Duff Gordon. This is a new and revised edition. Susannah Taylor was the wife of John Taylor, one of that remarkable family which has produced so many men and women distinguished for literary and scientific ability. Mrs. Austin, her daughter, was married to a man who began life in the army and became a lawyer. His health, however, decayed. and he retired from active life. Lucie, his only child, married Sir Alexander Duff Gordon. All three ladies were as lovely as they were accom- plished. The book principally consists of letters, as delightful as letters can be. Another little book of verses and translations —this time by William E. A. Axon. (The Ancoats Skylark. John Heywood, London and Manchester.) Here is a specimen. The French words are a folk-song current in Franche Comte. Ma pauvre enfant, Qui es dessous la terre ; Ma pauvre enfant, Soulève done ta pierre. Chère maman, Donnez m'y ma chemise; Chère maman IBien fort Souffle la bise. Ma pauvre enfant, Je n'ai pas la puissance, Ma pauvre enfant A toi toujours je pense. Chère maman, J'ai les deux mains gelées; Chère maman, Fit la langue sechée. Ma pauvre enfant, J'irai dessous la terre, Tout pres de toi Pour rechauffer la pierre. A string of sonnets on the death of a child. They are sonnets which are worth attention. The book is called “A Little Child’s Wreath.” If the treatment is suggested by “In Memoriam,” the form is different. The sonnets are of some- what unequal merit. The following, it will be seen, has the true ring: A quiet southern day; a quiet sea That scarcely breaks along the level sands. An ecstasy of little children's glee : A weight of grief that no one understands. My poor child, In thy grave alone; My poor child, Iłaise up thy stone. Oh! mother dear, I want my coat of green. Oh! mother dear, The wind whistles keen. My poor child, I have not the power ; My poor child, I think of thee each hour. Oh! mother dear, My hands are icy cold ; Oh! mother dear, So stiff they will not fold. My poor child, We will not live apart ; I'll creep into thy grave And warm thee on my heart. Slow moving sails with curves of grace complete As ever beauty-loving pencil drew ; A ceaseless play of pretty hands and feet; A want for ever deep, for ever new. Peace on the teeming earth, goodwill and peace In the clear blue and floating cloudlets white; Crownéd the land with joy of her increase, Crushed my desire and vanished my delight. A seabird said, “I know, I know the pain, He will not see the summer tide again.” Mr. John B. Mackie, Fellow of the Institute of Journalists, who writes from the North-Eastern Daily Gazette, Middlesbrough, has written a book called “Modern Journalism : a Handbook for the Young Journalist.” There is plenty of room for such a book at the present moment, when the rush into journalism is opening it to the most desperate competition. The first result, one fears, will be a lowering of salaries and pay; the next step, however, will be the establishment of new papers in every direction; thirdly, the competi- tion of proprietors will run up salaries again for the best men. Mr. Mackie's book takes a man into every branch of a newspaper—shorthand writing, reporting, sub-editing, leader writing, and editing. It seems a most complete book; it is certainly one which every young journalist should study till he has it by heart. Above all, let him read, mark, and learn what is said as to silence concerning the internal machinery of the paper, and what is said, and very well said, as to the power and the responsibilities of the Press. Mr. John A. Steuart's new novel, “In the Day of Battle '' (three vols., Sampson Iow, Marston, and Co.), belongs to the school of the older romance. But the tale of battle has an interest that never palls, and there are few whose pulse will not beat quicker as they read of the doughty deeds of the long lost Donald Gordon, who is discovered in the disguise of a Bedouin freelance. Mr. Steuart has succeeded in giving his tale an almost breathless realism ; and if it is success to drive his reader on from page to page until one reaches the last he has certainly succeeded. From beginning to end the interest never flags, and that is saying much. His plot, perhaps, is not very strong nor very novel, but it serves merely as the hinge on which to hang a succession of curdling adventures dear to the heart of all boys and ImOst men. Mr. F. B. Doveton's new volume of verse is now ready. e- * *-*. CORRESPONDENCE. I.—THE LAUREATESHIP. AM very glad to see that you have taken up the question of the failure of the Government to appoint a Poet Laureate. It is now nearly two years since the vacancy occurred, and surely it behoves all authors, whether poets or not, to prevent this single recognition of literature by the State being abandoned if they can prevent it. If chaplains or physicians to the Queen were to cease to be appointed, would not the discontent of the clergy and the doctors make itself felt P  ## p. 191 (#205) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. I9 I The salary is only £75 a year. It does not matter a penny postage to any of us except the person appointed, upon whom the choice of the Queen may fall; but I say that it is a slight to all of us that no appointment should be made. Nov. 19. A PROSE WRITER. II.-SPLITTING INFINITIVES. There is a point in connection with composition on which your advice might be of essential service to young writers. I wrote a book— the name of which I give for your private information—that was favourably reviewed by various papers, and very properly slated by a cer- tain critic; the unforgivable error I had com- mitted being the splitting of infinitives. But, discussing this matter with a literary friend, I inquired whether it was allowable ever to split a verb at all; the reply being promptly in the negative. I accepted this dictum, and proposed to myself an earnest study of the writings of our great masters, so that I might improve my own defective style. For it occurred to me, and it may have occurred to others, that it is often very difficult to give the proper sense to a sentence, by a too rigid and pedantic adherence to what, for all I know to the contrary, may be a very sound rule. I have, however, given up my proposed search, for by the merest chance I came across, in the Standard of the 7th inst., a letter from Mr. Froude to Dr. Fischer, of Armagh, dated the 5th May, 1882. Certainly Mr. Froude nowhere splits his infini- tives; but the accompanying extracts from that letter show that Mr. Froude was in the habit of repeatedly splitting his other tenses. The italics are my own, and are inserted merely to mark where it would seem to me that the infractions of an accepted rule have occurred:—“Your book which you have so kindly sent me,” &c.—“I have only to tell you,” &c.—“ and will, by and bye, be universally accepted,” &c.—“ which he was all his life insisting on,” &c.—“that he alone in the British empire saw,” &c. Thus in a letter of thirty-four printed lines, the great historian five times splits his verbs. The question then is, whether this practice is or is not permissible?—Your obedient servant, 1588. III.-CRITICAL AND EDITORIAL AMENITIES. The editor has, I fancy, rather misunderstood my drift in my letter on “Editorial Amenities,” in last Author. (1) I complained of the lack of common courtesy in no eaglanation being given of the change of front. (2) I did not want reasons. I only wished to know the fate of MSS. (4) I did not expect the critic to change his opinion, but I reckoned on his having generosity enough to be glad his verdict was falsified in re the Fairy Tale, and to tell me so. (5) An editor who professed to value highly his contributor— as was the case here—would have been compli- mented by being asked for a review by him. Resentment seems absurd. Toes it not P AN AUTHOR. *— - ~" ,-- - - NEW BOOKS AND NEW EDITIONS, Theology. ANGLICAN PULPIT LIBRARY. 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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) 1895-01-01 Volume 5 Issue 8 Pages Page range in volume 201–224 Ngram Date Version of the date in YYYYMMDD format for use by the Ngram plugin 18950101 Ngram Text Version of the text with no HTML formatting for use by the Ngram plugin C be El u t b or, (The Organ of the Incorporated Society of Authors. Monthly.) CONDUCTED BY WALTER BESAN. T. VoI. W.-No. 8.] JANUARY 1, 1895. [PRICE SIXPENCE. For the Opinions earpressed in papers that are signed or initialled the Authors alone are responsible. None of the papers or para- graphs must be taken as eaſoressing the collective opinions of the committee unless they are officially signed by G. Herbert Thring, Sec. t *- 2a, 2=== EDITORIAL ANNOUNCEMENT, N the recommendation of many members of the Society it has been decided to discontinue the monthly list of new books and new editions. Those, it is urged, who wish for this list may find it day by day in the daily papers, week by week in the Spectator, the Athenæum, and the Publishers’ Circular. Our space, which is limited, will be thus relieved to the extent of three, or four, and even six pages. Two or three other small changes will it is hoped add to the value and the attractiveness of the Author. At the same time, we shall not lose sight of the fact that the chief raison d'être of the paper is the maintenance and defence of literary property from the author's point of view, and that, with this object, the paper will continue to publish cases, law suits, and legal opinions bearing on literary property. The editor begs his readers to communicate any experiences of their own, the publication of which will promote the welfare of literary men and women. It must be remembered that the readiest and surest way to abolish the ills of which we most complain is publicity. EDITOR. 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. WOL. W. WARNINGS AND ADWICE, I. RAWING THE AGREEMENT.—It is not generally understood that the author, as the vendor, has the absolute right of drafting the agreement upon whatever terms the transaction is to be carried out. Authors are strongly advised to exercise that right. In every form of business, this among others, the right of drawing the agreement rests with him who sells, leases, or has the control of the property. 2. SERIAL RIGHTS.–In selling Serial Rights remember that you may be selling the Serial Right for all time; that is, the Right to continue the production in papers. If you object to this, insert a clause to that effect. 3. STAMP You R AGREEMENTs. – Readers are most URGENTLY warned not to neglect stamping their agreements immediately after signature. If this precaution is neglected for two weeks, a fine of £1 O must be paid before the agree- ment can be used as a legal document. In almost every case brought to the 'secretary the agreement, or the letter which serves for one, is forwarded without the stamp. The author may be assured that the other party to the agree- ment seldom neglects this simple precaution. The Society, to save trouble, undertakes to get all the agreements of members stamped for them at mo ea pense to themselves ea:cept the cost of the stamp. 4. AscERTAIN WEAT A PROPOSED AGREEMENT GIVES To BOTH sides BEFORE SIGNING IT.-Remember that an arrangement as to a joint venture in any other kind of busi- mess 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. 5. LITERARY AGENTs.-Be very careful. You cannot be too careful as to the person whom yow appoint as your agent. Remember that you place your property almost un- reservedly in his hands. Your only safety is in consulting the Society, or some friend who has had personal experience of the agent. Do not trust advertisements alone. 6. CoST OF PRODUCTION.——Never sign any agreement of which the alleged cost of production forms an integral part, until you have proved the figures. 7. CHOICE OF PUBLISHERS.–Never enter into any cor- respondence with publishers, especially with those who ad- vertise for MSS., who are not recommended by experienced friends or by this Society. 8. FUTURE WORK.—Never, on any account whatever, bind yourself down for future work to anyone. 9. PERSONAL RISK.—Never accept any pecuniary risk or responsibility whatever without advice. T 2  ## p. 202 (#216) ############################################ 2O2 THE AUTHOR, Io. REJECTED MSS.—Never, when a MS. has been re- fused by respectable houses, pay others, whatever promises they may put forward, for the production of the work. II. AMERICAN RIGHTS.—Never sign away American rights. Keep them by special clause. Refuse to sign any agreement containing a clause which reserves them for the publisher, unless for a substantial consideration. 12. CESSION OF COPYRIGHT.—Never sign any paper, either agreement or receipt, which gives away copyright, without advice. 13. ADVERTISEMENTS. —-Keep some control over the advertisements, if they affect your returns, by a clause in the agreement. I4. 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, LINCOLN's INN FIELDs. HOW TO USE THE SOCIETY, I. VERY member has a right to ask for and to receive advice upon his agreements, his choice of a pub- lisher, or any dispute arising in the conduct of his business or the administration of his property. If the advice sought is such as can be given best by a solicitor, the member has a right to an opinion from the Society’s solicitors. If the case is such that Counsel's opinion is desirable, the Com- mittee will obtain for him Counsel’s opinion. All this without any cost to the member. 2. Remember that questions connected with copyright and publisher's agreements do not generally fall within the experience of ordinary solicitors. Therefore, do not scruple to use the Society first—our solicitors are continually engaged upon such questions for us. 3. Send to the office copies of past agreements and past accounts with the loan of the books represented. This is in order to ascertain what has been the nature of your agree- ments, and the results to author and publisher respectively so far. The Secretary will always be glad to have any agreements, new or old, for inspection and note. The infor- mation thus obtained may prove invaluable. 4. If the examination of your previous business trans- actions by the Secretary proves unfavourable, you should take advice as to a change of publishers. 5. Before signing any agreement whatever, send the pro- posed document to the Society for examination. 6. The Society is acquainted with the methods, and—in the case of fraudulent houses—the tricks of every publish- ing firm in the country. 7. Remember always that in belonging to the Society you are fighting the battles of other writers, even if you are reaping no benefit to yourself, and that you are advancing the best interests of literature in promoting the indepen- dence of the writer. 8. Senºl to the Editor of the Awthor notes of everything important to literature that you may hear or meet with. *- = 2=º THE AUTHORS’ SYNDICATE, EMBERS are informed : I. 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 booking fee is charged to cover postage and porterage. 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 Director by appointment, and that, when possible, at least four days’ notice should be given. 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. 8. That the Syndicate undertakes arrangements for lectures by some of the leading members of the Society; that it has a “Transfer Department" for the sale and purchase of journals and periodicals; and that a “Register of Wants and Wanted ” has been opened. Members anxious to obtain literary or artistic work are invited to com- municate 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. NOTICES. HE Editor of the Awthor begs to remind members of the Society that, although the paper is sent to them free of charge, the cost of producing it would be a very heavy charge on the resources of the Society if a great many members did not forward to the Secretary the modest 6s. 6d. subscription for the year. The Editor is always glad to receive short papers and communications on all subjects connected with literature from members and others. Nothing can do more good to the Society than to make the Awthor complete, attractive, and interesting. Will those who are willing to aid in this work send their names and the special subjects on which they are willing to write P Communications for the Author should reach the Editor not later than the 21st of each month. All persons engaged in literary work of any kind, whether members of the Society or not, are invited to communicate  ## p. 203 (#217) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 2O3 to the Editor any points connected with their work which it would be advisable in the general interest to publish. Members and others who wish their MSS. read are requested not to send them to the Office without previously communicating with the Secretary. The utmost practicable despatch is aimed at, and MSS. are read in the order in which they are received. It must also be distinctly under- stood that the Society does not, under any circumstances, undertake the publication of MSS. The Authors’ Club is now open in its new premises, at 3, Whitehall-court, Charing Cross. Address the Secretary for information, rules of admission, &c. Will members take the trouble to ascertain whether they have paid their subscriptions for the year P If they will do this, and remit the amount, if still unpaid, or a banker’s order, it will greatly assist the Secretary, and save him the trouble of sending out a reminder. Members are most earnestly entreated to attend to the warning numbered (8). It is a most foolish and may be a most disastrous thing to enter into an agreement binding for a term of years. Let them ask themselves if they would give a solicitor the collection of their rents for five years to come, whatever his conduct, whether he was honest or dishonest P Of course they would not. Why then hesitate for a moment when they are asked to sign them- selves into literary bondage for three or five years P Those who possess the “Cost of Production " are requested to note that the cost of binding has advanced 15 per cent. This means, for those who do not like the trouble of “doing sums,” the addition of three shillings in the pound on this head. In other words, if the cost of binding is set down in our book at eight pounds, to this must now be added twenty-four shillings more, so that it now stands at £9 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. *-* -º LITERARY PROPERTY, I.—CANADIAN COPYRIGHT. HE sudden death of Sir John Thompson has probably put off the consideration of the Canadian claims for a time. A memorial on the subject will be drawn up by the committee after the Christmas and New Year Vacation. Meantime, the following is a resumé of the whole Case. It appeared in the Times of Dec. I I, and is here reproduced in full, by special permission, for which we record our best thanks:— “The history of the discussion extends over no less a period than fifty years, beginning with the Imperial Copyright Act of 1842, and the details have been made the subject of so much argument on either side that there is, unfortunately, little room to hope for much modification of opposite opinion. Half a century of contention, carried on chiefly by means of official correspondence that tends to grow more voluminous year by year as the means of com- munication become more rapid, has remained practically barren of result. The Canadian copy- right question, with certain modifications deemed wholly insufficient by the Canadian Government, has remained almost where it was placed in 1842. The incidents which have marked its progress are so few that they can be catalogued in a para- graph ; the arguments to which they have given rise demand some courage for their mastery on the part of the student of colonial history. “Briefly, the principal facts which need to be taken note of in relation to Canadian copyright are as follows: The Imperial Copyright Act of 1842 gives copyright throughout the whole of Her Majesty dominions to any book published in the United Kingdom, whether it be printed or not in the United Kingdom, or whether it be written by a British subject or not. The intention was manifestly to provide that British literature should have free circulation through British territory. As a matter of fact, the conditions of trade in the United Kingdom were such that the editions published under the protection of the Copyright Act were too expensive for the colonial market, and colonial readers, instead of being freely supplied with British books, were almost entirely deprived of them. To remedy this evil an Imperial Act of 1847, known as the Foreign Reprints Act, provided that, so long as the Imperial Government were satisfied that sufficient protection was given to the author's rights in any given colony, the prohibition to permit the entry of cheap foreign reprints enforced by the Act of 1842 might by Order in Council be suspended. Under this Act the Canadian Government imposed a nominal author's royalty of 12% per cent., to be collected at the custom-houses by the Canadian Government and paid to the British Government for the benefit of the author. Foreign reprints were consequently admitted to the advantage of the Canadian reading public and to the manifest disadvantage of the Canadian book trade. “In the meantime the colonies were developing powers of self-government under the system of Parliamentary responsibility which had been con- ceded to Canada in 1841, only one year before the passing of the Imperial Copyright Act. The confederation of the provinces of the Dominion of Canada took place in 1867, and in the British North America Act of that year, by which the  ## p. 204 (#218) ############################################ 2O4. THE AUTHOR. conditions of confederation are determined, copy- right ranks among the subjects over which power was given to the Parliament of Canada to legis- late. But under a previous Act of 1865, known as the Colonial Laws Walidity Act, any colonial law which is any respects repugnant to the provi- sions of any Act of Parliament extending to the colony is read subject to the Act, and remains void “to the extent of such repugnancy.” In so far, therefore, as any Canadian legislation upon copyright conflicts with Imperial legislation extending to the colony it remains void, notwith- standing the provisions of the British North America Act “The results of these two-handed provisions have been those that might have been anticipated. A Canadian Copyright Act of 1875 laid down the conditions of local copyright for Canadian authors, who, as their works are not necessarily published in the United Kingdom, were not pro- tected by the Imperial Act, The Canadian Act was subjected to some wrangle, but was made law by an Insperial Confirming Act. Then followed, in consequence of the discussion upon the Act, the Copyright Commission of 1876. A consolida- tion Bill intended to give effect to the recommen- dations of the Commission did not become law. More negotiations followed, and led in the course of ten years to the Berne Convention and the International Copyright Act of 1886. “The Berne Convention, of which the object was to create an international union for the protec- tion of literary and artistic property, was signed on Sept. 9, 1886. By a protocol attached to the Convention the colonies and foreign possessions of Great Britain were included with the United Kingdom, with power reserved to them to denounce the treaty, in so far as it concerns them, upon giving twelve months’ notice to that effect. Under the International Copyright Act of the same year, which was passed for the purpose of giving effect to the Berne Convention, it was provided that the author of a book first published in a colony has copyright throughout the whole of the Queen's dominions. Canada, it should be observed, formally assented to the Imperial Act of 1886, and to a subsequent Order in Council of 1887, by which effect was given to it in the colo- nies. By the Berne Convention the principle of International copyright for all countries belong- ing to the Union was established. By the Impe- rial Act of 1886 the supplementary principle of copyright throughout all the British possessions was established for the Empire. “To other members of the Copyright Union, whether international or Imperial, those provi- sions have been found to be of great value. The geographical position of Canada made her case exceptional. The United States, which is the largest reproducer of English publications, borders the Canadian frontier for some thousands of miles. Under the provisions of the Berne Convention Canada was prevented from repro- ducing the works not ouly of British copyright holders, but of the copyright holders of the entire Union without due compensation to the author, while her nearest neighbour, publishing in the same language for a reading public of which the requirements were practically identical, was not a member of the Union, and was consequently free to reproduce at will and flood the markets of the continents with cheap reprints, against which the Canadian book trade could not contend. The privilege given in return to Canadian authors of copyright throughout the Union remained prac- tically void by reason of the small number of authors who could profit by it. The Berne Con- vention, therefore, rendered the position of Canada. so much the worse by increasing the number of copyright holders to whom Canadian publishers were bound to give compensation by as many countries, colonies, and British possessions as joined the Union. As a matter of fact, the read- ing public of the Dominion of Canada has been, and is, principally supplied with British literature by American reprints. It is worth while in this connection to point out that the interests which are opposed to each other in this controversy are not those of British authors and Canadian authors, or of British authors and the Canadian public, but of British authors and Canadian publishers. “These facts being very generally recognised in Canada, where discontent with the Imperial restrictions upon copyright has been persistent ever since the effect of the Act of 1842 was realised, a Canadian Act was passed by the Dominion Parliament in 1889, by which it was proposed that, instead of the universal copyright conveyed by the Copyright Union under the Con- vention of Berne, copyright in Canada should be given to any person domiciled in Canada or the British possessions and to the citizen of any country having an international copyright treaty with the United Kingdom on certain conditions of publishing and registration, including the pro- vision that the book shall be printed and pub- lished in Canada within one month after first publication elsewhere. The Act contains a further licensing clause, to the effect that, when copyright has not been obtained, the book may be published under licence in Canada, but the author's rights shall be safeguarded by a IO per cent. royalty, which shall be the price paid for the licence. Such an Act would, of course, render it necessary for Canada to withdraw from the Copyright Union, and the Canadian Govern-  ## p. 205 (#219) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 205 ment accordingly gave notice that it wished, in so far as it were concerned, to denounce the Berne Convention. “The Act could not, however, become law with- out receiving the sanction of Her Majesty's Government, and this sanction has been with- held. In the opinion of the law officers of the Crown, formally reported on Dec. 31, 1889, the powers of legislation conferred on the Dominion Parliament by the British North America Act do not authorise that Parliament to amend or repeal, so far as relates to Canada, an Imperial Act con- ferring privileges within Canada. It will readily be conceived that this decision has not been received with acquiescence in Canada..' The ques- tion has been raised by it from a discussion of the relative interests of authors and publishers to the higher level of a question of self-government. Feeling in Canada runs very strongly upon the point. Sir John Thompson, both as Minister of Justice in 1889 and later as Prime Minister of the Dominion, has stoutly defended the self- governing rights of the colony he represents and the competency of the Dominion Parliament to pass an amending Act. Powers which include the right to impose customs duties upon British goods must, it is held, give power to defend the local interest of any trade. Colonial opinion will not easily accept a limitation, the justice of which can be disputed, of constitutional rights, and it is not improbable that the whole question may have to be decided upon this wider issue. “The latest modification of the technical aspect of the question has been produced by the American Copyright Act of 1891, under which any British subject may obtain copyright in the United States on condition that at least two copies of the book are printed from type set within the United States on or before publication elsewhere. In return for this, American subjects may obtain copyright throughout British posses- sions on the same terms as British subjects. On the ground that the American Act and the President’s proclamation do not constitute an international copyright treaty Canada refused to admit citizens of the United States to the enjoy- ment of copyright privileges within the limits of the Dominion. This Canada is held to have the right to do under the Act of 1875, which was confirmed by the Imperial Act of the same year. “What is now desired by the Government of Canada is that an Imperial confirming Act shall be passed to give the force of law to the still inoperative Canadian Act of 1889. The objections of the Imperial Government to such a course are—that to do as Canada desires involves an abandonment of the policy of international and Imperial copyright which was, after difficulty, asserted six years ago; that it is inconsistent with the policy of making copyright independent of the place of printing, which has always been upheld by Great Britain; that it would have the effect of introducing a modification into the con- ditions under which the United States consented to the agreement of 1891 ; and that it would be injurious to the interests of British authors, by whom the Canadian market is principally sup- plied. It is urged on behalf of British authors that the whole Canadian case is based on the fallacy that Canadian publishers and printers have a right to the profits of publishing and printing the works of British authors, whereas in reality the profit of their work belongs to the authors themselves. When the arguments of the right of self-government are brought forward, it is replied that no conceivable British right of self- government can include the right to confiscate the property of unoffending members of society. Unquestionably the adjustment of the case on mutually satisfactory grounds is rendered difficult by the absence of any body of Canadian authors to whom reciprocal privileges under the Copyright Acts can offer substantial advantages. As it stands, the advantage of authors is all on one side, and the advantage of publishers is on the other. That the authors should be British and the publishers Canadian accentuates the sharp- ness of a contest which, even without the inter- vention of a governing body on each side, we are accustomed to hear a good deal of in this country. It also, however, helps to indicate clearly the direction in which compromise may most hope- fully be looked for, and a practical provision on the part of the Canadian Government by which the rights of authors may be fully safeguarded may, perhaps, help to bring the long controversy to a close.” II.-INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT. At a meeting of the American “Authors’ Guild,” held in New York, Nov. 2 I, a resolution was proposed to reopen the International Copy- right Law by a petition to Congress for its amendment. The discussion of the resolution was adjourned to the regular meeting in December, when the project of publishing a literary quarterly will also be considered by the Guild.—Athenaeum, Dec. 8. III.-PUBLISHED ON COMMISSION. The following is (I) a publisher's estimate for the cost of production of a book forming 540 pp. at 340 words to a page in long primer type; and (2) the estimate according to the Society's book called “The Cost of Production.”  ## p. 206 (#220) ############################################ 2O6 THE AUTHOR. I. Publisher's estimate without advertising and |binding of 300 only : For an edition of 500 copies, 3148. 2 3 5 3 93 750 copies, 3.165. 55 ,, IOOO copies, 317O. 33 II. Here is the Society’s estimate of exactly the same work in the same type—remember that we can get the work done for so much, and well done : For an edition of 500 copies, 38 IOO. 750 copies, 31 I5. 55 55 , IOOO copies, 3145. One would like the general opinion on the character of the publisher who is capable of sending out such an estimate. And, one would ask, do not figures such as these show the absolute necessity of supporting the only machinery which exposes these things P 33 33 35 IV.-A HoPELEss CASE. The following is a case which has happened more than once, and should be noted: A. B. writes an article or several articles for a journal which is, though the contributor does not know it, on its last legs, financially. He asks the editor for a cheque, and gets no reply. He writes again, and still gets no reply. He calls, and cannot see the editor. Then he seeks the aid of the Society. Now this, one would think, is eminently a case in which the Society should be useful. In fact, there are dozens of similar cases in which the proprietor of a journal has been made to pay by the action of the secre- tary. But in this case the secretary discovers the unpleasant fact that the paper has been taken over and is being run by and for the debenture holders. This means that, though the secretary might take the case into the County Court and obtain a judgment, there would be no means whatever of enforcing that judgment, because the debenture holders have the first claim upon the proceeds of the paper. The only course, then, is to throw the paper into bankruptcy — a difficult and expensive task. A course, too, by which the creditor will gain only a paltry dividend, if anything. There is no publicity to County Court judgments, otherwise the mere facts of the case might cause the manager to pay rather than incur the discredit of the judgment. So that in such a case there seems no help at all. NOTES FROM PARIS, WER all the things that I had to say in this month's letter there hangs a very gloomy shadow, and turn and twist as I may I am always brought back to this most unhappy fact, that your Stevenson and mine no longer breathes our common air, and that thirst we as we may for the clear water of his lucid prose, there will be nothing from him any more nor ever again, for our gentle gentleman of letters lies for ever asleep on a mountain-top in an island in the southern Sea. I fancy that amongst those who deplore his loss few perhaps will be more distressed than Crockett and Weyman. Both spoke to me of him with high admiration and great pride in his apprecia- tion of their work, for to both of them he had written in high praise and encouragement. His portrait hangs in Crockett's work-room in his house on the moors by the Esk, and it is on the mantelpiece of Weyman's study in the Welsh frontier town. And now there is crape round it ; there and everywhere it is felt that our English peoples are poorer by a great-hearted gentleman, our English tongue is robbed of a clear and sweet exponent. The French press paid due tribute to the dead master, and in most of the leading papers there appeared admiring obituary notices. There is much in this, as as a general rule the French journalists know nothing of, and care less, for English writers. So that, if Stevenson’s death was recorded in columns of appreciative articles in the Parisian papers, it shows that his mastery was recognised here also. Some of the writers displayed a certain ignorance, and gave amongst the list of his works the names of books which he never wrote, but the intention was everywhere a good one, and there was comfort in this manifes- tion in a foreign land. I have seen Alphonse Daudet since my return to Paris, and he spoke to me with much anticipation of pleasure about his forthcoming visit to London. He, however, seems determined to preserve the strictest incognito whilst in England, and has begged me to state that, greatly touched as he is by the kindness of those who proposed to do him honour, his state of health will prevent him from appearing in public in any way. Emile Zola is being greatly attacked in the French papers for his Italian proceedings. In one caricature he is represented kneeling before Ring Humbert licking the royal boots. In another large coloured cartoon he is shown in the garb of a mountebank, grovelling before the King and Crispi, and the former is saying “Enough, enough, it really is enough.” All this is very  ## p. 207 (#221) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 2O7 unjust. I attribute these attacks partly to the hatred of Italy which has been felt in France ever since the Italians joined the Triple Alliance, but mainly to the jealousy with which Zola's unprecedented success and European popularity have filled the obscure scribes who are so attacking him. Zola answers them one and all with an immense shrug of his burly shoulders, and says, “Let them talk, as for me, I am setting to work.” S. R. Crockett has an adorable little daughter called “Maisie.” The other day a visitor called at Bank House in the absence of her parents, and was received by the young lady. Happening to notice a photograph of Mr. A. P. Watt in a place of honour in Mr. Crockett's study, he asked his little hostess who that gentleman might be. “Oh,” said Maisie, “that is the gentleman who gets papa his American copyrights.” The gentlemen who write reviews of books for the newspapers are, I presume, journalists, and their writings, by the same token, are journalism. Why then do these gentlemen use the expression “journalism ‘’ as a reproach in their critical appreciations. One often reads “this is not literature, it is journalism,” a strange remark coming from a professed journalist. It reminds one of the bird who befouls his own nest, for it implies that the writer has a fine contempt for his own writings, and it fills the reader with pity at the want of the writer's self-respect as a journalist. There is one critic in London—I am sorry that I do not know his name—who has a curious notion of the responsibilities of his craft. A book—it was rather an expensive book—was published in London last month, and copies of this book were issued for review two days before the actual date of publication. On the same evening a copy of this book was seen in the window of a well-known second-hand bookstall in Shaftesbury Avenue. It was marked at a reduced price, though it was uncut, and just as it had left the publisher's hands, and though it was the only copy of the book then for sale in London. It was evidently one of the copies which had issued that morning for review, and had fallen into the hands of a gentleman with peculiar views on the functions and duties of criticism. In France all press copies of books are stamped with a sign which marks them as such. The English publishers might adopt a similar blan. p Amongst the many books which I find on my table on my return to Paris is a very clever collection of prose poems in French, by “P. L.” This collection is entitled “Les Chansons de Bilitis,” and the poems are supposed to be a WOL. W. translation from a Greek poetess. They are preceded by a detailed biography of the imaginary songstress, and in a most skilful manner is the illusion maintained throughout a most charming and savoury book. “P. L.” stands for Pierre Louys, a young French poet of whom I have often spoken in these pages as a young littérateur of considerable performance and still greater promise. Pierre Louys is a true artist, with no other preoccupation in life beyond the cultus of beauty, a poet in every fibre. His translation of Meleager will be remembered, to mention only one of his little masterpieces. I met Maurice Barrés a night or two ago, and found him looking rather tired. I suppose the strain of editing a fighting paper, like La Cocarde, is a very heavy one. Yet he was enthusiastic and energetic as ever, and told me that, apart from his literary work (besides editing La Cocarde and contributing to it a daily leader, he is engaged on a new novel), he is actively pre- paring his parliamentary candidature in two con- stituencies, Neuilly and Nancy. We had a long conversation on journalistic blackmailing in Paris, and amongst other things he told me that just before his play, “La Journée Parlementaire,” was produced an offer was made to him by an indi- vidual representing a syndicate of Parisian news- papers, by which, on payment of a considerable sum, he could secure enthusiastic reports of his play, with the alternative of well, you can guess the alternative. Apropos of journalistic blackmailing in Paris, I imagine that nobody is more surprised at the turn which things have taken than the able editors who, arrested for the practice, are now languishing in Mazas gaol. For years they have been allowed undisturbed to practise their little industry, till they had been lulled into the illusion that what they were doing was recognised and admitted. Suddenly, after nearly a quarter of a century of toleration, they are swooped down upon and laid by the heels. I can imagine that they feel a real grievance against the authorities. I could write a volume on the practices of blackmailing in France, were I only to draw on my reminiscences of conversations I had on the subject with poor Ferdinand de Lesseps. The subject is, however, a nauseating one. I will only mention that I was once delegated to gag a provincial blackmailing journalist, and that each time that I paid him his monthly hush-money, I used to talk to him about his business. He seemed to think that he was acting in a perfectly straightforward manner. “I run my paper,” he used to say, “not from philanthropy, but as a commercial speculation, and I work what influence it gives me for all that it is worth. U  ## p. 208 (#222) ############################################ 2O8 THE AUTHOR. People must pay to get things put into my paper, and equally must they pay to keep things out,” We used to smoke cigarettes together, and got quite friendly in the end, for the man's turpitude was thorough, and one likes thoroughness of every kind, I was almost sorry when I heard that he had died in gaol, He was such an interesting study. It seems as if shortly there will be quite a colony of English men of letters residing in Paris. I have heard several, and not the least distin- guished amongst our contemporary writers, expressing the intention to go and live in the French capital. I think it is a mistake on their part, and I, for one, have never ceased regretting having settled down on what an old Yorkshire farmer de mes amis spoke to me of as “the wrong side of the watter, my lad.” Paris is uncomfortable, it is expensive, and the eternal foolishness which envelopes one here, ends by influencing disastrously one's views on men and on life. Besides, one forgets one's English. The tool blunts from disuse. I see that at a type-writing office in the City Mr. Hill’s idea of a roll of paper, as a substitute for sheets, has been taken up and put into prac- tice. Quite a crowd of people stand outside that office and watch the long coil as it unfolds itself. The “Quotidien Illustré,” a French imitation of the Daily Graphic, is the latest addition to the press of Paris. R. H. SHERA.R.D. 123, Boulevard Magenta, Paris. *— a 2-º -- NOTES AND NEWS, Y this time all the papers, daily and weekly, have paid their tribute of praise and regret to the memory of Louis Stevenson. Yet this paper, though late, must also lay its wreath upon that far-off island grave. For, indeed, while he lived, to talk of decadence was to betray incapacity. I do not think there is in our whole literature a finer piece of work than “Treasure Island.” I do not think there are anywhere more delightful essays than some of Stevenson's. We need not attempt to compare him with anybody —comparisons of genius are futile things; Scott is Scott ; Fielding ; Thackeray; every man of genius stands alone. Ilike all men of genius Stevenson was unequal; there were limitations in his powers; certain fields were closed to him ; he could not discourse of love, for instance. But for what he gave the world we must be thankful, for some of it will last, I believe, as long as the English language. - The immortality of a writer involves selection. As time goes on one piece after another drops out of notice and is forgotten, except for the student. Why? It is impossible to tell. Goldsmith has been practically reduced, except for the student, to the “Deserted Village,” “She Stoops to Conquer,” and the “Vicar of Wakefield;” Gray to the Elegy; of Southey’s voluminous poems one little poem only remains; Coleridge keeps his “Ancient Mariner.” Of more modern writers it would be invidious to speak; it is too early to guess what part of Tennyson will drop out of the general memory; what part of Browning will be preserved; but it would be interesting to learn what novels, if any, of Thackeray and Dickens are already beginning to show signs of approaching oblivion. The committee have received a large number of replies to their questions as to Net Prices. At their first meeting of the New Year the replies will be submitted to them and considered. Perhaps we shall be in a position to publish some resolu- tion on the subject next month. In an advertisement of a new periodical, “The Minster,” one observes with some surprise the name of Mr. George Gissing as the contributor of a story. With surprise, not because he ought not to be there, but because this powerful writer has never before, so far as I know, appeared in a serial. I hear now of other magazines which have at last found him out. I have never been able to understand the comparative silence with which the very fine work of this writer has been received. It is, perhaps, because his themes have been gloomy. The other writers in the new magazine are the Archbishop of Canterbury, Sir Edwin Arnold, Sir Benjamin Baker, the Head Master of Harrow, Corney Grain, Mr. George Spottiswoode, George Saintsbury, and James Payn. It is quite the Orthodox plan to begin with great names. At the same time, great names very often belong to those who are not great in literature. And, since we wish well to the new magazine, we would venture to suggest that literary popularity is most easily attained by names that are great in literature. The book trade may be in a very depressed condition, but there are six long columns of pub- lishers' advertisements in the Times of Dec. 18. This looks like a certain amount of confidence in the present as well as in the future. Whether the market is depressed or not, there is certainly no falling off in the output, the regulation of which is especially the business of the publishers. The author has not, and cannot have, any voice at all  ## p. 209 (#223) ############################################ THE AUTHOR, 2O9 in the output. I suppose that depression means, not a restricted output, but smaller editions; e.g., for books of a certain class—say Autobiographies and Recollections—where there were formerly a thousand buyers there are now only five hundred. But, so long as the purchases by readers exceed the cost of production, so long will fresh books of the kind be produced. And so with every other kind of book. Mr. W. Pollard (Athenæum, Dec. 8) records the death of surely the very last of all the persons named in Charles Lamb's letters. Elizabeth, widow of Charles Tween, died at Hertford on Nov. 27, aged ninety-two. She was buried, Dec. 3, in Widford Churchyard, Hertfordshire, where Charles's grandmother, Mrs. Field, lies buried. Mrs. Tween was a Miss Norris, mentioned by Lamb in a letter to Henry Crabb Robinson of January, 1826. She, with her sister, opened a girls’ school, but married two brothers. The funeral was on Monday, Dec. 3, in Widford Church- yard, Hertfordshire; and the place has many things that recall recollections of Lamb and his writings. On entering the churchyard, we see on the left the gravestone of his grandmother, Mrs. Field, and the lettering requires renovat- ing. In front is the church. “On the green hill top, Hard by the house of prayer, a modest roof, And not distinguished from its neighbour-barn Save by a slender tapering length of spire, The grandame sleeps.” And on the right we are reminded of the opening of the first story in Mrs. Lamb’s “Mrs. Lester's School.” At Widford are the gravestones of Mrs. Elizabeth Norris (widow of Mr. Randal Norris), died July, 1843, and her son Richard. On the west side the church tower are a stile and footpath leading to the beautiful valley of the Ash close by, and just on the other side is the wilderness Charles Lamb describes in his “ Blakes moor in H–shire '' (fir, t essay, second series), and also names in “Rosamund Gray.” Just below the wilderness, and still nearer the church, stood the old Blakesware mansion where his grandmother was housekeeper, and which he describes in this essay. And on the rising ground to the east stood the cottage where Rosamund Gray lived with her grand- mother. On the hillside, just north of the church and valley, is Little Blakesware Farm, where Charles Lamb used to visit Mr. Tween, the then tenant. —-e--> --—- Does the free library injure the sale of books? At present there are comparatively few free libraries, and their chief effect, so far, has been to place books within the reach of those who could not afford to buy them; and this, I think, will be their effect when they are multiplied by fifty. Thus there are now in this country only about three hundred. It is not too much to expect that avery few years will see the free iibraries, great and small, enumerated at 15,000. Almost every good book will certainly be taken by all these libraries. That is to say, good histories and biographies, good books on popular science, favourite poets, favourite novelists, will all be taken; and, really, if no other purchaser appeared, the author would not do so badly. But I believe that the present purchasers will remain. The free libraries will lend books to that enormous class whose incomes are below £300 a year, and who cannot afford to buy books, and those who can afford to buy books will continue to do so. A man is on the prowl seeking to deceive. He calls himself Charles E. Winter. This is the story of a late attempt : “He called to see me in order, he said, to obtain leave to translate a story of mine. I could not give leave as I had sold the copyright, and he then asked if I could give him any type-writing, saying he had done some work for you’’—the editor of this Journal—“ and men- tioning other names of reputation in the literary world as a sort of guarantee. The end of it was that, influenced by a sad history he told of desti- tution, and also, perhaps, by his being evidentl a man of education—he spoke French really like a Frenchman—I gave him some money, and was foolish enough to trust him with the MS. of another story. Since then I have found out that the man is a fraud, and I have now seen a detec- tive who tells me that the man is already ‘wanted by the police for having got money from somebody else in the same way.” A correspondent wrote some time ago—but his letter was mislaid—asking whether £12 was a fair price to pay for a volume of which an edition of 2000 was sold. The volume was a little book which sold for half-a-crown. An edition of two thousand would probably cost—there were special reasons why the advertising would cost little or nothing—about £70, or about 8%d. a copy. The enterprising publishers therefore, who sold this book at about Is. 6d. a copy, cleared 9}d, a copy, out of which they paid the author £12, and realised for themselves £65 odd. Was the transaction a fair one P One thinks that it was not. Here is a case which perhaps admits of argument. A half profit agreement ; a book which is sold at a high price; a return at the end of a year, showing the sale of some hundreds, with a loss of some- thing like 330—the exact amount does not matter, as the account is not disputed. That was twenty years ago. The author during all this time asked for no further return, having long since made up his mind that the book would not prove a pecuniary success. However, in some spare moment he did sit down and asked for a second return. It  ## p. 210 (#224) ############################################ 2 I O THE AUTHOR. came in. It showed a yearly sale of about £30 worth of the book, with an increased loss, after twenty years, of £55 or thereabouts. In other words, what has happened is this. The publisher wished to keep the author's name on his books, and on his lists. He has therefore gone on advertising the book in his list of standard works, every year spending in advertising a little more than he received. He has made the book an advertise- ment of himself. Nor, it seems, can the author complain. He passed without question the first account. In that furnished twenty years later he asked for a return of the advertisements for the last five years. A small sum was charged for advertising in the publisher's own magazine—it should not have been charged—but to dispute it would not remove the deficit. Therefore it was allowed to stand. Perhaps it may be said that the author was advertised as well as the publisher. The author says that he did not ask for the advertisement, that it did him no good, and that he did not want it. If all the remaining copies are sold the deficit cannot now be made good, and so he will not interfere. On p. 215 will be found a few contemporary notes on a very remarkable and unprecedented depres- sion in the book market. It is amazing to think that only sixty years ago the leading publishers had no announcements at all to make in the autumn. Six hundred printers out of work at a time when all the London books were printed in London; nothing risked except reprints of favourite authors; not until the end of the year are there any books, and then only a hundred. The whole history of this depression, the length of its duration, and the revival of the demand for books would form a chapter of interest in the history of English literature. WALTER BESANT. *-- - --" *-*. F EU IL LET ON, IN THE PORCH. By SHAN F. BULLOCK, Author of “The Awkward Squad.” & 4 ELL | * said Greenback, as the outer door of the Judgment Hall closed swiftly behind White and Cold, “Well! What luck P’’ White and Cold ruffled her leaves, gave a little shiver of disgust, then suddenly flung back her front cover. “Look there !” cried she. “I look there ! Is it not shameful ? Bedaubed like that by such a Crew—Oh! such a crew Look –“ Damned,’ * Damned,’ ‘Damned,’ stamped all over my pretty whiteness— Damnation and finger-marks, there's my portion.” Greenback looked with pity at his little friend. What a change | But an hour ago they had parted there in the porch, and she had gone in for judgment so youthfully happy and fresh and hopeful; now the bolt was shot behind her, and she was back—an outcast, battered, disfigured, surely condemned. What a change P “Poor dear,” he murmured. “Poor dear ! So complete—so complete.” - “Complete?” cried White and Cold, “I should think it was. I tell you I was damned before one of their vile eyes ever saw me. They sat hunger- ing for me with their daggers drawn. Look! not twenty of my pages cut, not fifty of m verses read, not one verdict even initialled—Oh! such a crew. One looked at my title-page, ‘Phew!’ quoth he, ‘New man,’ and scribbled * Damned ;’ another read two lines, muttered “Minor, very minor,’ and wrote his verdict; another read five lines, ‘ Rot,” said he, and wrote worse—and so on from deep to deep. Poetry ! What know they of poetry P Critics! Just heaven—Critics l—Oh the travail and fond hopes 52 “Poor dear,” murmured Greenback. “Poor dear! I’m so sorry–Not even one kind word.” “Oh yes, there's one—you'll find it there near the bottom—a woman wrote it, a little ugly body who turned paler at sight of Long-hair's name on the title-page, and smiled as she read here and there. Can’t you find it P” “Ah !” said Greenback. “Yes, I see—damned with faint praise. Poor child.” “Oh I don’t want your pity,” cried White and Cold. “No | It's all a conspiracy. I know it is. I go this way doomed to daggers and destruction, you go that to wreaths and glory. Why? Why, I say? Why because I’m a first child, a girl, the daughter of a long-haired nobody; because my race has fallen among the Philistines; because I trace my descent from Homer through the generations. You smile P Yes, you can afford to smile. You're a seventh child; the world was waiting for you ; the-the person who owns you is somebody. What of you both P. He was long enough under a cloud at first; and you—why you were born piecemeal, scattered here and there about the world, and then collected into your shabby green covers. Bah! Collected / Essays / Old Sober.sides, what of you? Why, you’re a plebeian—a modern—Addison is your—” “Easy, easy,” said Greenback in his urbanest manner. “Why all this folly, child? I’m beyond all that you know, and really—” “Oh, yes; you’re most superior, I know. All gentlemen are. Why did you not keep to your  ## p. 211 (#225) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 2 H I word, though P Any gentleman can do that. You promised before we left the Row to stand by me and take your fate with me at the same hands. But no ; you must leave me at the door, and sneak off to the the professionals—the big pots— the men who always write sweet things and sign them—” “Really, madam,” returned Greenback, “I must beg of you to keep your vulgar sneers for your equals. As a gentleman I offered you my protection to the extent of my ability; more I could not do. Like yourself I had to take the chances of war—” “Chances of fiddle-sticks | Chances of nincom- poops ? What chance had I?” “Madam,” said Greenback severely, “enough of this. You had your chance like another, and let me say that I cannot bring myself at all to look at the art of criticism from your standpoint—” “Of course you can’t. You get the sugar- plums, I get the physic.” “Madam, enough. Let us call a truce to these trivialities. The trial is over; the door is closed on us both ; our fates assigned us. Madam, our ways now must part. Thither, out into the world and the sunshine, lies my path. Yours— You—Ah, my poor child! My poor child !” “Well, what of me? I suppose you think I can’t take care—” “No, no! Not that. Have you not heard? Do you not know? That place of doom and buried hopes; do you not know of it?” “What P Where P What 2 ” “Ah, child, thank Heaven for youth and inno- cence. Knowledge is such a sad burden. . . . Yes! perhaps you had better know. My child, out there, beyond the sun and the light, is a place of dread and despair. Dank fogs envelop it, despairing voices haunt it, a gaunt precipice over- hangs and cuts it off from this world of chance. Oh verily a region of fog and forgetfulness. And thither, day by day, men come, and now with scorn, now with ringing laughter, sometimes, perhaps, with regret, cry, “Over, over !’ and send fluttering down into the darkness the unfortunate children of folly and conceit—" “Oh, oh! Children? What children? Not— ?” “Yes, child—the books that were born only, sooner or later, to die.” “Books All of them P Every one? not every one! Surely not—not me, too !” “Yes, sweetheart—you, too.” “Oh no, no l Not so soon. soon 2 ” “It is cruel—but kind. Child, I fear me your shrift will be short.” Oh I Did you say “Oh, no ! Why a day ago, an hour ago, I was but born. Did you say soon P Why, I haven't VOL. V. - - yet seen the sun' What! all this pretty finery —all of it, you, say? All, is all to go down— down P. Ah! mercy, mercy l’’ “Sweetheart,” said Greenback very tenderly, “be brave. It is soon over—few in the end escape. Better over at once, maybe, than after a cheerless struggle in the storms and the twilight. “Oh ! but so soon—so soon—only an hour of life. It is shameful! I’ve had no chance. I tell you it will be murder—-yes, murder. For, look you, I am alive, every page of me is throbbing alive. Ah and the brutes would murder me. Ah comrade—keep them back— only for one day, one gleam of the sunshine.” “Impossible,” muttered Greenback. “It is impossible.” “Oh the injustice, the cruelty, the folly of it all. You say that voices haunt that—that place. What voices? Can the dead cry? What voices? Why those of maidens such as I am, ay! and of men, too, and women who have been buried alive. Hark! you can hear them wailing— wailing hopelessly. Oh! the injustice—the bitter Cup,” Greenback let his little friend run on, and him- self fell a thinking. Was it true, any of this that White and Cold in her frenzy was saying? Did anything alive ever go fluttering down P. Whose were those voices P Surely sometimes mistakes were made — mistakes born of hurry and prejudice, perhaps of ignorance P Surely some- times a book—maybe just born, maybe having run its course—with just a spark of life between its covers went over, some jewel that were worth . the snatching. TXown in that melancholy region were there not live things—golden pages, sentences, lines, phrases—buried eternally beneath mountains of stupidity and vanity ? The perfect line in a maze of doggerel, a noble sentence standing out from a dreary flatness, a page here and there torn from experience, and telling the story of a heart—surely often and often these had come unheralded, gone unnoticed, and left the world the poorer. Write, write, men were ever writing—could the most hopeless dullaro among them sit always and never chance on the happy phrase, the haunting cadence; never hear once from heaven a whisper of the gods P. This little butterfly, now lying all crushed and hopeless, could it be that all her glitter was mere dross and vanity ? - “Come, sweetheart,” he said at last, “ Cheer up, now ; all is not over yet. Come! stand for judgment and let me be your critic.” So White and Cold fluttered and twirled and aired her little graces, and Greenback looked gravely on. Those inside the door had not been X  ## p. 212 (#226) ############################################ 212 THE AUTHOR. far wrong, he thought; she had virtues, but she was no divinity; there was glitter, but no gold; the best she could show was now and then a happy pose, a graceful turn, and once, he thought, a flash of passion. No | Salvation was not for her nor for her kind; still, she was not quite unworthy, the gold might have flashed somewhere. And— and surely among all the others, her unfortunate companions in adversity, the gold if sought for, must have flashed somewhere P Surely not to have sought, sought eagerly, thought Greenback, can only be reckoned as foolishness in the ways of man. Why, he himself, only for his parentage, might easily have gone over. “You are right, my dear,” he said presently, “quite right. It is an inhuman thing thus to destroy ruthlessly what might well contain hidden treasure most precious.” “Ah, liknew it,” cried White and Cold, “I knew it ! I wanted only a chance.” “I was speaking generally, child,” said Green- back hurriedly. “Then—then—What are you, too, among my enemies? You, too, blind?” “Ah, child, what matters it P Did I see genius written on your every leaf what could I avail? Nothing.” “Nothing ! Do nothing P ou say there is no hope P’’ ... “It would be cruel to say you false,” murmured Greenback. “Child, there is no hope.” “No hope P Oh ! the living tomb—oh ! the voices wailing—oh Sir, Sir, do something, save me for one hour ! ” “My child,” answered Greenback very gravely, “what you ask is impossible. Sorely do I regret your fate, fervently do I wish it were otherwise; but in this matter, as in all, we are helpless. It is hard—Ah! would that long ago, when the Master was bending over me, I had had the thoughts which now I have I should have whispered: “Write, Master, write and warn the world of its folly. It knows not what it does— daily it is casting away treasure. The workers in the Hall of Judgment are weary and grown callous; they have no leisure in which to perform what to be effective must be a labour of love. But have not you, my Master, called (Ay! spoken it to myself) this an age of Amateur well-doing, of societies founded everywhere for the protection of the weak, and the prevention of wrong-doing? And have I not shown you wrong; are not these weak for whom I plead? What work more noble, more glorious and beneficent could learned men, of taste also and leisure (of you, revered Master, and your peers I speak), hope to lay hand to than the duties which should appertain to a Society solidly founded, honestly supported, and having Do you mean—do for its object the Rescue of Jewels from the Wastes of Literature P Go out, my Master, go out and raise your voice; it is powerful; the world will hear you; countless generations shall call you blessed.’ So should I have spoken, child; and—” “But now—even now it is not too late. The Master | tell him, tell him—ask him to save me!” . “My child, take heart and be brave—to struggle and cry is folly. You know not the world; it is slow to hear, and slower to move. And the Master—alas ! I am not the Master's keeper, and his ear just now is turned from me. But I promise you that some day his voice shall be raised, and this Society of which—” “Yes, yes—but I shall have gone!” “Gome—gone—we all go—go and are forgotten. Ah, child ! is there no consolation in the thought that your sacrifice may to future generations bring great good P” “Consolation | Consolation in that pit of hell! Lost, lost What do I care about future genera- tions P. Oh my pretty finery What going? Leaving me P Is it good bye?” “It is good-bye, sweetheart. The world calls me, and I must go. Keep heart, and die bravely.” “Die | Die ' And is this the end ? face—that alone P” “Be brave my child—and good bye.” “—All alone—Never see you again—Oh! not good bye.” “Ah well—who knows—sooner or later we all, or nearly all, come there. Who knows? Well, Sweetheart, not good bye then, but au revoir.” Must I *— — —”-- : A LITERARY CORNER. | WONDER how many of the men and - women, who monthly turn to the pages of the Author, have ever explored the pleasant precincts of Camilla Lacey, which lie within easy reach of many of their number. It was recently the good fortune of the present writer to see all that is now left of this literary haunt, and to follow for a brief while the footsteps of an almost forgotten literary coterie. For to this little corner of the Surrey Hills the French emigrés were irre- sistibly attracted in the days when the names of Talleyrand, Narbonne, and Madame de Stäel were on everybody’s lips. The little village was even in those days remarkable for shady groves and towering trees, and for its pretty gardens and small cottages, in one of which Madame d’Arblay lived.  ## p. 213 (#227) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 2 I 3 To-day, indeed, the little homestead is gone, with its rustic wooden porch and low white walls, with their charming old-fashioned pointed gables, and in its stead rises a modern mansion, wherein little is left of the old world building. The only authentic remains of the cottage, which was so beloved of the celebrated authors, are now said, indeed, to be the narrow back stairway, and, per- haps, two adjoining small rooms. Nevertheless, to many folks the house as it is fills the mind with a thousand touching memories, and its owners have sought to preserve intact everything associated with the fame of Fanny Burney. The prettiest, and, perhaps, the sunniest, brightest room of the whole mansion is the little literary museum wherein are preserved the relics of a fame which once made the gladness of the country side. In a quaintly furnished room, with hangings of olden times, dainty flowered curtains shade the fading manuscripts which lie in glazed cases available to the curious, the wonderful manu- script of Camilla and Evelina. Old-fashioned furniture fills up the small room, a corner table supports the large crucifix, which, if report says true, was once the possession of no less a personage than the old Chevalier d’Arblay. All the pieces of furniture, though gathered in recent years, seems to be part and parcel of the original inhabitants, and around the walls hang portraits, engravings for the most part of all the prominent friends of the gifted authoress. Below each one is suspended by loving hands an autograph letter from the portrait represented, addressed for the most part in warm hearted lan- guage to the “charming kind friend” Madame d’Arllay. Here, for instance, is a full-faced portrait of Mrs. Delany in her black lace fichu and mantilla; close beside her Mrs. Montague (after Reynolds), with her good tempered some- what oval face; Mrs. Thrale, Mrs. Trimmer, many of the Burney family, in pen and ink and in crayon ; Baretti (after Reynolds), in queue and powder; David Garrick, in slashed and braided coat. Here, by the bye, hangs another charming portrait, with a characteristic face and expression; below it a delightful old world epistle from Madame Piazzi to the charming Madame d’Arllay. “Come o' Tuesday,” runs the faded manuscript, “as well as Sunday. Dine with me o' Sunday, sweet soul, do ” and here is Mrs. Delany’s letter full of inquiry after the health of her “Dearest Miss Burney: We sent but yesterday to know how you did ; we have been quite alarmed, for they brought us word that though you was better to Burney was only as well as could be expected ; ” and so on, I might quote infinite in number, the tender, heartfelt greetings of this charming throng. All of them, indeed, ring the same changes of devoted friendship and admiration—Talleyrand, Madame de Stäel, Reynolds, “St. Cecilia,” Brinley Sheridan, and many, many another. As the “gallery” ends, the eye rests a moment on the well filled little corner bookshelves, where are gathered in the old first editions—Evelina, Cecilia, Camilla. The minor works and volumes of great contemporary writers are there to com- plete the small library, and the celebrated journals, round which has since centred a veritable literature in itself. There, too, are the earlier diaries of 1768-78, to which some men give the most praise; and last, not least, the curious official form, said to be an authentic copy of the marriage register. I almost hesitate to Copy it in my short paper, fearing it may raise doubts as to veracity. But I give it, for the curious I feel sure would be allowed to see and judge it for their own satisfaction. The form gives the scene of Fanny Burney’s marriage with the Chevalier d’Arblay as St. Luke's parish church, Chelsea, by licence, on July 28, 1793. Biographers, I am aware, mention already two places as the scene of the celebrated ceremony. I can add nothing to their testimony, but I think these few notes may prove of interest. Of the surrounding country side little can have changed since the old days I here record; the well-wooded heights of Denbies, Box Hill, Juniper Hill still stand much as they did then. But the charming gardens and undulating lawns which surround the beautiful modern house of Camilla Lacey; these things mark the transfor- mation undergone since the days of Madame d’Arblay's occupation. There yet may exist, per- chance among them, the shrubs that Chevalier planted with toilsome endeavour; but few people now traverse the country lane with thoughts of its literary recollections. The railway rushing across the country side bears Londonward its crowd of busy people; to thoughtful literary men and women it will ever be the home of delightful old world memories. * -- ~ 2-4 * * * THE PAPER TAX. HE writer of the following article begs to acknowledge his indebtedness to Mr. Lang, who called attention to the subject in the Illustrated London News two or three months ago. The subject is treated in the Edinburgh Review for June, 1831, in an article called “Taxes upon Literature.”  ## p. 214 (#228) ############################################ 2I4 THE AUTHOR. . At that time there was a tax upon paper, a tax upon binding, and a tax upon advertisements. All these taxes had to be paid in the production of the book, and before a single copy was sold— they had to be paid, in fact, whether a single copy sold or not. The meaning and the burden of these taxes are shown by the Edinburgh Reviewer. He takes the case of an 8vo. book of 500 pages. He selects an ordinary book of that size, and he gives the figures showing the cost of pro- duction with that part of it due to the taxes. These figures, he says, were furnished by a person of the “highest authority.” They appear as follows: I. In an edition of 500 copies :— Due to taxes. Printing and cor- rection ............ 388 18 O Paper ............... 38 IO O ... & 8 I 2 IO Boarding ............ Io O O 3 3 8 Advertising ........ 4O O O 2O O O 177 8 o 31 16 6 If the whole edition is sold out, i.e., allowing for eleven copies sent to the public libraries and fourteen to the author, if 475 are sold at 8s. 5d. a copy, the amount realised is £1.99. 17s. I Id., leaving a profit of £22 9s. 11d. 2. Taking an edition of 750 copies :— Due to taxes. Printing and cor- rections............ £95 6 O Paper .............. 57 I5 O 312 I9 4 Binding............... I5 O O 4 I5 7 Advertising ......... 5O O O 25 O O 218 I o 42 I4 II If the whole edition (725 copies) be sold at 8s. 5d., the amount realised would be £305 2s. 5d., showing a profit of £87 1s. 5d. 3. An edition of IOOO copies:— Due to taxes. Printing and cor- rections ......... 3IO2 I4 O Paper ............... 77 o o £1.7 5 9 Boarding ......... 2O O O 6 7 5 Advertising ...... 6o o o 3O O O 259 I4 O 53 I 2 2 If the whole edition, 975 copies, are sold at 8s. 5d. the amount realised would be £410 6s. 3d. leaving a profit of £150 12s. 3d. But, the writer goes on to say, this supposes the sale of the whole edition; now by the evidence of a publisher in the first rank, out of 130 works issued by him, fifty had not paid expenses; thirteen only arrived at a second edition, not always profitable. One fourth of the whole number of books produced do not pay expenses; only one in eight can be reprinted. Suppose that, instead of 720 copies being sold, only 425 went off leaving 300 on hand. This is, in fact, the common case with books. How does the account stand? . The cost of the edition is £218 Is. By the sale of 425 copies the sum of £178 17s. Id. is realised This leaves an actual loss of £40. But the taxes had to be paid in advance. In other words the cost of production had to be increased by about 22% per cent. Moreover the printing, binding, &c., could be paid after the first returns of the book, but the taxes had to be paid in advance. There would seem in these days to have been some ground for the cry about risk and uncertainty. Certainly a tax of 22% per cent on the cost of production must have made the business much less lucrative than at present. The writer points out, however, that publishers of standing were careful to avoid risk as much as possible by taking only books written by well known names, and on subjects likely to command attention. We observe that no “press’ copies were issued. The book was advertised; if it was reviewed the reviewer bought or borrowed a copy. The practice of sending out review copies must have come into existence soon after this, because in the Forties it was certain that there were press Coples. It is interesting to compare the cost of pro- duction of 1831 with that of 1894. We take the example given in the Society’s “Cost of Pro- duction,” p. 31, i.e., a page of 34 lines, of 339 words, a Long Primer type, and of 500 pages. We have the following comparison, deducting the amount due to taxes. Edition of 500 copies:— 1831 Printing and Correction 3888 18 o Paper ........................ 29 I7 2 Boarding 6 I6 4 Advertising ............... 2O O O £145 II 6 1894 Composing 31; sheets at £I 7s. I Id. per sheet... 353 6 3 Printing, 5s. 9d. a sheet 8 19 8 Corrections, say............ 5 o O Paper, at 9s. a sheet...... I4 I3 6 Binding, at 5a, a vol. ... Io 8 4 Advertising e tº e 2O O O — 31 12 7 9  ## p. 215 (#229) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 2 I 5 Or taking the edition of IOOO copies:– 1831 Printing and correction 2102 14 O Paper .................. • * * * > * 59 I4 3 Boarding ........ ......... I 3 I 2 7 Advertising ......... . . . . . . 3O O O se- £2O6 o IO 1894 Composition ............... 353 6 3 Printing, at Ios. 6d. a. sheet ..................... I6 IO 9 Paper, at 18s. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 7 O Corrections ... . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 O O Binding, at 5al. ... . . . . . . ... 20 16 8 Advertising . . . . . . . ...... 3O O O 38154 O 8 So that composition and printing have gone down 32 per cent. since the year 1831 ; paper is half what it was ; binding is a little dearer. As regards the great risks in publishing at this period, it will be seen from another part of this paper, that there was a depression in the book trade at that time (1831) deeper and more marked than had ever before been known. The political excitement of the time was supposed to be the cause ; but national excitement, whether over politics or war, gene- rally stimulates the book trade. It is more reasonable to attribute the stagnation first to the general commercial depression of the time which had ruined or crippled the manufacturers, so that they could no longer afford to buy books at the high price then asked; next, to the decay of the book clubs; and, thirdly, to a disgust at the weak and washy novels and poetry with which their book clubs were provided. The reading and book-buying public, never very large, had, from these and other causes, grown much smaller; it consisted of the professional classes and the more wealthy merchants and manufacturers. Outside the larger towns there was little book-buying. The advertisement duty, formerly of 3s. 6d. for each advertisement, and in Ireland 2s. 6d, was reduced in 1833 to 1s. 6d. in England and to Is. in Ireland. In 1853 it was abolished alto- gether. The newspaper stamp, which varied, being I d. in 171 I, I d. in 1776, 2d. in 1789, 2 #d. in 1794; 3}d. in 1797, 4d. in 1815, I d. in 1836, was finally abolished in 1855. The paper duty was repealed in 1861. THE DEPRESSION OF TRADE, 1831. HE following extracts, concerning the new books of 1831, are taken from the sources named. They refer to the threatened ruin of literature in the Thirties—a very curious chapter in the history of modern literature. The depression was attributed to the political excite- ment of the time, but, as we believe, mistakenly so attributed : I. (Athenæum, Oct. I 5, 183 I.) Man is a poetic creature, let philosophers say as they will; it is wonderful to hear of the ruin to literature and the destruction to art which one friend perceives in the Reform Bill; while another friend will see nothing but prosperity and exaltation to both. The airy fictions of these men, one of a bright and the other of a dark nature, are in a high degree poetical It must be owned that for these six months art and literature have suffered a sad eclipse. One side says, without reform there must be revolu- tion ; the other, that revolution will follow reform. No man will speculate in aught but words; labour has nearly ceased — printing presses repose by the hundred—and booksellers say that they have not sold a volume since the question was agitated. A poet in our presence lately requested a publisher to purchase a new poem in ten cantos—subject and time—“Wars of the Two Roses.” “Are you insane P” was the quick reply; “write on the rise and fall of stocks, or on the Reform Bill, and hope for purchasers.” II. (Supplement, Oct. I 5.) These are evil times: the pen and the pencil are nearly idle, save in writing political lampoons and drawing caricatures. The dread of change perplexes monarchs no more, they eat their pudding and hold their tongue; but fear has come upon men of genius; poets and painters eye, in alarm, the thickening clouds, while men whose muscles are strong, and whose hearts are griping and eager, look on the coming tempest as on the wind which will shake the ripe fruit and give them much to gather A few of the booksellers announce new books, or rather works long bespoke and written ; but, on the whole, the depression in the great market of literature con- tinues. Murray has not even an advertisement ; we hear not one word of the Quarterly IReview, though the period of its appearance has come, and all that is new are the Annuals and a few thrice-spoken speeches for or against reform. There is not one book announced which promises either genius or learning, and there is little chance  ## p. 216 (#230) ############################################ 2 I6 THE AUTHOR. of either while this thick cloud rests on our land, and till this question, which affects the wealthy, the bustling, and the important, is settled. III. (Athenæum, Nov. 12, 1831.) The ablest of our writers are for the present next to idle, and some have left or are about to leave the land. Scott is on his way to Italy, and letters from him cheer us up with the intelligence of increasing health and spirits ; a gentle sea sickness was followed by more than usual vigour and sprightliness. We rejoice the more at this, because, before he left Portsmouth, he talked rather seriously about his voyage. He alluded to Fielding's visit to Lisbon, Smollett's to Italy, and Byron's to Greece, and returned to the sub- ject if diverted from it. It is remarkable that Byron wrote Scott a long letter inviting him to Italy, and pointing out, if we remember right, Naples as a place where he might enjoy balmy air and see abundance of human characters. Washington Irving, too, an author whom we love greatly, is said to be on the point of sailing to America, and we think he is right—extinction of literature, and depression of art, riots and blood- shed; and, finally, the cholera in Sunderland, shut up from escape by sea, with full liberty to march whither it pleases by land, are, on the whole, no cheering prospects. IV. (Athenæum, Nov. 19, 1831.) The public depression attributed by one faction to the refusal of reform, and by the other to the introduction of the measure, still continues; cheap books alone are published, and during the present political pest cheap books alone will be purchased; for no man can expect to read a large work leisurely through when the very ground under his feet seems to have a touch of the earthquake, and high houses threaten to topple down and crush ordinary people in the rubbish. Men who in former palmy times boldly launched their first-rate quarto, are now content to push their cockboat along the shore and close by the land —in truth, till the great question of reform is settled but no timid adventurer need try to come forward. Magazines may change editors, newspapers their proprietors, reviews their contributors, and booksellers may have faith in rich or official authors, but the great market of literature will not open its gates full and wide till the public mind is settled, and perhaps not then. W. (Athenæum, Nov. 26, 1831.) All in literature continues dull as a great thaw, long promised works are held back from the market, and no new ones of any mark or likeli- hood make their appearance. Six hundred printers are out of employment in London alone. Reprints of favourite authors are all that book- sellers dare venture upon ; and of these the new edition of the poetical works of Sir Walter Scott promises to be one of the most attractive gº tº This, with the “Italy ’’ of Rogers, and the Works of Byron, announced by Murray, must console our eyes for the absence of mental food. The Annuals, we fear, must go to the wall when these are published. VI. (Athenæum, Dec. 17, 183 I.) Literature has recovered a little from its long stupor; more than a hundred new works, and some of them of great interest, have been announced. Pamphlets on reform and visionary treatises on cholera will now give way, we hope, to works of learning and genius. In addition to this good news, we hear that Sir Walter Scott has arrived safe and well at Malta. Reprints of valuable books, sometime announced, are about to make their appearance; the Byron of Murray comes out on the first of the new year, and a beautiful work it is. VII. (Athenæum, Dec. 24, 1831.) Our publishers' shops are now more frequented —booksellers are receiving orders—the columns of the newspapers are filling with advertisements of books; and though these festive times of Christmas interpose a little in business matters, we cannot but perceive that literature has rallied and gives token of recovering much of its original vigour. We hear that the next numbers of the magazines, both north and south, will show that the national love of elegance is reviving; we cannot, however, look for a full development of the publishers' plans of the next campaign till the publication of the Quarterly, and Edinburgh, and Westminster Reviews. VIII. (Letter from Rev. Thomas Frognall Dibden, Oct. 31, 183 I.) I paid my eleventh and last visit to the renowned publisher of the Quarterly Review. I have long considered Mr. Murray as the greatest “family ’’ man in Europe, and was not surprised to find him surrounded by an extensive circle of little ones. A family man is usually a cheerful man ; but the note of despondency was to be heard even here. The Quarterly Review was, however, in full plumage, winging its way, and commanding the attention of an unabated crowd of admirers. Lord Byron was also to come forth in a new dress—shorter, and less flowing, but  ## p. 217 (#231) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 217 well fitting, brilliant, and attractive. So far, so good; yet the taste for literature was ebbing. Men wished to get for five, what they knew they could not obtain for fifteen shillings. The love of quartos was well-nigh extinct, in spite of the efforts of a neighbouring forty-eight horse power engine, to restore that form to its usual fashion and importance.—Bibliophobia, p. 31. *- a. -- a- - - THE ENGLISH DIALECT DICTIONARY. HIS dictionary will be edited by Mr. Joseph Wright, M.A., Ph.D., deputy professor of comparative philology in the University of Oxford. The treasurer is Professor Skeat, Litt.D., LL.D. The following is from the circular recently issued. Some of our readers will, perhaps, be ready to help in the way herein pointed out : “The dictionary will include, so far as is possible, the complete vocabulary of all dialect words which are still in use or are known to have been in use at any time during the last 200 years. All words occurring in the literary lan- guage, and the dialects, but with some local peculiarity of meaning in the latter, will also be included. On the other hand, all words which merely differ from the literary language in pro- nunciation, but not in meaning, will be rigidly excluded, as belonging entirely to the province of grammar and not to that of lexicography. It will also contain (I) the exact geographical area over which each dialect word extends, together with quotations and references to the sources from which the word has been obtained ; (2) the exact pronunciation in each case according to a simple phonetic scheme, specially formulated for the purpose; (3) the etymology so far as relates to the immediate source of each word. “During the last twenty years a great number of people in all parts of England have been co- operating to collect the material necessary for the compilation of a large and comprehensive Dictionary of English Dialects, based upon scien- tific principles. It was also with this express object in view that the English Dialect Society was started in 1873, which up to the end of 1893 has published seventy volumes, all of which, so far as is advisable, will be incorporated in the dictionary. In addition to the great amount of material sent in from unprinted sources, hundreds of dialect glossaries and works containing dialect words have been read and excerpted for the purposes of the dictionary. I have already in my possession considerably over a million slips— about a ton in weight—each containing the source with quotation, date, and county. The slips for the letter S alone weigh nearly 2 cwt. It has cost those interested in this grand and glorious work, several hundred pounds to get the material roughly arranged in alphabetical order. Pro- fessor Skeat, myself, and other specialists—both at home and abroad—are of opinion that the time has come when it is urgently necessary to begin to edit for press the vast amount of material already collected, because in a work of this nature delay is dangerous, and every year will render it more and more difficult to obtain accurate infor- mation about the exact pronounciation of dialect words; so rapidly is pure dialect speech dis- appearing from our midst, that in a few years it will be almost impossible to get accurate informa- tion upon difficult points. Hence it has been decided to begin the publication of the dictionary next year if possible. “But much as has already been accomplished in collecting material, much still remains to be done before the staff of assistants and myself can begin our long and arduous task. I therefore appeal most earnestly to my fellow-countrymen for further help, to enable us to make the material as complete as possible before we begin to pre- pare the work for press. Two or three hundred additional workers could in a very short time furnish us with all the material which still remains to be gleaned from printed and other sources. When this appeal becomes widely known, there will surely be no difficulty in obtain- ing the help we require ; for, as was pointed out in a former report of the Dialect Dictionary: “It will be nothing short of a reproach and a disgrace to us as Englishmen if we let a true and genuine part of our national speech die out in our time without an effort to preserve and hand it down to posterity. Such an effort we are making. It would argue a sad want of public spirit if Englishmen were to evince no interest in our labours, and let them languish for want of material support.’” *—- - - r- - - BOOK TALK. N the verses by the Rev. Dr. Charles D. Bell quoted in our last number there are three printer's errors. In the last line but one of the second stanza, “ hears no strain'' should be “hears our strain.” In the third stanza, “ Arethusa '’ should have been printed “Arethuse;” and in the line following, “with look of love * should be “with looks of love.” “X. Y. Z. and other Poems” presents itself in a garb that suggests the influence of “The Yellow Book.” There is a black serpent in a  ## p. 218 (#232) ############################################ 218 THE AUTHOR. green ground and a yellow sun, conventionally presented, on a black ground. The poems are by the Rev. John Lascelles. The publishers are the Leadenhall Press. They are religious verses, and very remarkable for their strength and originalty. They are sometimes even startling. Every poet must choose his own vehicle, and perhaps Mr. Lascelles has chosen the form which suits him best. One may ask, however, if the ruggedness is not sometimes a little forced. Here is the concluding poem : What matters it, if men remember me, When I have gone to live among the stars; In some fair home where earthly frets and jars Have ceased to vex my soul P and I can see The deepest depths of truth; my vision free From earth's distortions; and from all that mars The intercourse of souls; when God unbars The golden gates of Immortality. What matter if men read me through and through ; And talk of me when I am but a name, And all I love have gone to join the just P What matters it P But for the good I do, No more than if they reverently came, In after years—and stooped and kissed the dust. Mr. George Cotterel is another new poet. His verses are published by David Nutt. Mr. Cotterell is among other things a story-teller in verse, It will be unexpected if he, or some other poet, should succeedin reviving the lostart of story- telling in verse. There are several stories in these volumes. The story of “Natham,” of “Constance,” and that called “Violets.” Mr. Cotterell has also told dramatically the story of Arethusa and the story of Galatea. The last-named begins as follows: Sore-smitten, my shepherd, my dearest, Struck down and for me ! There is none of all now that thou fearest, None like unto thee. * There is none with thy strength and thy sweetness, Though lovers remain In love with thy dear love's completeness, Nor will be again. But thy face was a mark for his madness, Thy love for his hate, The monster that envied our gladness, And compassed thy fate : And all day in all desolate places, I bemoan thee and weep, Afar from thy loving embraces Astray like thy sheep. “The Confessions of a Poet ’’ is a book which has been lying on our table for two months. It is a volume of verse by Mr. F. Harald Williams (Hutchinson and Co.). The preface, which is amusing, concerns the critics. For instance, one of them declared that he would not dare to ask in a respectable shop for a book with such an improper name as 'Twiat Kiss and Lip. (!) One looks at the title from every point of view, and yet one cannot possibly see what and where is the impropriety of it. Then the author com- plains of the garbled review, the dishonest review, and, above all, of the crowded review, where one or two reviewers have to discuss a dozen books in a single week—sometimes a dozen in a single column. Again, he calls attention to the directly opposite opinions on his book. Here are three : “Extraordinary skill and felicity in versifica- tion.” “Mere doggerel passing human scansion and comprehension.” “Accurate rhythm and perfect versification.” Of course these opinions contradict each other flatly. In these columns criticism of a poet is not attempted. The most that we can do is to let a poet speak for himself, and to state what he presents. The volume is large, containing 500 pages of verse in small print. The poet is fluent : perhaps he would do better to remember that a busy world cannot find time to read through too bulky a volume. The following is the opening stanza of “The Land of Nod ‘’’: The stream of quiet life goes smoothly on, In sunshine and in shade, Without a check as it has ever gone, While blossoms form and fade. And scarce a ripple breaks the eventide Of labour touched with tears, And modest hopes whose sober colours hide The face of human fears. Deep down below, like an uncovered corpse That yet no burial earns Or decent rest, and with the current warps, And turns. We learn from the Athenaeum that Mrs. Thackeray Ritchie thinks of bringing out an edition of her father's works, with biographical notes. Also that a large-paper edition of Mr. George Meredith’s “Tale of Chloe" will be issued by Messrs. Ward, Lock, and Bowden. Messrs. Archibald Constable and Co., of 14, Parliament-street, S.W., are issuing a new library of fiction entitled “The Acme Library,” and consisting of volumes by well-known authors of about 20,000 words in length. The first issue is a story by Dr. Conan Doyle relating to mesmeric influence. In the book list for November the initials of “A. Z.” were given as the author of “A Drama in Dutch " (Heinemann and Co.). They should have been “Z. Z.” Among the new books in last month's list should have been inserted a “Manual of Addresses to Communicants,” by the Rev. W. Frank Shaw (Mowbray and Co. 3s. 6d.). Miss Gerda Grass's novel, “Phil Hawcroft’s Son,” which has been running in the Newcastle  ## p. 219 (#233) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 2 I 9 Weekly Chronicle, has now come to an end. It has attracted considerable attention, and has already been translated into Swedish. It will be probably published in the spring. Dr. K. Lentzner has delivered a course of four lectures on Danish Literature, under the patron- age of H.R.H. the Princess of Wales. Mrs. F. Percy Cotton, writing under the name of Ellis Walton, has published (Elliott Stock) a new volume of verse, called “Some Love Songs, and other Lyrics.” These verses have received highly laudatory reviews in Sunday papers. The interest recently created in book plates is quite wonderful. Apart from Mr. Egerton Castle's comprehensive work on the subject, there are half a dozen books on the subject issued by the same publishers (H. Grevel and Co.). These are: “Art in Book Plates,” illustrated by forty-two original ex Libris, designed in the style of the German ; “Little Masters of the Sixteenth Century,” from the ex Libris collection from the Ducal Palace of Wolfenbüttel; “Rare old Plates of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Century;” “Em- blemata Nobilitatis; ” “Emblemata Secularia;” “Initials;” and a “Modern Dance of Death.” In addition to this may be noted “American Book Plates” and “English Book Plates,” both pub- lished by Messrs. Bell. The “Life and Letters of John Greenleaf Whittier’ ought to be read by everybody who loves pure literature and the life of a man devoted to the best and highest forms of literature accord- ing to his lights. It will cost you 18s., and it is published by Sampson Low, Marston, and Co. But if you go to a free library you can get it for nothing. “Poste Restante,” a novel by C. Y. Har- greaves, 3 vols. (A. and C. Black). The reader may make a note of it for his next circulating library list. Mrs. Croker's new novel, “Mr. Jervis: a Romance of the Indian Hills,” is just published, in three volumes—the old three-decker not dead yet—by Chatto and Windus. Austin Dobson’s “Eighteenth Century Wignettes” (second series), is, like everything of this most delightful writer and poet, charming and interesting. The Fortnightly Review under the new editor is getting on so well that last month it was found necessary to issue a second edition. “St. Andrews and Elsewhere * is A. K. H. B.'s new volume (Longmans). We all know one A. K. H. B. Some of us have known him and been pleased to read him for thirty years. We recommend Mr. Arthur Morrison’s “Tales of Mean Streets” (Methuen) to everybody. They are better than photographs; because the photograph shows everything. This author selects, arranges, and produces an artistic whole. His work is the best kind of realism. Christabel Coleridge will begin a new serial in the Sunday Magazine for January. There will be two serial stories in Good JWords for 1895, by S. R. Crockett and by W. Clark Russell. The author of “The Yellow Aster’” has pro- duced a new novel, in three volumes, called “Children of Circumstance.” It has gone into a fourth edition. (Hutchinson.) “The New Note” (same publisher) is advertised as in the fourth edition, and Rita's “Peg the Rake ’’ is advertised in the second edition. These announcements are highly satisfactory, but one would submit that they are less impressive than if the numbers of each edition were given. A good many publishers have “select ’’ and “standard” and other “ libraries' of fiction. Therefore we need not be surprised to hear that Messrs. Macmillan are going to have a series of “Illustrated Standard Novels.” The books are to be well illustrated, and there will be a preface or introduction to every volume, thus forming a pleasant and perhaps remunerative job to as many literary men as there are volumes. The books are what we all know—Marryatt, Miss Edgeworth, Susan Ferrier, and so forth. Mr. Ulick Burke is about to produce his long- promised work on Spain. The publisher will be Longmans. It will be curious to see whether the old interest in things Spanish will be revived by this important book. Of late years our literature has been almost silent on Spain and the Spanish. “Menzikoff, or the Danger of Wealth,” a story founded on fact, has been translated from the German of Gustav Nieritz by Mrs. Alexander Rerr, and published by the Religious Tract Society. The book in the original made consider- able stir and has had a large circulation. Miss Julia Agnes Fraser has just issued a novel in three volumes, called “Shibrick the Drummer.” The publishers are Messrs. Remington and Co. Among the many new books of verse which have appeared of late is one by Marcus S. C. Rickards, author of “Creation's Hope,” “Songs of Universal Life,” &c., called “Poems of Life and Death,” published by George Bell and Sons. They are all short poems, ranging in length from one page to three. The poet is always  ## p. 220 (#234) ############################################ 22O THE AUTHOR. pleasing and unaffected. His song is neither complicated nor obscure; perhaps it is sometimes too simple. The themes that inspire him are old-fashioned—The Nightingale, Roses, Violets, Sweet Peas, the New Moon, a Hedge Sparrow, a Curlew, and so on. Those who like simplicity in style, purity of thought, and rippling melody will find these qualities in Mr. Marcus Rickards. Mr. C. J. Wills has produced another book on Persia which is even more interesting than his “Land of the Lion and the Sun.” It is called “Behind an Eastern Weil,” and is an account of life as it really is for the women of that far off country — perhaps the farthest “off” at this moment of any country under the sun–centainly a long way more distant than China, Japan, or even, thanks to recent startling developments, Rorea itself. It is published by Blackwood and Sons. Messrs. Chatto and Windus have published a translation of the Memoirs of the Duchesse de Gontant. The period covered is from 1773 to 1836. The Duchess was gouvernante of the Children of France during the Restoration. The memoirs, therefore, cover the whole of the most interesting period of French history. All that can be said about the book amounts to this, that once taken up it will not be laid down or exchanged for another book until it is finished. “Norley Chester”—Madame or Monsieur— has published a little book of sonnets (Elliot Stock) called “Dante Wignettes.” There are twenty-five of them. The sonnets have the true ring of verse, and the true enthusiasm for Dante. Again, the three-volume novel is not dead yet. Mr. C. Y. Hayman brings out his new work (A. and C. Black) in this form. “Poste Restante” is its title. You who still belong to circulating libraries make a note of it. Messrs. Ward and Downey have in hand a novel by R. H. Sherard, entitled “Jacob Niemand.” It will be published in the spring. Mr. R. H. Sherard is engaged on a life of Sarah Bernhardt, which will be published next season by Edward Arnold. Mr. F. B. Doveton's new work will appear shortly. It is a book of Prose Sketches, meta- physical, descriptive, and social, with tales and lay sermons. The publisher is Elliot Stock. “Beyond the Dreams of Avarice,” by the editor of this paper, will be published before the end of January (Chatto and Windus) in one volume, price 6s. > c: CORRESPONDENCE, I.—PERSONAL ExPERIENCE. T is fair to give publicity to both sides of the question, so, as an author of some years standing, I should like to state that my experience of editors is very unlike that of “An Author’’ published in your last issue. I hav met with great kindness and consideration from many editors; indeed, some have become quite friendly, and when they refuse articles— which they are often obliged to do for want of room, or because they do not require what I send them—they frequently write a kind, courteous note with their refusal. But I never eapect this from them, knowing how busy they are and how precious is their time. On the other hand, I should never trouble them with the information that anyone else was “enchanted ” with my works. Firstly, because I am not fortunate enough to have an “enchanted ” public ; and, secondly, because I am sure the editor would not care to hear it even if I had But, as a body, should we not be happier if we raised our ideal of the noble profession to which we belong P. There are very few great writers in the world, and only a very small pro- portion of these can be found in England. Even if writers are born with talent or even with genius they have much labour to go through before they can produce a classic, and most of us are far from producing classics. But once let us raise our ideal and we shall not be surprised when that which falls far short of it, is often returned with- out thanks! However, if we have satisfied our- selves that our work is good, or as good as we can make it, do not let us be cast down if the poem, or the tale, or the novel is rejected ten times over. In the end good work will find a publisher. Popularity does not always mean that the writer who has it is a great writer, indeed, for a young author to make a “hit ’’ with a first book is almost a curse. If we place our ideal high we can then be our own judges, and we need not be dependent on the good or the bad opinion of hard-worked editors. Above all things let us not tout for reviews | I have never done so, yet my work has been noticed quite as much as it deserves; indeed, I have sometimes received more praise than my work merited. I must own, however, to possessing a Jow opinion of second-rate reviewers, who often do not read the books they review, or else tell the story straight through without one word of critical comment. Still, their strange mistakes make us laugh, and their blame cannot injure an ideal, as they possess none of their own.  ## p. 221 (#235) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 22 I Further, if we accuse some publishers of certain unfair dealings, let us also look at home and strive to keep our own profession free from smallness or meanness. Let us set our faces agai st log rolling, cringing to obtain favourable reviews, or praising poor work hoping to get praise in return. If we want good money let us give good work, but especially let us give good work even if we get no money at all. Det us avoid pot boilers and accept poverty if necessary rather than lower the standard in our own eyes and in the eyes of the few who can see. If I may, let me again repeat Mr. Sherard’s quotation. It will materially help us when, after having striven hard, we find our work returned to us by editors with or without thanks. “J’en ay assez de peu,” répondit il. “J’en ay assez d’un, J'em ay assez de pas wºn.” ESME STUART. II.-Nov ELISTS AND THEIR CHARACTERS. I had imagined that novelists need no longer fear being held responsible for the opinions and actions of their leading characters. But I have just had singular proof that the old-fashioned idea of “hero * dies hard in England. Unfortunately I am rather fond of taking immature characters and trying to develop them —as we are most of us developed—through mis- takes and failures. In preparing my last novel (the eighteenth I have written) for the press, I altered the original title, “Norman Colvill’s Blunders ” to “A Modern Quixote.” I thought that the touch of kindly satire which I meant to run through the story would be implied in the name “Quixote.” The A. B. C. of my art, of course, prevented me from discussing my character or writing my own opinions about him. But on the title-page I wrote Bacon’s axiom, “Goodness admits of no excess, but error.” And as it was necessary for me to write a short preface to apologise for the staleness of certain passages in a book, which was written in 1893, I took the opportunity to refer to “blundering and mistaken efforts,” made with the best intentions. Certain chapters were even headed “Nemesis,” “The Punishment Begins, ’ &c., and towards the end of the third volume the Quixote, who has been compelled to carry out his theories to the bitter end, deplores his own failure, and acknowledges his own priggishness in the earlier Oxonian stage. Imagine my amazement when critic after critic speaks of “Mrs. Spender’s Hero,” “ Mrs. Spender’s Polemics.” Personally I hate polemics, but my opinions or my individuality should surely be kept as much as possible in that back- ground from which, leading a li’e of retirement, I can only express my surprise. LILY SPENDER. III.-WRITERS OF SONGs. The time having come for the rights and interests of musical composers to receive a share of consideration, which holds out fair hope of redress, may I venture, as a lyric writer of at least twenty-five years’ standing, to put in a plea, for the writers of words for music? A great many songs, with words written by me, have been sung, year after year, by noted singers, not only in London concert halls, but all over the English-speaking world. Yet, beyond the small fee paid for the words at the time of publication, I have never received one penny. |Many of the music publishers now send to the writers a form of receipt for the fee, to which a special clause is attached that “all rights in the words, whether for public performance or not, in all parts of the world, shall belong absolutely and for ever to the publisher.” By signing this receipt the writer, of course, loses all further interest in his property. Public singers receive large royalties on songs sung by them, such royalties being ostensibly paid by the publishers, but in which payment the composers must in many cases share by foregoing a part of their own very small profit. I am ignorant of these matters, and should like to ask why the singer is so much more sufficiently paid than the writer or composer ; He must manifestly sing something, and is amply paid by the public for doing so. Would it not seem a more just arrangement that writer, com- poser, and singer should each receive a share of the royalties paid by the publishers ? Might not some other form of receipt be adopted by music publishers, the terms of which would deal less hardly with the composers and writers of songs P T.YRIC. IV.-PLAGIARISM OR MEMORY. Synonymous expressions of thought are common in literature, but clear instances of unconscious plagiarism are rare. The following lines are similar word for word: And yet We lost it in this daily jar and fret, And now live idle in a vague regret. JOHN DAVIDSON. It was, and yet We lost it in this daily jar and fret, And now live idle in a vague regret. ADELAIDE A. PROCTER. A young poet in the full fire of genius and passion for his ideal cannot be too careful in  ## p. 222 (#236) ############################################ 222 A UTHOR. THE passing his proofs, or he may easily appropriate unconsciously the lines of others. I may mention that, prior to publishing my first volume—“Lord Harrie and Leila, In Memory of H.R.H. the Prince Consort, and other poems ”—I carefully read through my ideals—Byron, Shelley, and Keats—ere I would allow it to pass the press. It was well I did so, as I found it necessary to expunge certain lines which had crept in through unconscious instances of memory, which would otherwise have gone forth as my own, and for which my critics would not probably have spared me. H. GEORGE HELLON. W.—STANDARD WORKs. I have often thought that there is an injustice in the copyright falling practically largely into the heretofore publisher's hands after copyright ceases. Would it be possible to have some such clause as “all stereos to become the property of the author's heirs and assigns on expiration of copyright,” and such stereos to be used for their benefit by the literary syndicate of authors or others ? As it is now, the publishers gain any advantage by cessa- tion of rights, while it is the public or the Society of Authors which ought so to gain. H. S. VI.-KIND OR JUST P The editor of an American periodical was robbed of his tin box, not full of bonds and cash, as the wicked thief imagined, but of MSS. and sketches. Bear the loss who should P I fancy many editors of English magazines would say “The authors, of course ; we are not responsible if foolish people send us their MSS.” Not so my American editor. The periodical in Question is not rich, but it will bear the loss and compensate the authors. This is not only kind, but courteous—and just. S. B. *. VII.-HospitaLS AND PROOFs. Apropos of a suggestion in one of your recent numbers that authors would do a good deed by sending their proof sheets when useless to hospitals, I should be glad of the medium of your correspondence column to make a similar suggestion. Books sent to magazines and newspapers for review should never be sold, and it is clearly the duty of everyone who values a fair field to authors to protest against such a custom. There is an excellent statement in the editorial notices of The Unknown World to this effect : “The editor of The Unknown World, as himself a writer of books, and the publishers, as per- sonally interested in sustaining the commercial value of new books, resent the prevailing custom of selling review copies immediately after publi- cation, and too often without notice at all. All books sent to this magazine for review will remain in the custody of the proprietors, and will not be parted with under any circumstances.” This has suggested to me two propositions, which are, as far as I know, original. The first is that all review copies should be bound in paper as French novels are published. The second, that the editors of magazines and news- papers could make a good use of these copies if they sent them to such libraries as the Peoples’ Palace library, or the Working Men's Club libraries of the Federation of Working Men's Social Clubs, or of clubs connected with Toynbee Hall, or school and college missions. Besides these, hospitals and free libraries would greatly benefit by such a system. JOHN WYATT. VIII.-EDITORIAL AMENITIES. Case I. Recently I submitted a lengthy MS. for approval to the editor of a well-known, high- class paper. In a week it was returned with the usual note of non-acceptance ; torn, inked, and dirtied, every page of it. The result: The MS. (which was type-written) would have to be re- typed at the cost of 8s. or 9s. before it could be offered elsewhere. It was perfectly clean and new when sent to the editor in question, in an envelope. I wrote a note of remonstrance. Answer: “The editor much regrets if the MS. should have become slightly soiled (good this ; it was simply filthy), but thinks Mr. Z. must have been mis- taken as to its condition when sent to the office of the magazine. He is unable to offer Mr. Z. any compensation.” Case 2. A few weeks ago I forwarded by request a MS. for the consideration of another well-known magazine, inclosing ample stamps for its return, if unsuitable, under cover. Result: MS. returned coverless, the two last pages having been turned back and glued so as to form an impromptu wrapper, a half-penny stamp being attached in place of the two penny Ones sent by me to cover postage. A pouring wet day resulting in the MS., thus insufficiently protected, being soaked through and through, necessitating almost entire re-copying. Case 3. Two years ago an old established paper accepted a MS. of mine upon an archaeo- logical subject. At the expiry of nearly two years from date of acceptance I wrote to inquire why the contribution had not been used. Answer: The editor could not make use of it as it was “full of inaccuracies.” I naturally asked for  ## p. 223 (#237) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 223 somewhat fuller information upon the subject of my alleged inaccuracies. After some time had elapsed the MS. was returned with the detailed information for which I had asked. Upon going through the list, and consulting the best known authorities on the subject, I found that every one of the editor's statements, contravening mine in the article, was incorrect. I wrote to point this out, but have not yet received any reply, though several weeks have elapsed. I presume that I am powerless to insist on publication, and have lost the chance of the article appearing else- where. It has been paid for (a cheque was sent me three or four months after acceptance) but publication would have proved more valuable to me in more ways than one. Surely these are somewhat “hard ” cases, though by no means isolated ones. C. H. IX.—THE LAUREATESHIP. I think your correspondent “A Prose Writer’” has done a good deed in again calling attention to the prolonged vacancy of the office of Poet Laureate, though I can hardly agree with him that the whole fraternity of authors is being slighted. In some well-known books of reference, which purport to be “carefully corrected at the different offices,” the Poet Laureate is shown to occupy a position, in the Lord Chamberlain's Department, immediately above the Barge Master and the Keeper of the Swans. The Barge Master may be able to say, in the words of “The Bard,” In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes. And the Keeper of the Swans may be in the habit of hearing exquisite notes when one of his charges dies; but does close association with them confer any special honour on a poet P Has not the time come either for abolishing the office or for setting it in a more dignified position ? The duties of the post are very uncertain. The poet may have to celebrate many events in one year, or he may have no events to celebrate during many years. In either case the spectacle is not very edifying. Genius writing to order One year, and waiting for orders the next. Pegasus sometimes at grass, sometimes kicking in his unaccustomed harness. Why not dis- establish the Laureateship, and let volunteers rise to the occasion when occasion arises P Palmam qui meruit ferat. Give the laurel wreath, and the honour, and, if necessary, the cheque, to the best man after the celebration of each event. The decision should be by universal suffrage and the ballot, because no poet could be worthy unless under- standed of the people.—Your obedient servant, II. X.—NEOLOGISMs. I observe that a controversy is proceeding in the Westminster Gazette as to the double mean- ing of “ancestor.” Is not a single word wanted to explain what is meant by what is frequently but incorrectly called “collateral ancestor P’’ Could not such a word be invented P Then as to “up to dateness.” I have seen this word used in the Referee, but I believe it to be considered as generally unfit for serious prose. But by what word or what number of words can its obvious meaning be expressed ? Surely the sooner the word, or a better single word, if such can be found, is admitted into serious prose the better. J. M. LELY. XI.-CONTINUATION BY ANOTHER HAND. The following correspondence sent to us by Messrs. Harper and Brothers is published with the permission of Mr. Justin McCarthy: I Harper and Brothers, Publishers, Franklin-square, New York. Nov. 27, 1894. DEAR SIR,-We have read with interest the remarks in The Author, issued the first of this month, upon the subject “Continuation by Another Hand,” elicited by the publication by a firm in this city of a new edition of Mr. Justin McCarthy’s “A History of Our Own Times,” to which supplementary chapters have been added by Mr. G. Mercer Adam, bringing the work down to 1894. Inasmuch as we are the publishers of the American authorised edition of this work, and as the sale of our edition will be injuriously affected by this unauthorised reprint, we felt it our duty to call Mr. McCarthy’s attention to the matter several weeks ago. Our edition of the work was published before the International Copyright Law was passed, and was therefore without protection against un- authorised reprints; nevertheless, the sale has been considerable. We have already paid Mr. McCarthy on account of royalties representing a sale of many thousand sets. Mr. McCarthy appreciated the interest which we took in the matter, and replied in a most cordial and characteristic letter. We inclose herewith copies of our letter to Mr. McCarthy, and his reply. Yours very truly, HARPER AND BROTHERs.  ## p. 224 (#238) ############################################ 224 THE AUTHOR. II. Oct. I I, 1894. DEAR SIR,--In the London letter to the New York Times, published on the 7th inst., the inclosed paragraph appeared:—“We fully sym- pathise with you in the sense of injury raised in your mind by the publication by the United States Book Company of Mr. G. Mercer Adam's edition of your ‘History of Our Own Times.’ That edition is an injury to us as well as to you, for it will maturally affect the sale of our edition. We inclose here with the advertisement of the book from the New York Evening Post, and we shall send you a copy through our London Office.” The wording of the paragraph in the Times was very unfortunate. The statement that it was “sad enough to get next to nothing for the original work when it appeared” is misleading, for it might be understood as reflecting upon us, who were the original and authorised publishers of the work in this country. We assume, of course, that the unfortunate paragraph was not the result of any statement of yours, but was simply the reflection of the correspondent him- self, who was ignorant of the fact that we had paid you royalty upon the sale of our edition of your book from the time of publication. The total payments of royalty represent, we find, the sale of many thousand sets. To this should be added the sum paid for the authorisation of the Franklin- square Library edition of the work. Under the circumstances this is a very substantial “next to nothing,” as the Times correspondent would promptly concede. We have no doubt that he would be only too glad to correct any false impression which his letter may have created—or you may prefer to do this yourself. By the way, the enterprising Mr. Adam is a Canadian, and was formerly a publisher in Toronto. Would it be advisable, in view of Mr. Adam’s action, for you to prepare a third volume, bringing the book down to the present date P While writing it occurs to us to inquire when you intend to complete your “History of the Four Georges,” two volumes of which we have published. It is now several years since the second volume was issued, and inquiries are constantly made for the final two volumes. If this is delayed too long it is possible that some “literary philanthropist” may undertake to com- plete the work for you, or enter upon the same field. We are, dear sir, yours very truly, HARPER AND BROTHER8. Justin McCarthy, Esq., M.P. III. 73, Eaton-terrace, S.W., London, Oct. 26, 1894. DEAR SIRs, I have to acknowledge, with many thanks, the receipt of your letter of the I Ith of this month. You are quite right in assuming that I knew nothing of the paragraph in the Tondon letter to the New York Times. I never saw it or heard of it until Ireceived your letter. 1 should think that what the writer meant was that, owing to the state of the law as regards copyright then, I did not receive from the United States anything like the amount which I might have received under other conditions. But, so far as your firm is concerned, I can only say that you have always dealt with me in the fairest, most honourable, and even most generous manner. I was surprised at the time, and am still surprised, that you were able to pay me so much for the history, seeing that numbers of publishers of a different order were issuing all manner of cheaper editions. When first you and I began to have dealings together, there was an honourable under- standing among American publishers that if a foreign author selected or succeeded in obtaining some particular American firm as his publishers, the other publishers would accept the arrange- ment and not interfere. This was really a copy- right by good feeling and common understand- ing. But before my history came to be published there were new firms in the field, and copyright of that sort was brought to an end. It was therefore, as I have said, a wonder to me that you were able to pay me as much for a “History of Our Own Times” as you actually did. Our business relations extend back over a quarter of a century. I have nothing to speak but praise in regard to the firm of Harper and Brothers. I certainly mean to bring the “History of Our Own Times” up to date—whenever I get a chance —and to finish the “Four Georges” too. I hope that Messrs. Harper and Brothers may be the publishers of both. Lately I have been absorbed in politics and unable to do much literary work, but I hope for quieter times. Of course, you are free to make any use of this letter that seems to you desirable. With kindest regards, very truly yours, JustTN McCARTHY. Messrs. Harper and Brothers. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Author, Vol. 05 Issue 08 (January 1895) Subject The topic of the resource <em>The Author</em>, Vol. 05 Issue 08 (January 1895) Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015013732253" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015013732253</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Publication Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1895-01-01-The-Author-5-8 publications The Author https://historysoa.com/files/original/5/273/1895-02-01-The-Author-5-9.pdf 563f6f8690f01e11c9b99647565c5cd0 PDF Text Text ���������������������������� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Author Subject The topic of the resource <em>The Author</em> Description An account of the resource A digitised run of the Society of Authors' monthly periodical, <em>The Author</em>, 1890<span>–</span>1914, made available together for the first time.<br /><br />Currently users can browse issues and <a href="https://historysoa.com/items/browse?search=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Index&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;tags=&amp;exhibit=&amp;date_search_term=&amp;submit_search=Search+For+Items&amp;sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CTitle">indices</a> (not available for all volumes). Full text search for all issues, and other additional search functionality, will be added in 2022. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1890–1914 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context The-Author-Issues Publication Date The date of an event (in YYYY, YYYY-MM or YYYY-MM-DD format) 1895-02-01 Volume 5 Issue 9 Pages Page range in volume 225–252 Ngram Date Version of the date in YYYYMMDD format for use by the Ngram plugin 18950201 Ngram Text Version of the text with no HTML formatting for use by the Ngram plugin C be El u t b or, (The Organ of the Incorporated Society of Authors. Monthly.) CON DU CTED BY WALTER BESAN. T. VoI. W.-No. 9.] FEBRUARY 1, 1895. [PRICE SIXPENCE. For the Opinions eaſpressed in papers that are signed or initialled the Authors alone are responsible. None of the papers or para- graphs must be taken as ea pressing 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. *- A -º r- - - WARNINGS AND ADWICE, I. RAWING THE AGREEMENT.-It is not generally understood that the author, as the vendor, has the absolute right of drafting the agreement upon whatever terms the transaction is to be carried out. Authors are strongly advised to exercise that right. In every form of business, this among others, the right of drawing the agreement rests with him who sells, leases, or has the control of the property. 2. SERIAL RIGHTS.—In selling Serial Rights remember that you may be selling the Serial Right for all time; that is, the Right to continue the production in papers. If you object to this, insert a clause to that effect. 3. STAMP You R AGREEMENTS. – Readers are most URGENTLY warned not to neglect stamping their agreements immediately after signature. If this precaution is neglected for two weeks, a fine of £10 must be paid before the agree- ment can be used as a legal document. In almost every case brought to the secretary the agreement, or the letter which serves for one, is forwarded without the stamp. The author may be assured that the other party to the agree- ment seldom neglects this simple precaution. The Society, to save trouble, undertakes to get all the agreements of members stamped for them at no ea'pense to themselves eacept the cost of the stamp. WOL. W. 4. ASCERTAIN WHAT A PROPOSED AGREEMENT GIVES To BOTH SIDES BEFORE SIGNING IT.-Remember that an arrangement as to a joint venture in any other kind of busi- ness whatever would be instantly refused should either party refuse to show the books or to let it be known what share he reserved for himself. 5. LITERARY 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. 6. CoST OF PRODUCTION.——Never sign any agreement of which the alleged cost of production forms an integral part, until you have proved the figures. 7. CHOICE OF PUBLISHERS.—Never enter into any cor- respondence with publishers, especially with those who ad- vertise for MSS., who are not recommended by experienced friends or by this Society. 8. FUTURE WORK.—Never, on any account whatever, bind yourself down for future work to anyone. 9. PERSONAL RISK.—Never accept any pecuniary risk or responsibility whatever without advice. Io. REJECTED MSS.—Never, when a M.S. has been re- fused by respectable houses, pay others, whatever promises they may put forward, for the production of the work. II. AMERICAN RIGHTS.—Never sign away American rights. Keep them by special clause. Refuse to sign any agreement containing a clause which reserves them for the publisher, unless for a substantial consideration. 12. CESSION OF COPYRIGHT.-Never sign any paper, either agreement or receipt, which gives away copyright, without advice. 13. ADVERTISEMENTS. –- Keep some control over the advertisements, if they affect your returns, by a clause in the agreement. 14. NEVER forget that publishing is a business, like any other business, totally unconnected with philanthropy, charity, or pure love of literature. You have to do with business men. Be yourself a business man. Society’s Offices :- 4, PORTUGAL STREET, LINCOLN's INN FIELDs. *—- - --" - - - HOW TO USE THE SOCIETY. I. VERY member has a right to ask for and to receive advice upon his agreements, his choice of a pub- lisher, or any dispute arising in the conduct of his business or the administration of his property. If the advice Y 2  ## p. 226 (#240) ############################################ 226 THE AUTHOR. 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 is in order to ascertain what has been the nature of your agree- ments, and the results to author and publisher respectively so far. The Secretary will always be glad to have any agreements, new or old, for inspection and note. The infor- mation thus obtained may prove invaluable. 4. If the examination of your previous business trans- actions by the Secretary proves unfavourable, you should take advice as to a change of publishers. 5. Before signing any agreement whatever, send the pro- posed document to the Society for examination. 6. The Society is acquainted with the methods, and—in the case of fraudulent houses—the tricks of every publish- ing firm in the country. 7. Remember always that in belonging to the Society you are fighting the battles of other writers, even if you are reaping no benefit to yourself, and that you are advancing the best interests of literature in promoting the indepen- dence of the writer. 8. Send to the Editor of the Awthor notes of everything important to literature that you may hear or meet with. THE AUTHORS' SYNDICATE, EMBERS are informed : I. That the Authors’ Syndicate takes charge of the business of members of the Society. That it submits MSS. to publishers and editors, concludes agree- ments, examines, passes, and collects accounts, and, generally, relieves members of the trouble of managing business details. 2. That the terms upon which its services can be secured will be forwarded upon detailed application. 3. That the Authors' Syndicate works only for those members of the Society whose work possesses a market value. 4. That the Syndicate can only undertake any negotiations whatever on the distinct understanding that those negotia- tions are placed ea clusively in its hands, and that all communications relating thereto are referred to it. 5. That clients can only be seen by the Director by appointment, and that, when possible, at least two days' notice should be given. 6. That every attempt is made to deal with all communi- cations promptly. That stamps should, in all cases, be sent to defray postage. 7. That the Authors' Syndicate does not invite MSS. without previous correspondence; does not hold itself responsible for MSS. forwarded without notice; and that in all cases MSS. must be accompanied by stamps to defray postage. 8. That the Syndicate undertakes arrangements for lectures by some of the leading members of the Society; that it has a “Transfer Department” for the sale and purchase of journals and periodicals; and that a “Register of Wants and Wanted" is open. Members are invited to communicate their requirements to the Manager. There is an Honorary Advisory Committee, whose services will be called upon in any case of dispute or difficulty. It is perhaps necessary to state that the members of the Advisory Committee have no pecuniary interest whatever in the Syndicate. _* ,-- - - 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 P Communications for the Author should reach the Editor not later than the 21st of each month. All persons engaged in literary work of any kind, whether members of the Society or not, are invited to communicate to the Editor any points connected with their work which it would be advisable in the general interest to publish. Members and others who wish their MSS. read are requested not to send them to the Office without previously communicating with the Secretary. The utmost practicable despatch is aimed at, and MSS. are read in the order in which they are received. It must also be distinctly under- stood that the Society does not, under any circumstances, undertake the publication of MSS. The Authors’ Club is now open in its new premises, at 3, Whitehall-court, Charing Cross. Address the Secretary for information, rules of admission, &c. Will members take the trouble to ascertain whether they have paid their subscriptions for the year P If they will do this, and remit the amount, if still unpaid, or a banker’s order, it will greatly assist the Secretary, and save him the trouble of sending out a reminder. Members are most earnestly entreated to attend to the warning numbered (8). It is a most foolish and may be a most disastrous thing to enter into an agreement binding for a term of years. Let them ask themselves if they would give a solicitor the collection of their rents for five years to come, whatever his conduct, whether he was honest or dishonest? Of course they would not. Why then hesitate for a moment when they are asked to sign them- selves into literary bondage for three or five years P Those who possess the “Cost of Production ” are requested to note that the cost of binding has advanced 15 per cent. This means, for those who do not like the trouble of “doing sums,” the addition of three shillings in the pound on this head. In other words, if the cost of binding is set down in our book at eight pounds, to this must now be added twenty-four shillings more, so that it now stands at £948. 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.  ## p. 227 (#241) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 227 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. *- ~ *-* s= * * LITERARY PROPERTY. I.—THE HICKs CoPYRIGHT BILL. "TYPHE Hicks Copyright Bill, against which Mr. William Agnew has written to the Times, has no chance of passing through the House. Protests have been filed against it by the American Copyright League of Authors and Publishers, the American Artists' Society, the Fine Arts Society, the New York Etching Club, and others. The chairman of the House Com- mittee on Patents, which has charge of the Bill, considers that it will be abandoned.—Times, Jan. 2 I. II.-NET PRICEs. In response to the circular about met prices, the secretary has received a great many replies, but not so many as might have been expected on a subject which touches our members in a twofold manner. That is to say it affects them as buyers of books as well as makers of books. In the former capacity they should ask whether they will lose or gain by the pro- posed change. Of course the answer is obvious. They will no longer get the discount and they will not be able to buy so many books. A rise in price from 4s. 6d. to 6s. is a rise of 33; per cent. “Oh but we are not going to charge so much. Trade competition will come in.” Perhaps. But trade competition has done very little so far to cheapen books. The book-buying public is small: 1t must remain small, because people cannot think of buying books whose incomes are under £2OO a-year. The interest of trade com- petition is to keep up the price of books. Book buyers will infallibly lose by the change. “But the author will have more.” Will he P Suppose 3OOO copies of a 6s. book to be sold at 4s. 6d. That means an expenditure of £675 by the public. If that book is sold net at 6s., the same expenditure would only buy 2.250. “But the royalties would be adjusted to meet the difference.” Would they P. The preponderance of opinion was in favour of the net price, and generally on the ground that one would know how much had to be paid. Another objection is that the buyer would still demand and still obtain his discount; not openly, as at present, but secretly, which would be worse, and so the later position of the bookseller would be worse than the former. What it comes to is that something must be done for the booksellers if they are to continue. They have more than one association. They are surely united enough to agree upon what they want, and strong enough to demand it. Publishers cannot do without booksellers. Authors could do without publishers, but they cannot do without booksellers. The question rests entirely with the booksellers. Let them agree, and find an answer. The net system, it is believed, will not be dis- cussed much longer. There are already a good many net books, and there will be more, especially of the class whose circulation is bound to be limited, and whose price is too high for the book- seller to take thirteen as twelve. A good man of the leading publishers have refused to take the proposed action submitted to them, and it is not likely that those who advocate the change will be able to set up a six-shilling book at net, against a six-shilling book at 4s. 6d. III.--ARTISTIC CoPYRIGHT.-MR. WILLIAM AGNEw. In the issue of the Times of Jan. I6 there is a long letter from Mr. William Agnew with regard to the artistic copyright in engravings and etchings. He states that a Bill has been intro- duced by a certain member of the Congress in the United States to bring etchings and engrav- ings under the manufacturing clause, and com- plains, and rightly so, that this is seriously detri- mental to artistic copyright, It is no doubt of the utmost importance to keep artistic copyright apart from the manufacturing clause, and the same remark applies in a lesser degree to literary works. For all the civilised nations of Europe at the Berne Convention recognised that copyright property should not be trammelled with trade burdens. The retrogres- sive policy of the Americans in having established a manufacturing clause to the literary copyright is the real cause of the present disturbance now being made in Canada with regard to Canadian copyright; and this disturbance may perhaps prejudice the whole system of copyright as it at present exists in England. It may be worth while, therefore, if steps are going to be taken to oppose the manufacturing clause with regard to artistic copyright, that authors should raise their voices in opposition to the present manufacturing  ## p. 228 (#242) ############################################ 228 THE AUTHOR. clause bearing on the reproduction of books. This clause is no doubt opposed to the whole idea of copyright property as at present existing. TV.-A CANADIAN PAPER ON CANADIAN CoPYRIGHT. I. As every intelligent person knows, copyright is the method by which law guards the right of property which authors, artists, musicians, and designers have in their intellectual productions. It is for the defence of authors and for their defence alone. It is to secure their right to the profit of the reproduction and multiplication of their own works. A copyright law pure and simple would secure to the author the right to say who and who alone should publish his work and on what terms, leaving him free to make the best terms possible for himself. This, in effect, is what free trade Great Britain does, and what even protectionist France, Germany, Austria, and most of the great countries do where intellectual production is respected. But this is not what protectionist countries like the United States do. There the manufacturers, who are ever clamour- ing for the privilege of enriching themselves at the expense of the rest of the people, compelled Congress to turn the copyright law intended for the defence of authors against pirates into a protective law for themselves, requiring the book copyrighted to be printed or reprinted in the United States. There must be, in the words of the Tammany corruptionists, “something in it for them” to be got at the expense of the author and of his American readers. The United States Government gave British authors this privilege on the pledge obtained from Great Britain that United States copyright should be good all over the British empire as well as in Great Britain, and as British copyright holds everywhere throughout the empire that was granted, and as a result authors, British or American, can dispose of their right to United States publishers for the United States and Canada, and the books cannot be reprinted here. Canada, which follows the United States in most of its international legislation, good and bad, reciprocated by following the United States in its course in turning a copyright Act for the defence of authors into a protection Act for the protection of manufacturers in Canada. The effect of this Act would be to compel authors to have their works reprinted in Canada, to the probable loss and injury of themselves and of their Canadian readers; the only people who would profit by it would be a few Canadian publishing and printing firms. The present inter- national arrangement between Great Britain and the United States, which serves all the purposes of copyright in securing the rights of English, Canadian, and other foreign authors to the con- trol of their works published in America, and which has made English authors, to their great profit, more popular and more widely read in the United States than even United States authors, would be imperilled if Canada should assert the right of reprinting which the United States has done, seeing that Great Britain has coolly thrown her colonies into the bargain as part of her copyright domain. Nothing could be more contemptible than the denunciations of Canada by the Americans for doing what they themselves selfishly did. Nothing could be more unfair than for the English to reproach Canada for wanting to do what she has consented to the United States doing. Nothing could be more ill-informed than the rude expressions of intelligent men of both countries with regard to Canada's course. All this is very galling, but no reason why Canada should, under pretence of securing the rights of authors, pass a law to embarras them. It must be remembered that the authors are agreed that their interests are served by the present arrangement, and it is authors’ interests that copyright laws are made to protect. These should not be sacrificed to the interests of the mere manufacturer. The immense market of the . United States affords them large profits as authors now that pirating is stopped. It is because that market is so big and the Canadian market is so comparatively small that English authors sell the right to publish in both countries to United States publishers, thus saving the extra cost involved in printing and publishing two editions. There authors’ interests are served by the present British copyright law, and it is authors’ interests that copyright laws are made to protect. These should not be sacričced to the interests of the mere manufacturer. There has not been a whisper of complaint from either Canadian authors or readers. Only Canadian manufacturers, and but a few of them are inte- rested. It is the knowledge of this that makes the British Government slow to interfere with a copyright arrangement which suits those whom copyright is made to defend, and which would be endangered in order to turn a copyright law into an engine of protection. Here, again, the false pretence and injustice of protectionism creates bitterness and poisons the relations of the peoples. We are home rulers, and believe that Canadians should legislate for themselves in the matter of copyright as well as of everything else which affects themselves. But when a few persons desire, in the name of home rule and of  ## p. 229 (#243) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 229 patriotism, to tax both authors and readers for their own benefit, we are not anxious to play into their hands. The United States has undoubtedly got an unrighteous advantage, but she has been given it because her market is of the first import- ance to the authors, who have the first claim to consideration, and her advantage works no injury either to Canadian authors or Canadian readers, who probably get better made and cheaper books under it than they would under the protective conditions demanded by the manufacturers.- Montreal Weekly Witness, Dec. I I, 1894. II. The following manifesto on this subject was issued from the London Chamber of Com- merce, after combined action with the Society of Authors and the Copyright Association :- Copyright is now uniform throughout the whole of the British Dominions, including, of course, Canada. It is based on the following principles:— I. That a work shall be first or simultaneously published therein. 2. That copyright shall be independent of the place of printing, and of every other condition as to place and manner of manufacture. 3. That the use of it as property shall, whilst it is copyright, be within the author's control. Canada, now seeks to alter these principles, and has asked the British Government to sanction arrangements to take away copyright in Canada from all British authors but Canadians. If such an imperial sanction be obtained, Canada offers to legislate so as to give British authors copyright in the Dominion there for twenty-eight years, if they reprint and republish the work in Canada within one month of its original publication. But if an author does not reprint and repub- lish his work there within a month, the Canadian Government may grant to any applicant a licence to print an edition without the author's consent, on his agreeing to pay to the Canadian Govern- ment, for the author, ten per cent. of the retail price of such edition. The retail price of every such edition is to be fixed by the publisher without consulting the author. The proposed Bill is silent as to whether the royalty is to be paid on copies sold or copies printed. The Canadian Government is not to be responsible for the collection or payment of any royalties. ... The following reasons show some of the in- juries the proposed legislation would inflict on British authors:— It undermines the general recognition of the rights of copyright property, which has now be- come almost universal. It interferes with the law of vendor and pur- chaser which prevails throughout the British Empire in respect to copyright, equally with all other personal property. It requires registration in Canada, a condition of copyright abandoned by the leading nations of Europe at the Berne Convention. It takes from the author the control of his own property, and hence hinders his improving or correcting or enlarging his own writings. It injures his reputation by allowing the con- tinued circulation of unimproved editions, even after the author has enlarged his work. It would enable Canada to reprint, without permission, articles and stories from reviews, magazines, and encyclopædias, and thus seriously to injure the sale of the publications in which they appeared. It injures the value of his British edition, because the Canadian edition could be imported into the United Kingdom and the other colonies, and compete with it. It forcibly deprives him of the benefit now belonging to him in Canada under the Imperial Copyright Acts. It sanctions the appropriation of his property by others without his, the legal owner's, consent. It weakens his title to his own property. It substitutes for trade contracts, on agreed terms, an inadequate royalty not guaranteed. It clogs his property with the condition of local manufacture. It was not recommended by the Royal Com- mission for cases where readers were adequately supplied. It is at variance with the free trade principles of the United Kingdom. Any such dealing with copyright property in Canada will affect future arrangements with the Australian and all other English-speaking colonies and possessions. It would almost certainly destroy our present means of securing copyright in the United States of America. It diminishes the copyright interests of all who have given their adherence to the terms of the Berne Convention. Two million Canadians are IFrench. - To this manifesto it may be added that the Society will immediately issue an Appeal to the people of Canada upon the whole subject. *~ a 2–º g- * =  ## p. 230 (#244) ############################################ 23O TIII. A UTHOR. NOTES FROM NEW YORK. [The first part of these notes should have appeared in the last number, but we had to go to press early on account of the Christmas holidays.] New York, Dec. 15, 1894. N the December number of the Bookman appear two paragraphs declaring that Mr. Meredith’s “Lord Ormont and his Aminta.” had met with “extraordinary success in America,” and that “among the other markedly successful recent books in America” were Mr. Hall Caine's “Manxman.” and Mr. Stanley Weyman’s “My Lady Rotha.” And to these statements was appended this comment: “In fact it seems as if English fiction were almost entirely supplant- ing American. Nearly all the great American successes in the last year or two have been English books.” Any one who really knew the facts of the case could not but smile at these statements and at this comment. The great success of the winter has been a British book, Mr. du Maurier’s “Trilby”; but the great success of last winter was an American book, Mr. Lew Wallace’s “Prince of India,” which, although published when times were harder than now and sold at a higher price, reached a larger sale than “Trilby’’ and in a shorter time. Mr. Meredith’s “Lord Ormont ?’ has been well received in America, but the Bookman grossly exaggerates the number of copies sold; and the Bookman cºnveys an entirely erroneous impression of the condition of the book-marketin America. Mr. Weyman’s “My Lady Rotha" has done well in the United States, but not so well as his “Gentle- man of France.” In fact, the really successful works of fiction in the year 1894 in the United States have been Mr. Crawford’s “ Katherine Lauderdale’’ and Miss Wilkins’s “Pembroke,” — both of American authorship, and Mr. Weyman's “Gentleman of France,” Mr. Caine’s “Manxman,” Mr. Hope’s “Prisoner of Zenda,” Mrs. Ward's “Marcella,” and Mr. du Maurier's “Trilby.” Probably every one of them had a sale varying between twenty and fifty thousand copies (except- ing “Trilby” of course, the sale of which already exceeds one hundred and ten thousand). Three books of American authorship were published too late in the winter to enter fairly into the com- parison, but both Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett's “Piccino,” and Mr. Charles Dudley Warner's “Golden House” began with editions of ten thousand each, while Mrs. Deland’s “Philip and his Wife” got into a fourth edition before the end of its first month. I have spoken here of copyrighted books only, because each one of these is in the hands of a single publisher; and it is possible, therefore, to ascertain precisely the number of copies sold. But during the past year or so three British works of fiction were not copyrighted —Miss Harraden’s “Ships that Pass in the Night,” Mr. Benson’s “Dodo,” and Mrs. Caffyn’s “Yellow Aster.” All three of these were seized by the pirates immediately, and reprinted right and left in cut-throat competition until they are now to be had for fourpence each. And, no doubt, the sale of these three British books has been enormous, owing partly to their own merits and partly to the furious energy of competing pirates. But the sale of these non-copyrighted stories of British authorship has been greatly surpassed, I think (of course, exact figures for comparison are not available) by the sale of certain stories of American authorship which have just come out of copyright. Our term of copyright here is twenty-eight years with one renewal of fourteen, making forty-two years in all; it is the shortest term of any of the leading countries of the world. Hawthorne’s “Scarlet Letter” was published in 1850, his “House of Seven Gables” in 1851, and his “ Blithedale Romance ’’ in 1852 ; and also in 1852 was published Mrs. Stowe’s “Uncle Tom's Cabin.” On these four stories the re-printers rushed as usual, and with unusual success. I have been told that one house alone has sold more than a hundred thousand copies of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” And this is in the lifetime of the author, for Mrs. Stowe is still alive, although she is no longer interested in the life about her; probably she will never know that her story has had a second youth on its attaining its majority twice over. Perhaps it is well to recall here that she received little or nothing from any of the British publishers who have sold countless thousands of “Uncle Tom's Cabin’’ during the last two score years. American pirates have more sins to answer for than the British pirates but the British pirate was never slow in helping himself to every American book he thought worth stealing. At the very time when the editor of the Author has been holding the American magazine editor up as an example to his British brother, an American humorist was preparing to make fun of the American magazine, and of its editors and of its principles. Mr. James L. Ford, who may be known to some English readers as the author of a volume of broadly comic sketches, called “Hypnotic Tales,” and who was one of the earliest contributors to Puck, the oldest and strongest of our comic papers, has now just put forth a volume called “The Literary Shop,” in which he considers the successful periodicals of the United States from the point of view of a young writer who has “copy " for sale. The  ## p. 231 (#245) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 23 I attack he makes on the magazines has been made before both in Great Britain and in the United States. The sum and substance of it is that the American magazines being intended for family reading, the editors very wisely reject anything which could “offend the taste of the most fastidious.” Mr. Ford praises the “business sense” of the editors who have applied this theory so adroitly as to give the Century and Harper's a circulation of 200,000 copies a month; but he declares that American literature is being strangled by this restriction of it to themes suit- able for the contemplation of the Young Person. He affirms that only an emasculated literature is possible under these conditions; and he directs special attention to the fact that the great city of New York is teeming with subjects for fiction, and that these subjects are not getting the treat- ment they deserve because the magazine editors are “down on low life.” Mr. Ford makes his points very sharply and with a sub-acid humour which is pleasing, except, no doubt, to those who are pierced by his shafts; but he has wilfully taken a false view. At the very time he was saying that no American magazine would publish stories of low life in New York, Harper's had just concluded a series of sketches of New York scenes, up town and down town, high life and low life; and it has since begun another series of sketches of New York characters, frankly low-life, all of them. Nevertheless, there is a great deal of truth in Mr. Ford’s little book, and an abundance of humour, shown most abundantly, perhaps, in the satiric sketches which fill the final pages of the volume. Of these “The Poet's Strike,” depicting a sad occurrence at Harper and Bros, and “The Society Reporter's Christmas,” are the most comical. Of the three British authors we have had here this winter lecturing and reading from their own works, one, Dr. Conan Doyle, returned to Eng- land last week laden with dollars. Dean Hole continues in the field and so does Mr. Christie Murray. At the meeting of the “Uncut Leaves” to-night Mr. Murray is to be one of the readers. I understand that the practice of the “Uncut Deaves” of reading from their own unpublished words has been introduced into your Authors’ Club in London. It is not a custom in the Authors’ Club here. The “Uncut Leaves '' is a private enterprise of Mr. L. J. B. Lincoln, who engages various authors to appear before his sub- scribers. Those who attend the meetings Mr. Lincoln conducts pay for the privilege ; and there are sometimes eight and nine hundred pre- sent. Those who read Mr. Lincoln pays, and pays liberally. So successful has this scheme WOL. W. been, that Mr. Lincoln conducts series of “Uncut Leaves,” every winter, not only in New York, but also in Brooklyn, in Philadelphia, in Baltimore, and in Washington. The Authors’ Club here, which has been home- less for nearly a year, is to be housed at last in quarters specially prepared for it in the recent addition to the sumptuous Carnegie Music Hall. It expects to get into these new rooms early next month. In the meantime its fortnightly meetings have been held this fall in the ample halls of the Architectural League in the noble building of the Fine Arts Society. By a purchase of plates and stock from Messrs. Harper and Brothers, the New York branch of Longmans, Green, and Co., has become the American publishers of all of Mr. Rider Haggard’s novels. They have recently published here his “People of the Mist,” and they will have another tale ready in January. They are also steadily enlarging their list of American authors, as, of course, any British house must do if it wishes to have close relations with American bookbuyers. In one week, as it happened, Longmans, Green, and Co. issued in New York four different books of American origin. By a purchase of plates and stock, they have also become the publishers of Col. Thomas Wentworth Higginson, whose “Young Folks' History of the United States” has now nearly attained a circulation of two hundred thousand copies. To St. Nicholas during the coming year Mr. Theodore Roosevelt will contribute a series of “Hero Tales of American History.” He is en- gaged on what may be called a continuation of Parkman's great history; it is an account of the “Winning of the West,” the slow expansion of the English-speaking people from the Atlantic coast, over the Alleghanies and across the plains. The third volume has just appeared, and a fourth will follow in about eighteen months. Mr. H. C. Bunner, the poet who wrote “Airs from Arcady,” is also the editor of Puck, and he has just reprinted from that popular weekly a second series of the ingenious and delightful comic tales he calls “Short Sixes.” Later in the winter he will have ready a volume of “Urban and Suburban Sketches,” reprinted from Scribner's Monthly. In February, Messrs. Dodd, Mead, and Co. begin to publish an American edition of the Bookman, to be conducted by Professor H. T. Peck, of Columbia College. The American edition will be wholly independent of the British, which it will not even resemble in shape. Another Columbia man, Professor Cattell, is to be the editor-in-chief of a new series of Science Z  ## p. 232 (#246) ############################################ 232 THE AUTHOR. (which may be described as an American emu- lator of the British Nature). Professor Cattell is already one of the editors of the Psychological Review ; he has called about him a staff of extra- ordinary strength, representing nearly every department of science and almost every institu- tion of learning in America. New York, Jan. 12, 1895. The death of Robert Louis Stevenson has occasioned real grief in America, and to express this in a slight degree a memorial meeting was held in this city on Jan. 4, under the auspices of the Uncut Leaves Club. It was a most notable crowd that gathered together to listen to the homage paid the great romancer by the speakers; and it was thoroughly representa- tive of the literary and artistie circles of the city. (See p. 248.) Perhaps a short account of the organisation of one of our greatest magazines may prove of interest to the readers of the Author. In 1865 a. primitive “family magazine,” called Hours at Home, was started, and this soon led Charles Scribner, founder of the publishing house of that name, to consider the possibilities which lay in issuing a periodical that would appeal to a wider audience and be on a much larger scale. With this idea in view Dr. Holland, author of the famous “Timothy Titcomb's Letters,” was con- sulted as to taking the editorship of the new venture. Thus in 1870 the firm of Charles Scribner announced from the office of Hours at Home that they had organised the Magazine Department into a separate company, with Dr. J. G. Holland and Roswell C. Smith as part owners, under the name of Scribner and Co., and that the periodical should be known as Scribner's Monthly. From the start it set a new standard for the popular magazine. It introduced many fresh writers, who had great influence in American literature, and on the artistic side it gave impetus to wood engraving. When the death of Mr. Scribner occurred the magazine continued to increase in prosperity, but in 1881 a disagreement arose between the partners, which finally resulted in the sale of the monthly to a new corporation, headed by Dr. Holland and Mr. Smith. This transfer was effected under the stipulation that the Scribners should abstain from publishing a magazine which could be a rival in the same field, while on their side the new company agreed to withdraw the name Scribner; and the periodical was henceforth known as the Century Magazine. The old magazine under its new name continued its prosperous career, and after the appearance of the war series in its pages the circulation was actually doubled within a twelvemonth. From the start, the Century Company agreed to allow its editorial staff to acquire shares of the stock, thus consolidating the interest of the magazine with those in whose charge it is. Another custom is the giving at Christmas time to all employées, not holding shares, a percentage of the year's profits in proportion to their salaries. On the death of Dr. Holland, in 1881, Mr. Richard Watson Gilder, who had long been his assistant, became editor-in-chief. He has filled his post most ably, and has gathered about him men of unusual capability. The associate editor is Mr. Robert Underwood Johnson, who was secretary of the Copyright League, and was rewarded for his work by the French Government with the Legion of Honour. The assistant editor is Mr. Clarence Clough Buel, who was formerly a journalist, and who suggested the famous war series. Among others in the editorial office are Mr. Frank H. Tooker and Mr. William Carey, to whose care is due the make up of the tasteful pages and the arrangement of the illustrations. Besides these, three women clerks are employed; and there is also a special staff to whom is com- mitted the preliminary reading of all the manu- scripts, some 20,000 of which are passed on every year. The art department has a special staff of its own, at the head of which is Mr. Alexander W. Drake, with Mr. W. Lewis Fraser as his chief assistant. It is owing to the efforts of Mr. Drake that the art of wood engraving has received so much encouragement from this magazine, and it is through him also that the development of that art has been speeded. The Century was among the first to try photographic engraving processes, and with a success certainly not yet surpassed by any other publishing house, even in France. The half-tone process, although mechanical, and thus supposedly true to the original, is but what its name represents it to be—a half tone, and hence lacking the darkest and lightest shades. In the January number of the Century is a block, which originally was a half-tone plate, and which has been worked over by a wood engraver until about one-half of its surface has felt the tool. Thus this new reproduction frankly substitutes engraving where the mechanical process fails. The Century aims solely at getting as near the Original as possible, and the question of cost is not allowed to interfere with what is the best method for obtaining the desired results. There have been cases where etchings were made simply that they might be processed ; and wood- engravings found to be too large have been processed down to half size. Also it is well to  ## p. 233 (#247) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 233 note that the superiority of the American magazine is due to a great extent to the care taken with its printing. Infinite thought is taken by De Winne, the artist printer, to keep the presswork of the Century up to the level of its text and illustrations. The Century Company also issue a juvenile monthly called St. Nicholas. This, again, has its own staff. Mrs. Mary Mapes Dodge is editor- in-chief, and Mr. W. F. Clarke is assistant editor. There are also two editorial assistants, Messrs. Tudor Jenks and Chapin, and besides these several clerks. With this magazine, as with the Century, every manuscript received is carefully read and examined. The printing is of the same high standard, and the illustrations proceed from the same art department. In addition to the staffs of the two magazines, there is a third entirely separate staff, having charge of the Century Dictionary. At the head of this is Mr. Benjamin E. Smith. Since the first page of that stupendous undertaking was cast the work has never stopped, for it is constantly under- going revision, and a supplement will eventually be inevitable. Mr. Smith has recently brought out a seventh volume, the Century Cyclopædia of Names. A large part of the success of the Century is due to its publishers. They have pushed the sales judiciously, and have shown such enterprise in the advertising department, that the magazine often contains a hundred pages of advertisements. The business sense which has characterised the management of the Century is a heritage from Roswell Smith, the first president of the com- pany, whose position is now adequately filled by Mr. Frank H. Scott, Mr. Charles F. Chichester having succeeded the latter as treasurer. In its early years the Century found many advantages in the fact that it was not connected with a pub- lishing house, as it was never obliged to receive any author on account of his relations with the house. But of late, as book material accumu- lated, it was found expedient not to allow it all to leave the Century office, and hence the Century company has been for several years now a pub- lisher of books also. The Century pays for all manuscripts on acceptance. Indeed, this is the custom of all reputable magazines here, and the editor of Harper's has been heard to remark “that it was immoral to accept an article without paying for it at once.” This naturally leads to the accumulation of material, and the Century has always several thousand pounds worth on hand; in fact, during the past year it has been largely drawing on that stock. Thus articles on “Book- bindings,” by Brander Matthews, which were VOL. W. accepted and paid for some four or five years ago, are only now appearing. “Folk-speech in America,” by Mr. Edward Eggleston, had been lying by eight or ten years; and Mrs. Oliphant's papers on the period of Queen Anne waited ten or twelve years for publication ; while Mr. Marion Crawford’s article on “The Gods of India,” which was printed only early last winter, had been accepted and paid for before he wrote his first novel, “Mr. Isaacs.” --- The Century occupies several floors of a fine large building overlooking Union-square. Its rooms are most luxuriously and beautifully fitted up. The walls are decorated with the original drawings of its illustrations, and to the outsider it would seem almost like a picture gallery were it not for its home-like appearance. The organisation of other American magazines is not unlike that of the Century. Besides their enormous book-publishing business, Harper and Brothers issue also four periodicals—the magazine and three weeklies. Mr. Henry M. Alden, author of “God in His World,” is editor-in-chief of Harper's Magazine. Mr. John D. Adams is his assistant ; and at the head of the art department is Mr. Horace Bradley. The other periodicals are Harper’s Young People, edited by Mr. J. H. Sears; Harper's Weekly, edited by Mr. Henry L. Nelson, with Mr. Henry Gallup Paine as managing editor; and Harper's Bazaar, a weekly, princi- pally intended to appeal to a feminine audience, but really containing so much of general interest as not to be restricted to one sex, and edited by Mrs. Margaret E. Sangster. In 1887, Charles Scribner's Sons started a magazine of their own, and placed it under the editorship of Mr. Edward L. Burlingame. It was a new publication in every sense, and in no way a revival of any tradition of the past. Mr. Robert Bridges is associate editor, and the art department is in the hands of Mr. A. F. Jaccacci. The magazine (with the rest of the publishing business of Charles Scribner and Sons) has recently been moved to a new building on Fifth- avenue, near Madison-square, which is one of the best built and best equipped edifices ever erected for exclusive use of a publishing firm. Mr. Charles Dudley Warner is spending the winter just outside of Florence in Landor's Willa, as the guest of Professor Willard Fiske. Mr. A. M. Palmer has made arrangements with Mr. Du Maurier to have Mr. Paul Potter dramatise “Trilby,” and it will shortly be produced at Mr. Palmer's own theatre. This dramatisation shows how, in one respect, American copyright is more favourable to foreign authors than the British law. In the United States the novelist has reserved to him the right to dramatise, whereas z 2  ## p. 234 (#248) ############################################ 234 THE AUTHOR. in Great Britain he has to give an absurd regis- tering performance of his dramatisation before the novel appears. Thus a British author having a novel successful in America can reap the profit of the play taken therefrom ; but an American author having a novel successful in England would stand little chance of making anything from the dramatisation ; and, as a fact, Mrs. Stowe never received a penny from England for “Uncle Tom’s Cabin " as a play. Mr. Laurence Hutton, than whom no American has more friends in Great Britain, and whose father and mother were Scotch, refused to act as treasurer of the American committee for the purchase of Carlyle's house in Chelsea, seeing no reason why any American should help to make a monument for a contemporary British author like Carlyle, who certainly never showed any goodwill towards the United States. In one of his Literary Notes in Harper's for January—notes unfortunately not included in the London edition of the magazine—Mr. Hutton gives vent to his feelings as follows: “There seems to exist in the mother country a curious notion that while we have shaken off all personal and national allegiance to the British Crown, we are still rank Tories and Royalists in our loyalty and devotion to British literature ; that while we are politically a free and independent people, we are still an intellectual province of Great Britain; and that we must still pay taxes to the great and royal British mind! They would laugh to scorn any effort on our part to raise money, in England, for the Curtis memorial in New York, or for the preservation of Poe's home at Fordham, even if we were willing to ask others to help us, in a pecuniary way, to honour our own dead; and they do mock our generosity in contributing to the building of a memorial theatre to Shakes- peare at Stratford, to the buying of a bust for Pepys in St. Olave's, or to the raising of stained glass windows to the memory of Raleigh and Izaak Walton in St. Margaret's and St. Dunstan's. Shakespeare and Pepys and Walton and Raleigh are ours, as well as theirs; and it is our right, as well as our privilege, to show our respect and affection for our own ; but we ought to throw the tea into Boston Harbour once more, before we consent to pay tribute to a class of post-revolu- tionary British heroes who paid no tribute to us; or before we offer to help the Britons to glorify their own land by erecting monuments—in their land— to poets and scholars who in their lifetime never cared to glorify anything, or anybody, but Great Britain or themselves.” It may be suspected that Mr. Hutton thus voices a feeling not ucommon among American men of letters. HALLETT ROBINSON. LETTER FROM PARIS, NEVER felt more confirmed in my pre- ference for an artistic life as contrasted to the pursuit.of politics, never did I so cordially agree with what Daudet has written about his detestation of politics, than as I sat at breakfast on Thursday last in the grand hall of the Hotel des Reservoirs at Versailles, just before the opening of the Congress for the election of a new President. The room was full of senators, deputies, political journalists, and all the vague camp followers of all great political events. And what a crowd it was, a mass of strangely dressed, noisy, red-faced individuals, with greedy twinkling eyes and fevered gestures, and the strangest manners at table. When one looked at them and thought of the man of letters, of the poet, of the painter, or the musician, and the ambitions of these as compared with the longings of those, one might well say—and be no Pharisee at that —that one thanked God not to be as these. I am asked to announce that Monsieur Léon Daudet will very shortly commence the publica- tion of a series or “cycle” of three novels, which will be as “The Battle of Dorking of the Social Revolution,” and an attempt to give, in anticipa- tion, pictures of that great event, whose comin is so eagerly expected, and so fondly hoped for by not a few. The first of these novels will be called “De Precurseur,” and will describe a kind of Tolstoi apostle, visiting the faubourgs, helping the poor, and preaching the gospel of Revolt. The second will be called “Les Porteurs du Feu,” and the action of this book will take place in Tondon, Amsterdam, and Paris. The third novel will be called “The City of Bread and of Fire.” Monsieur Léon Daudet is at present arranging for their appearance in serial form in England and America, previous to their publica- tion in book-form in France. Monsieur Jules Massenet is at present engaged on an opera to be called “Griselidis,” the libretto of which has been drawn by Armand Silvestre from the romantic play of the same name which was performed with so much success at the Comédie Française, of which Monsieur Armand Silvestre was co-author. Speaking about composers, it may be of interest to note that in France authors’ royalties in an opera are divided equally between the composer of the music and the writer of the libretto. Nor does this rule apply only in the matter of grand operas, but even in songs, a system which for the benefit of our minor poets might profitably be introduced into England. Only the very best writers of words for songs in England can hope for as much as four, or at the outside, five guineas  ## p. 235 (#249) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 235 for their words, whilst the average price paid to the poet is, I believe, 5s. In France the poet takes half the royalties, and the author of the music the other half. The royalties on musical works are, of course, not so large as on literary productions. Thus the royalties paid to the authors on a grand opera, never exceed 6 per cent. of the receipts. Of this the composer takes half, or 3 per cent., and the librettist the other half. With a successful opera both musician and librettist may count on an average receipt of £1.8 per performance. Speaking of theatrical matters, it was amusing to learn from what transpired the other day in one of the Paris Police-courts that a person who recently contributed the dramatic criticisms to La Cocarde used to pay £16 a month to the pro- prietors of this paper for doing so. It is fair to add that this was before M. Maurice Barrés took over the management and proprietorship of this paper. I have heard of similar things in England. A certain London publishing firm has inaugu- rated a system of paying for contributions to its various periodicals with cheques, on the back of which is printed a statement that the payee acknowledges receipt of amount on the other side for contributions and copyright of same. His signature forms the indorsement to the cheque, and, of course, if he will not indorse the cheque it cannot be cashed. I am not clear about the legality of such a contract, but I understand that the matter is going to be looked into by the Institute of Journalists. For my part, I never will sign away copyright. The other day I met a gentleman who holds a high official position in Turkey, and we had a long talk together about life in Constantinople. I was much interested to hear that the favourite book in the harem was—what would you say P- Ringsley’s “Westward Ho!” in translation. To-morrow, Jan. 25, is the fortieth anniversary of the suicide of poor Gerard de Nerval, in the Rue de la Vieille Lanterne, a street which, thanks to Baron Haussmann, has long since disappeared from the face of Paris. It was a horrible and a sinister street this Rue de la Vieille Lanterne, a street about which a French writer, wise in Paris street lore, has written as follows: “Ah! this street above all was most sinister amongst the most sinister, most hideous amongst the most hideous. In the thirteenth century it was called Scorching-street, later on, Washing-street, and in the nineteenth as in the thirteenth century it more resembled a sewer than a public way. As a matter of fact little traffic passed through it, its inhabitants being reputed the most dangerous malefactors. The ground, unceasingly drenched by rain and the overflow of the gutter, formed a thick black mud, which oozed up under-foot between the cobble stones that paved this leprous street. At one end, towards Rue de la Tuerie (Killing-street), it had a broken-down flight of steps, which led up from darkness into light, from filth to what is clean. Up and down this flight of steps all day long there hopped gravely and with dignity a black crow. At the foot of the steps an iron grating rather more than of man’s stature in height rose, and opposite was a stable which was the nightly refuge of nameless vagabonds, while a few paces lower down was a police sus- pected furnished hotel, or common lodging-house. Further, nothing save houses wrapped in silence, ominous and gloomy, and dead walls sweating forth misery and abjection.” It was here on the morning of Jan. 25, 1855, that there hanged himself on that iron grating the exquisite poet, whose name was Gerard de Nerval. He was not dead when he was discovered by one of the “workmen’’ who issued forth at an early hour from the common lodging- house, and might have been saved but for the fear of the mob which gathered round him, as he hung choking and wriggling, lest murder might be charged against them. So he was allowed to continue his hideous and convulsive dance of death. His feet were but two inches from the muddy soil. The onlookers recognised from the man’s head and hands and face that this was a gentleman in spite of the fact that his dress was ragged and Sordid beyond the raggedness of the extremest and most sordid poverty. Papers of manuscript peeped out from his torn pockets, and these, con- sidered together with certain stains of ink on the dirty blouse and the fingers, revealed in the victim a man of letters. It is reported that once or twice the struggling man raised his hand to his neck in feeble mute appeal, as though to point out to them, miserable dullards, what was torturing him, what was the life of him. But no response was made. It was a crowd of men wary and cautious of habit. I think that in its public shame, this death, with all its surroundings of all that is vile in man and in the works of man, was a hundred times more sad than even the arsenic convulsions of that starving boy in his paper-littered garret in the Holborn bye-way; aye, a hundred times more sad than even the final fall in the weakness of hunger and in the fever of alcohol of Edgar Allan Poe. In this case as in that there was no help possible. There was no hand near to stay or help, nor any land in sight. But from de Nerval’s hideous pillory, his so accessible gallows, what easy rescue might have been made. When at last the police  ## p. 236 (#250) ############################################ 236 THE AUTHOR. arrived, and the man was cut down, life was extinct. In his pockets were found various manuscripts, notably part of a serial story which Gerard de Nerval was then writing. But no papers allowing of his identification. So the body was sent to the Morgue, there to lie on a dripping slab, with a vagabond, killed in a brawl, on the one side of him, and a self-drowned woman of the town on the other. Poor Gerard de Nerval. Poor poets. I hear that Mr. Rowland Strong, the able correspondent in Paris of the Morning Post, is oc, upying such leisure as journalism leaves him in writing a novel on Parisian life, with which he is very well acquainted indeed. The novel ought to be a very good one, for Mr. Strong is master of a most excellent style, as the readers of the Paris correspondence of the Morning Post have long observed, and, moreover, a man of wide reading, caustic wit, and great powers of observation. One is always glad to chronicle the endeavour on the part of the journalist to produce purely original work, in spite of the fact that many critics in London will not admit that a man who has written for the press is capable of literary production. It is a strange theory, for in France at least every successful writer began his career, with the exception, perhaps, of Alphonse Daudet, by writing for the press. I hear that the proprietor of a leading and successful American magazine has just left Paris for London to arrange for the writing of a new “Life of Christ” for publication in his magazine. Mr. Zangwill is in Paris studying life amongst the art students in the Montparnasse quarter, in preparation for a novel on this subject. He may be seen daily dining—not without heroism—in a miserable little crémèrie near the Rue de Rennes, where the rapin and his womankind take their scanty meals. His note-book is filling apace, but I fear, in my knowledge of the kind of fare pro- vided at the Parisian crémèries, that at times he must regret the fleshpots of Israel. Mark Twain is also in Paris. Madame Juliette Adam is writing her Memoirs. They will be invaluable to the student of the political and literary histories of France under the Third Republic. - RoBERT H. SHERARD. I 23, Bd. Magenta, Paris, Jan. 24, 1895. BOOKS PUBLISHED IN 1894, HE Publishers' Circular gives its customary analytical table of the new books of 1894 :— 1893. I894. New New New New Books. Editions. [Books. |Editions. Divisions. Theology, sermons, Bibli- cal, &c. .................. 459 74 476 8O Educational, classical, and philological ...... 518 IO4 615 I27 Juvenile works and tales 659 36 269 29 Novels, tales, and other fiction .................. 935 393 1315 337 Law, jurisprudence, &c. 27 23 I 26 23 Political and social eco- nomy, trade and com- II101"Ce . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 I4. I4 I 2 I Arts, sciences, and illus- trated works............ 86 37 98 3O Voyages, travels, geo- - graphical research ... 247 72 282 68 History, biography, &c. 269 65 256 58 Poetry and the drama ... 197 Year-books and serials in 37 I6O 2 I volumes . ............... 37O I 328 2 Medicine, surgery, &c. ... 93 58 97 59 Belles-lettres, essays, mo- nographs, &c. ......... 96 I I 370 II 5 Miscellaneous, including pamphlets, not sermons I IO2 328 767 2I 5 5 I:29 I 253 53OO | I 185 5 I:29 53OO 6382 6485 —Times, Jan. 4. The number of books published in the year 1894 reaches an amazing total of 6485. If, however, we examine the list a little we shall find crumbs of comfort. For instance, 981 of them are “miscellaneous, including pamphlets.” Strike them out ; we will not read them. Tech- nical, scientific, professional, and trade books— all three which belong to the business of life— numbered 596. Strike them out. Those will read them who must. Religious books, 856. I think we may strike them out in considering literature. The medicine of the soul is as “scientific ’’ as the medicine of the body. Educa- tional books number 742. Strike them out, because they are the tools and instruments necessary for the conduct and business of life. Year-books and serials are surely not literature. Strike out 330. Boys’ and girls' books, 297. Strike them out. There remain novels, voyages and travels, history and biography, poetry, and belles lettres. Of novels there were 1315 new books and 337 new editions. Now, every novel  ## p. 237 (#251) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 237 worth anything goes into a new edition. These figures mean, therefore, IOOO failures in novel writing; they also mean a great many books paid for by the foolish writers after their work has been declined. Further, they mean that in this period of depression and “tightness” there are thousands who try whether they, too, cannot join the company of the successful. They cannot, but they will always try. These figures also mean that, seeing the enormous success of certain novels and the impossibility of discover- ing why some of them have succeeded, a few publishers are “plunging ” in hope of securing a “boom.” On the whole, we need not be alarmed by the figures. Again, the ephemeral nature of many apparently solid books, as those of travel and of history, is shown by the fact that there are 538 new books of the kind and only 126 new editions. Of poetry there is a sad falling off. Only 160 new books of verse against 190 of last year. Only 2 I new editions against 37 of last year. The most remarkable increase is under the head of “belles lettres, essays, monographs, &c.” In 1893 there were 96 new books under this head and II reprints. In 1894 there were 370 new books and I 15 reprints | What does this mean? First, we should like to see a list of these new books and reprints. Probably we should have to strike out a good many as irrelevant. I take two columns of book advertisements from the Times. In one I find two such books; in the other, three. What are they—these 370 books of belles lettres? Here is a theory which I advance with hesitation, but it may account for some. The production of a book of essays or of criticism is an excellent method by which a young man ambitious of literary work may introduce himself. If his book attracts notice either for style or for scholarship, he is a man to be noted and remembered by editors. And the number of such young men is increasing every day. The congestion of the pro- fessions; the apparent ease and pleasantness and freedom of the work; the large incomes made by successful journalists and critics — these, with many other reasons, attract the young men of Oxford and Cambridge. I imagine that this theory would account for some of the 370 volumes. But what about the rest ? I do not know. On further consideration of these figures, it occurred to me to compare them with those obtained from the lists issued day by day in the leading journals. For instance, there is published every day in the Times a list of the day's publications. In this list we may certainly assume that every book of the least importance or pretensions is announced. The following are the numbers of publications, month by month. Since the first two columns are difficult to keep apart, let us add them together. It will be seen that the numbers are about half those given in the Circular. We have, that is to say, 770 novels and children’s story books announced in the Times against I 594 reported in the Circular : New. Children’s. Reprint. January ......... 65 ...... I 7 . . . . . . 7 February ......... 34 . . . . . . 2 . . . . . . 3 March ............ 37 . . . . . I . . . . . . 8 April............... 3I . . . . . I . . . . . . 6 May ............... 45 . . . . . . O . . . . . . 8 June ............... 47 . . . . . . 4 . . . . . . 8 July ............... 64 ...... 4 . . . . . . I3 August ............ 34 . . . . . . 3 . . . . . . 6 September ...... 25 . . . . . . O . . . . . . 5 October. . . . . . . . . . . . 43 . . . . . . I . . . . . . 7 November. . . . . . . . . 86 . . . . . . 4O . . . . . . I 2 December . . . . . . ... I 23 . . . . . . 63 . . . . . . 35 634 I36 II 8 We need not in the least attack the correctness of the figures in the Circular. We may, however, understand that a good half of the books making up that portentous total were quite unimportant and trivial works. Further examination proves that out of the 634 novels there were at least 200 or even 250 also quite trivial and unimportant. This class is made up chiefly of those novels published at the author's own expense. There are paltry houses— call them rather hovels—which do nothing except produce trash at the author's expense. “Our reader reports so favourably of the work that we are prepared to offer you the following exceptionally favourable terms, &c.,” according to the formula. These deductions made, we are left with a very fair number of novels—by no means too many for the reading of the English-speaking world— Written by about 250 known novelists and about I5O aspirants. * * * NOTES AND NEWS. E have lost in Sir John Seeley one of the greatest writers of our time—if by “great” we mean one who is powerful enough to mould and influence his time. The man who so far influenced the Anglican Church as to sweep away old shibboleths and to clothe the old doctrines with fresh meanings; the man who revived in his country the Imperial idea, making of Great Britain not only the Mother of Empire, but the Mistress and Empress; the man who taught the world how the New Germany was  ## p. 238 (#252) ############################################ 238 THE AUTHOR. created and by whom ; that man, surely, deserves the name of great. My own acquaintance with Seeley took place towards the close of the fifties. He was some three years my senior, so that my earliest knowledge of him is that of a young Bachelor of Arts, Senior Classic. He was as a young man habitually grave, yet by no means without humour; no one who knew him then would speak of him as dry. Serious he certainly was ; his mind was then, as ever since, filled with the great and lofty themes of which he afterwards treated. To talk with him was, to a lad of twenty, an education ; he filled one with new thoughts; he gave one suggestions; he made one thirsty and hungry for more know- ledge; he made one careful of speech on account of a certain Socratic method by which he con- vinced the foolish speaker of his folly—yet gently and never with any joy over the humiliation of the other man. He took little interest in the things so much beloved by the average under- graduate ; he seldom asked, I am sure, where the college boat was ; he was not present at boat suppers; perhaps he never witnessed the University boat race; and he never showed up at Lord's. A modest and sober walk of four or five miles gave him all the exercise he wanted, and the rest of his time was chiefly spent in his own rooms. It is pleasing to remember that one of his closest friends and greatest admirers was a man wholly unlike him in every particular—Charles Stuart Calverley. I have heard Calverley dis- course on the virtues and qualities of Seeley most generously (for they were sometimes thought to be rivals) and eloquently. Seeley was the son of a man of deep religious feeling, which he himself inherited. The inevitable revolt of the son against the father's narrow Calvinism, which generally takes the form of aggressive agnosticism, in his place became a Christianity on broader foundations with new meanings and more Catholic enclosures. He was always religious in his thoughts and religious in his daily life. I have never heard him lecture or speak. I can readily believe that as in his books so in his lectures, the personal element was entirely re- pressed. Perhaps he was dry. Yet he taught. He was born to teach, and he was full of things to teach. He made the most of himself too. Quite early in life he realised that for such work as his, German was necessary. He went to Dresden for three months and came back a master of the German language. Later on it became necessary for him to know Italian and to study Rome. He went to Rome for the summer months, staying there three months, and return- ing a master of Italian and of Roman topography. He is a standing example that the strongest and best faculties—intellect of the rarest—-memory —scholarship—linguistic gift–power of expres- sion—are worth nothing without industry. I well remember a certain letter which came to me across the sea, one day a long time ago, when I was abroad. It was from a man who knew Seeley better than was my good fortune; who saw a great deal more of him. This man sent me a copy of “Ecce Homo,” just then published. “Read the book,” he said. “It is Seeley's, though the world does not yet know it. Read the book. He stands out already, as I always said he would—ávač divöpóv—a king of men’’—And so he did. That Seeley joined our Society at the outset; that he gave us his name as a Vice-President first, and a member of Council afterwards; that he strongly approved of our work and our aims— this has always been to me, at times when it seemed as if all our efforts for self-protection were likely to be in vain, a great encouragement and support. •-º-º-º-º- At the first meeting of the committee held in the year, on Monday, Jan. I4, it was RESOLVED, that the best thanks of the committee be con- veyed to Sir Frederick Pollock, for his services to the society as chairman of the Committee of Management during the year 1893 and 1894. I hear of complaints among members that their books are not mentiomed in “Book Talk” of the month. Will every one make a note that we very much desire to hear of every new work produced by our members; that we cannot promise to hunt among the advertisements and the announcements for these new books; that if members will inform us of their new books they may depend upon the notice being inserted; and that, as regards a short review or expression of opinion upon the book, it must be left to the writer of the columns called “Book Talk.” It is, of course, impossible for the editor to promise, or for the members to claim, even a short review in these pages. The question of Canadian Copyright is sus- pended for the time, owing to the death of Sir John Thompson. Meanwhile we have reprinted in another column (p. 228) an article on the subject, from the Montreal Weekly Witness, which shows that public opinion is not all on one side. In another place (p. 248) will be found a report of Mr. Stedman’s address on the occasion of the  ## p. 239 (#253) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 239 Stevenson memorial meeting at New York. The occasion was memorable. One of the few writers who in their lifetime are recognised as belonging to the common literature of the English-speaking races—not the local provincial literature of Great Britain, of the States, of Canada, of Australia, but the common possession of all—was dead. The meeting was held in honour of that man; he was a Scotchman by birth ; he was not a dweller in the United States, but he was acknowledged to belong to the States, to be part of the honour and glory of the States just as much as Lowell was claimed to belong to us, although a Republican and an American to the finger tips. It was not only a memorable occasion, but the chairman's eulogy, here reproduced, is fully worthy of the occasion. Had I not heard Leslie Stephen's address on the completion of the Lowell memorial in Westminster Abbey, I should have said that I did not know a single English author capable of such an address, so dignified, so beautiful, so worthy of the writer whom it illustrated. And now that it is too late, what, one asks, were we ourselves doing that we held no such meeting P Why was it left to the Americans to show us how we should honour our writers? Alas! so little accustomed are we to any recognition of letters that we do not even remember to pay the tribute of a funeral oration on the departure of our worthiest and our best Among the letters of the month will be found a proposal by Mr. Thomas Macquoid that a memorial to Louis Stevenson should be esta- blished. The letter does not propose any form of memorial. Not a statue, says the writer, but perhaps the founding of some institution con- nected with literature. I willingly give admission to Mr. Macquoid’s letter and proposal, and if the suggestion commends itself to members, I shall be very glad to receive their opinions on the subject, and to forward them to the secretary for the consideration of the committee. There are two points for consideration: (1) Whether it is desirable that such a memorial shall be instituted; (2) if so, what form it should take. Now, as to the first point. I have no doubt whatever that some of Stevenson’s work will live and form part of the glorious Corpus of English Literature. In the general chorus of praise and lamentation following on the death of this writer, it seems ungenerous to hint that any part of his work may die. At the same time, we must remember that posterity will be principally occupied with its own writers, and that it is a selection only—a very small selection—of dead men's work, that is allowed to remain and to be read. It is the next generation that pronounces the verdict upon a man, and from that verdict there is no appeal. Perhaps, therefore, it would be safer to let a dead man remain without honour for twenty-five years. In that time his greatness will be established or will be extinguished. However, if it be thought best to form some memorial to Robert Louis Stevenson, why should it not be a statue? The only statues to men of letters in London are those of Shakespeare in Leicester-square, and Dr. Johnson in St. Paul’s. There are also certain busts in Westminster Abbey and elsewhere. Yet nothing more honours a man than a statue. It is public ; it is always present ; it is enduring ; every passer by recalls the man and his works; it stands as an outward and visible sign of a nation’s recog- nition. Poets have their corner in the Abbey; only a corner; most of the space is given up to the Great Obscure or the Obscure Great. Let us make a beginning : let us teach the people that it is time to honour our great writers as we honour our statesmen; in the same open way. Only when we uncover the statue to Louis Stevenson, in Trafalgar-square, let it be done in the presence of the people, by invitation; the people on the omnibuses; the passengers engaged in their daily calling ; the great common public who read his “Treasure Island.” I have seen an advanced copy of the report of the Society for the year 1894. There is one point which I venture to anticipate. There are over 12oo members at this time of writing. Now, out of the I2OO one-half, or 600, had occasion it seems, during the year, to consult the Secretary on some point of difficulty or doubt in the conduct of their business affairs. Now, consider what would have happened with these difficulties had the Society not been in existence. The author would have gone to his lawyer, who certainly knew nothing about the subject ; and he would have incurred legal ex- penses for no good purpose; or he would have allowed his publisher to put his own interpreta- tion on the matter. Now the Secretary, who does know the subject, gives his advice or information for nothing. In cases where money has to be recovered, the author has only to put the papers into the Secretary’s hands, when action is taken immediately, and for nothing. The knowledge of this fact generally causes payment to be made immediately. And—again—remark the propor- tion of authors who do find it necessary to seek advice in the year—50 per cent. ' Members will please to note that the committee have now arranged for the reception of their  ## p. 240 (#254) ############################################ 24O THE AUTHOR. agreements and their preservation in a fireproof safe. They will, of course, be regarded as confi- dential documents to be read only by the Secre- tary, who will keep the key of the safe. The com- mittee now offer (I) To read and advise upon agreements and publishers. (2) To stamp agreements in readiness for a possible action upon them. - (3) To keep agreements. (4) To enforce payments due according to agree- ments. Once there was a member—a lady—who could not get in her accounts or the money due to her. She came to the Secretary, who promptly pro- cured the account and the cheque, of course at no expense to her. There was no suspicion of a fraudulent return of books sold. Contrary, how- ever, to reasonable expectation, the lady received the cheque with considerable temper. She said that she had looked for a much larger sale; and if this was all the Society could do for her, she should withdraw. And she did. What can be done for people who look to the Society to find them a public P Another very unreasonable and selfish person is the man or woman who stands aloof from us, Or even joins in the diffusion of the usual unvera- cities which that kind of publisher who desires darkness loves to spread around, until the time of trouble, when he makes haste to bring his papers and to become a member in order to get his case settled for him. An extreme form of this kind was illustrated by a certain man who brought a case and became a member. His case cost the Society 3815, but it was successfully conducted. The grateful member thanked the Secretary for what he had done, and said that he should now resign. So we were gainers of one guinea, his year's subscription, and losers by £15 in costs in the case. We did not even get kööos, because he was rather ashamed of his own simplicity and did not talk about it. Mr. Laurence Hutton’s remarks on the American respect for English literature (see the New York Letter, p. 234) seem to me exaggerated. We have not asked the Americans to subscribe for the preservation of Carlyle's house ; the committee have only signified their willingness to accept American contributions if any are offered. We should most certainly not “laugh to scorn” any proposal that Englishmen should join in honouring Poe ; nor do we–so far as I know— “mock the generosity’ of Americans in building a theatre at Stratford. The ancient literature of this country belongs to America as much as to ourselves. As regards a modern writer, when the Americans adopt him, so to speak; when they receive him into their libraries; welcome him ; learn from him ; delight in him; he becomes an American as well as an English writer. The question about Carlyle, is simply whether he is, in this sense, an American writer. Have they adopted him P Do they learn from him P Let us remember that there is a small modern current literature belonging to and common to all English speaking countries. For instance, we place Tenny- son and Browning in this our common literature, together with Lowell and Longfellow. There is also a current local or national literature in every English speaking country consisting of minor poets, minor novelists, minor essayists, who do not cross the frontiers of their own country. The influence of Carlyle in this country has been enormous. It would appear from Mr. Laurence Button’s remarks, that it has not been great in America. Perhaps, then, Carlyle does not belong to the current common literature. The following is from the Westminster Gazette: In our last number there appeared a letter calling attention to the strange appearance of two lines by Miss Procter in Mr. John Davidson's new volume of poems. The editor of this paper ought to be severely castigated for admitting a charge of plagiarism without verifying it, especially when it could be tested so easily and so readily. His only excuse is that the case was adduced as a remarkable instance of unconscious plagiarism, a thing more common than is generally believed. It did not occur to the editor that Mr. Davidson could be accused of a thing so monstrous and at the same time so inconceivably foolish as to “lift” two whole lines from Miss Procter. May the curtain of the “Fifth Act ’’ be a curtain of oblivion : An absurd comedy of errors has been acted in the columns of the Spectator and in our own. Mr. John Davidson has been accused of a trick of “sub-conscious memory,” for including in his “Ballad of a Nun’ the lines— “And yet, We lost it in this daily jar and fret, And now live idle in a vain regret.” But neither the lines, nor any like them, are in Mr. Davidson's poem at all ! The following is the development of the comedy :— - Act. I. The Spectator, reviewing Mr. Davidson’s poem, said it was a new version of “A Legend of Provence,” and quoted Miss Procter's lines as above. Act II. A correspondent of the Spectator, misunder- standing, and thinking the quotation was made from Mr. Davidson, writes and says, “Why, but Mr. Davidson has been unconsciously reproducing Tennyson’s “Love is hurt with jar and fret, Love is made a vague regret.”  ## p. 241 (#255) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 24. I Act III. We quote this correspondent's remarks in our columns; whereupon another correspondent writes and says, “Why, this man has not only echoed Tennyson, but actually lifted into his poem two lines solidly from Miss Procter.” Several other correspondents write to like effect. Act IV. At last it occurs to somebody to consult Mr. Davidson’s poem itself, and to look up the references generally—with the result shown in the outset of this note. Act W. Curtain, please ! WALTER BESANT. *- A -º * * FEUILLETON, A LITERARY BUBBLE. N journalism all roads lead to London. A carefully worded advertisement in the Times, offering a sub-editorship to a lady or gentle- man of education in return for a premium of sixty guineas, drew me, a young and untried member of the profession, into the metropolitan whirlpool in the summer of 1893. The preliminaries duly arranged, though not without some natural misgivings on the part of more cautious relatives and friends, I left to make the acquaintance of the editor-proprietor of the “high class weekly journal” with whose fortunes (and misfortunes) 1 was shortly to become identi- fied. My first interview with this gentleman took place in the editorial sanctum one sunny after- noon in May. He was courteous and affable, and expressed surprise at my diminutive stature and virgin countenance, my handwriting having led him to expect a bearded Hercules. From his grin of satisfaction, however, I gathered that he was not altogether displeased to find his ideal upset. Then we talked about journalism. Had I thought of turning my attention to light or serious literature ? I replied, diplomatically, that one might temper gravity with wit. He was delighted. I was a born journalist he felt sure, and only required a course of his gentle tuition to shine as a planet in the literary firma- ment. His attention knew no bounds. He must find me lodgings, take me to the Derby (this fell through (), and make me thoroughly at home in my new quarters. Meanwhile, would Itake some books with me for review P. Thus we parted on excellent terms with each other, and with our own particular selves. I had arrived on a Friday, and the high class weekly was due to appear on the Saturday. It did not reach the office until late on Monday afternoon, and, tyro as I was, my heart sank as I gazed at the insignificant pile of papers which then lay carefully stacked upon the counter. If there were 500 copies, the maximum was surely reached. Just then the proprietor bustled in. My reviews were glanced at, approved, and the great man, with almost paternal solicitude, pressed upon my acceptance a cheque for a pound, a half week's salary. I ought here to explain that my contract provided for remuneration at the rate of £2 per week, and the repayment of a proportionate amount of the premium if the engagement were closed within twelve months from the signing of the agreement. The cheque was crossed, and, having no bank account in London, I attempted to cash it through a friend in the provinces. It was returned marked “refer to drawer,” and I immediately called the attention of my Gamaliel to the matter. He hemmed and hawed, consulted his cheque-book, and finally paid me in gold, being unable to account for the “mistake.” For the next two or three weeks my two sovereigns came in with commendable regularity; then thirty shillings appeared as the price of my labour, my employer coolly explaining that he had spent the odd ten shillings on a Turkish bath. The arrears were not forthcoming till the following week, when a cheque (open, at my request) for £2 accompanied the lagging half- sovereign. On inquiry at the bank, I discovered that the cheque would not be honoured. My literary tutor was not in the least abashed when I returned with this intelligence. He smiled, and said he detected some dissimilarity between the indorsement and the name in the body of the cheque. That, he felt sure, accounted for my rebuff. Still, he pocketed the erring paper, and the arrears began to accumulate in an alarming fashion, while any actual payment was very grudgingly tendered. Meanwhile, the paper had been going from bad to worse, and the struggle to make both ends meet resulted in acts of glaring dishonesty. On one occasion, the funds having run short, and the stony heart of the printer being unmoved by promises of future payment, a week passed with- out publication. To hoodwink the advertisers, the contents of the previous week's issue were inclosed in covers bearing the current date, and forwarded to advertisers only. Whether or not this fraud was exposed I never learned. Another ingenious device was the “puffing” of minor celebrities, who, in return for an eulogistic description of their virtues, and a correspondingly convenient omission of their vices, purchased a few hundred copies of the paper from the enter- prising publisher. In the case of one “eminent,” when his order of 500 copies was found to have exhausted the available supply, a hundred or more back numbers were inserted at the bottom of the pile to complete the amount. But I should fill many columns of the Author if I attempted to describe all the tricks and  ## p. 242 (#256) ############################################ 242 THE AUTHOR. subterfuges employed by this scoundrel to stave off his creditors, and to figure in the eyes of the world as a man of unblemished and unimpeachable character. He practised as a barrister, and was extremely anxious that I should, under his auspices, embrace the legal as well as the jour- nalistic professions. Had I been so weak as to yield to his wishes, he would undoubtedly have pocketed a considerable share of the fees. But I had gauged his character by this time, and forbore. I had not been long in his office before I dis- covered that I was by no means the only “pupil.” connected with the establishment. There were two or three besides myself, and I soon heard grievous complaints of growing arrears and dis- honoured cheques. My own salary, from putting in an appearance in driblets, ceased altogether, and neither by persuasion or threats did I succeed in extracting another penny from my employer, who was, in effect, a bankrupt. The paper died in due course, and we then dis- covered that the pseudo-proprietor had long since assigned the property to others. Nor could we obtain any redress. I had unfortunately neglected to have my agreement stamped, but had this been otherwise, an action at law would only have resulted in throwing good money after bad. I returned to the provinces a sadder if a wiser man; and, having lately been elected an associate of the Society of Authors, have good reason to hope that I shall henceforth be free from the predatory attacks of such wolves in sheep's clothing as the pretended proprietor of a certain “high-class London weekly.” If the publication of my own experience should succeed in placing others upon their guard, I shall at least have derived some consolation for my own unfortunate commence- ment. G. F. O. *~ - –” ,-- - --> RUSTIC READING, ESPITE all our vaunted spread of educa- tion, it cannot yet be said that Hodge has developed much literary taste, or has taken keenly to the study of fiction, except, indeed, as a personal accomplishment. In our large towns, to judge from the statistics issued by the free libraries, the working classes devour novels in enormous quantities, nor are they alto- gether bad judges of quality, for the authors most in request with them are also among the favourites of those who subscribe to Mudie’s. And the urban labourer has come to regard the Sunday paper as no less a necessary of existence than his pipe. But in the country matters are very diffe- rent. Partly from want of taste, partly from lack of opportunity, nine out of every ten farm-hands never open a book at all, and confine their reading to the single beer-stained copy of the local paper that goes from hand to hand in the bar of the public-house. This is partly due, as we have said, to lack of taste. It is almost startling to find how many there are among our village-folk who cannot read at all. A few of them have never learned to do so, the greater number acquired the art painfully and by dint of many thwacks at school, promptly to forget it when, at the age of fifteen or so, they left school for good, and began to work in the fields. Let anyone who has almost entirely for- gotten his Greek endeavour to imagine what pleasure it would give him to read Thucydides in the original, by way of beguiling his leisure hours after a hard day’s work, and he will cease to wonder at Hodge's apathetic attitude towards literature. Again, those who can read easily enough do not find much to interest them in the newspapers, while books hardly ever come into their hands. They do not—we are speaking of entirely rural districts—take the faintest interest in politics, nor do they care about trade unions, strikes, agitations, or reforms, all of which are so dear to the mind of the London artisan. You may put it down to sluggishness and stupidity if you will, and it is quite true that your rustic is not easily aroused in the direction of any reform, desirable or otherwise. But yet there is a good deal of shrewd wisdom underlying this apparent in- difference, and it proceeds not a little from the fact that in the calm, peaceful atmosphere of country life it becomes easier to see these agita- tions in just perspective, to realise more accu- rately their importance, to be less readily swept away by each fresh enthusiasm, than it is for the fevered town-dweller, overpowered by the blatant noises of rival fad-mongers, and not allowed a moment of quiet in which to think for himself. Of course there are exceptions; in every village there is the Radical workman, regarded with humorous and good-natured in- difference by the rest, who spends all his spare time in what he conceives to be the study of politics, and who is always prepared to tell you how the Prime Minister or the Home Secretary ought to act. He is great at Socialistic prophecies, and his confidence in foretelling the future is only equalled by his ignorance con- cerning the present and the past. But he is the exception, not the rule; the typical rustic is a perfect Gallio as regards politics. It is interesting to notice a use which Hodge makes of the copy of the local paper which he  ## p. 243 (#257) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 243 enjoys with his pipe and beer sitting outside the Spotted Dog on a summer's evening. First, he reads carefully the title and the date, to guard against wasting his intellect on ancient history. Then, in most cases, he will turn to the cricket news. It is astonishing how keen is the interest taken in county cricket by the agricultural classes in our southern districts; many a man who has never handled a bat in his life can tell you nearly all the first-class averages for the last five years. In the north, even more attention is doubtless given in winter to the football news, but cricket is by far the greater favourite in the south. Having read out the scores, with eloquent comments, to his companions, he glances through the rest of the paper for any attractive headlines speaking of murders, fires, or inquests. Having found one of these charming accounts, he absorbs it slowly and reverently, running a finger along the print lest he lose the thread of sanguinary narrative. After this he scorns to read of the doings of Parliament or the news from foreign countries; with a sigh of satisfied contentment he hands on the paper to his next neighbour, whose study of it is conducted on precisely similar lines. And this performance, repeated once a week, represents the whole of the attention given to literature by the majority of our agricultural labourers. Mrs. Hodge's reading is a little more extensive. The good soul studies her Bible, and wonderful indeed are her interpretations of its more difficult passages. In about half the cottages, too, by the side of the Bible you will find a well-thumbed copy of the “Pilgrim's Progress,” with alarming illustrations used to terrify the children into the paths of virtue. The pictures in Fox’s “Book of Martyrs” are also employed for this purpose, and are found even more effectual) nor does Mrs. Hodge ever realise the cruelty and gross folly of this system of intimidation. The rest of the literature of the cottage will perhaps be made up of an ancient number of the Graphic (the illustrations from which are pinned about the walls), a cookery book, and the current number of the parish magazine. If the family includes a Miss Hodge of sixteen or so, that young lady is nearly sure to possess a little work on fortune- telling and another on dreams. And such is the range of the cottage library. But this almost total neglect of literature amongst the country people is due, as we said at the outset, not only, or even chiefly, to want of taste, but also to lack of opportunity. Give a country labourer a good book of adventure by a popular author, and if you can once prevail upon him to begin reading it, he will continue it and enjoy it hugely. And Mrs. Hodge, in default of better things, reads with great eagerness the mawkish and sentimental stuff found in most of our parish magazines. So that there really are symptoms of a taste for literature, were the opportunity for cultivating it only to be supplied. But the cheap editions, so accessible to the Londoner, are never seen here, never a book of any kind is on sale in the village shop. Amongst the bacon and the cheese lie copies of a dress- making journal and the local newspaper, and that is all. Surely something could and should be done to promote the sale of good and cheap literature in the country. Of course, village lending libraries have been established in many places. Sometimes they have succeeded, more often they have failed, because the books have not been wisely selected, and are of the aggressively “improving ” order. Hodge has a healthy hatred of “goody-goody "litera- ture, and it is this feeling that makes him fight shy of the lending library. But once conviuce him that you are not offering him a tract in dis- guise, and he will be willing enough to read, while to encourage and foster such a taste is a work that may safely be commended to those who are desirous of doing something towards bettering the condition and brightening the monotonous lives of our agricultural labourers. *- - --" g- > -s; BOOK TALK, HE month of January, 1895, will ever be memorable in bookish circles for the revival of the issue of books by metropolitan daily newspapers. Many years ago the Weekly Dispatch issued an atlas in parts to its readers; and of a series of illustrations of picturesque parts of the world, a number of newspapers of the second rank in England and on the continent have recently distributed no fewer than eight million copies. But the great London dailies have hitherto declined all such offers. The Daily Chronicle, however, has now taken the lead by announcing an encyclopaedic dictionary, in forty- two parts, at 6d. each. This is nothing else than Cassell’s “Encyclopædic Dictionary,” printed from a new set of plates; and as it was originally sold at seven guineas, the reduction in price is certainly striking. The Chronicle expects a sale of 200,000 copies. The Chronicle's new departure was received with great surprise, but the surprise was more than doubled when two days later the Times announced that in April it would issue an atlas in fifteen parts, at Is. each. This, in its turn, is also  ## p. 244 (#258) ############################################ 244. THE AUTHOR. a publication of Messrs. Cassell's. It is the German-produced atlas, offered first at 31s. 6d. net, and afterwards at two guineas with the customary discount. We understand it is owned |by a syndicate of persons, of whom Mr. Arnold Forster is the chief. The Times, by the way, is also about to publish a serial work of fiction in its weekly edition. It remains to be seen what the publishers will say to this journalistic rivalry. When one newspaper publishes a dictionary, another an atlas, another a history of England, another a history of English literature, and so on, a series of severe blows will have been dealt at publishing firms all round. The book of the month, if it should be reached in February, will no doubt be Lord Roberts’s “Reminiscences of India.” No man living knows certain aspects of India and the Indian people so well as Lord Roberts, and the British public has good reason to feel the deepest interest in everything that he says. He fought through the entire Mutiny, and he has either shared in or directed every military move- ment or reform in India during the last thirty- five years. On some problems now pressing for solution his word should close the controversy. It goes without saying that the greatest success awaits his book if it presents any adequate picture of himself and his career. The present Tsar made a tour through the Far East in 1891, in the course of which, as will be remembered, he was only saved by the timely assistance of Prince George of Greece from assas- sination at the hands of a fanatic Japanese police- man. He had of course remarkable opportunities for seeing Eastern festivals and sights not com- monly shown, and unless the record of his travels is too severely edited, it should form an enter- taining picture. He did not, however, visit China, as the Emperor of China could not be induced to receive him with proper honours, and he would not go to Peking under other circumstances. The illustrated account of his travels will be published by Messrs. Arch. Constable and Co. within a few weeks. A book of travels and studies, to be published early in February is Mr. Henry Norman's long- promised work on the Far East. It will be called “The Peoples and Politics of the Far East,” and will contain a series of chapters on each territorial or ethnological division of that part of the world —the British Empire, France, Russia, Spain, and Portugal in the Far East; and China, Japan, FCorea, Siam, and Malaya. In all these places Mr. Norman spent a considerable time, and one part of the Far East which he explored has not been visited by any white man either before or since his journey. The book will contain sixty illustrations, chiefly from his own photographs, and four maps, and will be published in one large volume, probably at a guinea, by Mr. T. Fisher Unwin. Messrs. Bliss, Sands, and Foster, a very young firm of publishers, have hit upon a useful idea in their series to be called “Public Men of To-day.” The following are already in preparation :-Li Hung Chang, by Professor Robert K. Douglas ; the Right Hon. Cecil Rhodes, by Edward Dicey, C.B.; the Ameer, by S. E. Wheeler; the German Emperor, by Charles Lowe ; Senor Castelar, by David Hannay. Later on we shall have President Cleveland, Signor Crispi, Lord Cromer, and M. Stambuloff, The past month has been an eventful one for Theosophists, so far as the world of publishing is concerned. Not only have the Westminster Gazette and the Daily Chronicle treated the subject, but Dr. Walter Leaf has published, through Messrs. Dongmans, an abridged translation, on behalf of the Society for Psychical Research, of M. Solovyoff's book, “A Modern Priestess of Isis.” This, it need hardly be said, is an exposure of Mme. Blavatsky; while Mr. Arthur Lillie's “Mme. Blavatsky and her Theosophy,” published by Messrs. Swan Sonnenschein and Co., is another stout volume devoted to “the most suc- cessful creed-maker of the last three hundred years.” University men, both of this country and the United States, should read Dr. George Birkbeck Hill’s “Harvard College, by an Oxonian.” It is an admirable account of the great American University, and, considering that it is the work of a visitor, it is a marvel of research and insight. The American Press has praised it highly, and we are astonished to see it dismissed by the Athenæum in one line. A special word is due to the completion of Professor Skeat's Oxford edition of Chaucer. It is dangerous to prophesy finality for any work, but it hardly seems likely that any edition of Chaucer in English can supersede this ideal one. The last volume is the sixth, but there is still to be a supplementary volume containing “The Testament of Love,” and other works which have been generally attributed to Chaucer. Mr. Douglas Sladen's volume on Canada will appear during February. It is not a discussion of the political questions or economic prospects in Canada, but a picturesque description of Canada as a part of the imperial route round the world. That is, it will deal chiefly, we understand, with the Canada of the Canadian Pacific Railway.  ## p. 245 (#259) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 2.45 Messrs. Ward, Lock, and Bowden are the pub- lishers, and the book will be lavishly illus- trated. Two modern novels to appear during the coming month will be looked for with interest. One of them is “The Woman Who Did,” by Mr. Grant Allen, to be published by Mr. John Lane. Mr. Allen has hitherto consulted, in writing his fiction, what he has believed to be the taste of the public ; in this book he is under- stood to have consulted his own. He has been chaffed a good deal for having said that under present conditions of book-producing, a novelist was prevented from writing a work of art. In this book he has, we believe, defied the conven- tions sufficiently at all events to show his idea of a work of art in fiction, The curious title, by the way, is suggested by a conversation which occurs in the narrative, one man remarking that no woman would do such a thing, and the other retorting that he knew a woman who did. The second novel, called “Gallia,” by Miss Ménie Muriel Dowie, is the first book she has written since “A Girl in the Karpathians.” Gallia, the heroine, is the daughter of a Secre- tary of State for the Colonies, and the novel is a study of the character of one type of modern woman under such circumstances as those in which the life of his daughter would necessarily be spent. It is a one-volume novel, and will be published by Messrs. Methuen at 6s. The Queen has been pleased to accept the iatest volume of the new Sussex magazine, called Southward Ho / with a presentation poem by Mr. Charles William Dalmon. - Our readers will be interested to hear of some results of publishing one's own book that have just come to our knowledge. We are not at liberty at present to give the name of the book or the author, but we may say that it is a large volume, printed in admirable and almost lavish style, and sold by one of the first firms of London publishers for the author, on commission. The price is 18s., and the first edition, consisting of 1500 copies, has now practically been sold. The cost of production was, roughly, 3:300, and the net profit to the author, who has given away an extravagant number of copies, will be £300 also. In fact, his balance-sheet will be better than this, for the cost of production is rather less than we have stated, while the returns will even- tually be rather more. Ten per cent. On 1500 copies at 18s. would be £135. Verbum sap. A new style of literary advertisement has made its appearance this month. Mr. Fisher Unwin has issued a booklet, costing a shilling, called “Good Reading: About Many Books, mostly by their Authors.” It is, indeed, more than a booklet, for it contains 252 pages and upwards of forty portraits. The publisher has requested the authors of the principal books he has issued this season to send him an account of how, when, and why their book, &c., and they have responded liberally. Their contributions and photographs form the little volume. Among the contributors are John Oliver Hobbes, S. R. Crockett, Sir Chas. Gavan Duffy, Mrs. Bradlaugh Bonner, Dr. Jessopp, Swift MacNeill, M.P., W. M. Conway, Henry Norman, Grant Allen, J. J. Jusserand, Alfred Perceval Graves, Louis Becke, Richard Watson Gilder, and George R. Sims. The book is, of course, intended to advertise the wares of the firm, but many of his authors have paid their publishers the compliment of sending him long and interesting reminiscences. It is addressed “To the Booksellers,” to remind them how important it is that merely “cheap reading” should not oust “good reading ” from the home shelves. Good Words begins in its present issue a series of papers by Mr. John Murray, called “Some Authors I have known.” It is needless to remind our readers how many of the greatest modern authors Mr. John Murray has known, either as his own friends or his father's. Some day, perhaps, an author will write on “Some Publishers I have known.” Mr. John Lane announces “The Story of Venus and Tannhäuser,” by Mr. Aubrey Beardsley, with twenty full-page illustrations. The subject obviously lends itself to both the merits and the gross defects of Mr. Beardsley’s style, and we can only hope that for this occasion at least he will have chosen to fling away the worser half of his talent. - Messrs. Longumans and Co. have in preparation a volume by Mr. Wilfred Ward on “Cardinal Wiseman’s Life and Times,” to which Mr. Gladstone, Lord Acton, and Cardinal Vaughan will contribute. Mr. Ward's volumes on cognate personalities have been among the most interest- ing volumes of their class that have been published for many years. - Messrs. Macmillan announce a new series of “Illustrated Standard Novels,” attractively printed, and priced at 3s. 6d. Every novel will have a prefatory notice by a critic of distinction, and will contain some forty illustrations. Among the first announcements are : “Castle Rackrent ‘’ and “The Absentee,” by Maria Edgeworth, with introduction by Mrs. Thackeray Ritchie; “Japhet, in Search of a Father,” by Captain Marryat, introduction by David Hannay; “Tom Cringle's Dog,” by Michael Scott, introduction by  ## p. 246 (#260) ############################################ 246 THE AUTHOR. Mowbray Morris; “Maid Marian * and “Crotchet Castle,” by Thomas Love Peacock, introduction by George Saintsbury; “Lavengro.” by George Borrow, introduction by Augustine Birrell, M.P.; “Sense and Sensibility,” by Jane Austen, intro- duction by Austin Dobson. The month of February may possibly see the illustrated “Life and Correspondence” of the late Dante G. Rossetti. Messrs. Ellis and Elvey will publish the correspondence, which extends practically over Rossetti's entire lifetime. “A Year of Sport and Natural History,” edited by Mr. Oswald Crawfurd, and published by Messrs. Chapman and Hall at a guinea, will appear in February. It is to be a sort of Badminton Library in one volume, and will treat of shooting, hunting, fishing coursing, &c., classified according to the months of the year in which these sports are pursued. Mr. Sonnenschein’s “Supplement” to his well- known and indeed invaluable work on “The Best Reading ” is now due. It is unnecessary to speak of the importance of this work. Everybody who is engaged in research of any kind has constant recourse to it. Mr. Frankfort Moore, author of “A Grey Eye or So?’ and “I forbid the Banns,” is about to change the subject of his fiction. Messrs. EIutchinson and Co, announce for immediate publication a novel by him called “The Secret of the Court,” dealing with life in the East. The daughter of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Miss Margaret Benson, has written a small volume, illustrated by herself, of sketches and studies of animals in their domestic relations. It is entitled “Subject to Vanity,” and Messrs. Methuen are the publishers. The daughter of Lord Salisbury, by the way, Lady Gwendolen Cecil, is now stated to be the author of the ghost story, “The Closed Cabinet,” in last month’s Blackwood. Everybody who writes for the press should procure a copy of the tiny pamphlet called “Rules for Compositors and Readers,” compiled by Mr. Horace Hart, printer to the University of Oxford, and giving definite and technical instructions regarding spelling, punctuation, and type-setting of disputed and doubful words and expressions, founded upon the “New English Dictionary.” Mr. Hart offers to send a copy to any printer's reader who applies for one, but no doubt other people could secure copies by a very small pay- ment. It is in the highest degree desirable that such authoritative uniformity should be intro- duced into our books and newspapers. Mr. John Lane has issued privately a very charming reprint, by Messrs. T. and A. Constable, of Edinburgh, of the “Life of Sir Thomas Bodley, written by Himself,” after whom Mr. Lane has named his publishing house. In a preface he gives an account of the founding of his business with Mr. Mathews, and its development into its present form. M. Pierre Loti has just issued in Paris another of his dreamy descriptions of the East, under the title of “Le Désert.” Although it is not yet issued to the public, it bears upon its title-page the legend, “twenty-eighth edition.” The third volume of the complete “Edinburgh Stevenson " has just appeared. It is the second volume of the sub-division “Travels and Excur- sions.” - Mr. E. F. Knight, well known for his admirable book on the Pamirs, called “Where Three Empires Meet,” has published through Messrs. Longmans, at 2s. 6d., an interesting description of the condi- tion and prospects of Matabeleland and Mashona- land, under the title “Rhodesia of To-Day.” In it he promises a history of the Chartered Company. The principal books of the past month are:– “The Life and Correspondence of Sir Bartle Frere,” by Mr. John Martineau (2 vols.: Murray); the late Mr. Walter Pater’s “Greek Studies: a Series of Essays * (Macmillan); Mr. G. A. Sala's “Reminiscences” (2 vols. : Cassell); Mr. Percy Fitzgerald’s “Memoirs of an Author’’ (2 vols. : Bentley); Mr. Gosse's new edition of Smith's “Nollekens and His Times,” with an essay on Georgian Sculpture by the editor (Bentley); “Forty Years at the Post-office,” by Mr. F. E. Baines, C.B. (2 vols. : Bentley); Mr. Horatio F. Brown’s “John Addington Symonds " (2 vols. : Nimmo); volume II. of the “State Papers relating to the Defeat of the Spanish Armada,” edited by Professor Laughton for the Navy Records Society; “The Hillyars and the Burtons,” the second volume in the reprint of Henr Kingsley, edited by Mr. Clement Shorter (Ward, Lock, and Co.); and Mr. George Saintsbury's “Corrected Impressions: Essays on Victorian Writers ” (Heinemann). Mr. Edward Clodd, the President of the Folk- lore Society and of the Omar Khayyam Club, whose two little books on “The Childhood of the World” and “The Childhood of Religions” have been almost classics for years, will be represented among the authors of February by two new works of a similar size and character. The first, “A Primer of Evolution,” will be published by Messrs. Longmans; and the second, “The Story  ## p. 247 (#261) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 247 of Man,” will form one of a series in preparation for George Newnes Limited. The first of these affords an illustration of the practical working of the American Copyright Act, as it is being manufactured in America for the British market. “A Blameless Woman’’ is the title of John Strange Winter's next novel, to be published, in . one volume, at 6s., by Messrs. F. W. White and Co. early in February. It is by far the longest story that the author of “Bootle's Baby" has yet written, being her first novel of three- volume length. The story is mainly a study In marriage. Messrs. Ward, Lock, and Bowden, Limited, will publish innmediately a new volume by Mr. George Meredith, entitled “The Tale of Chloe ; and other Stories.” It will consist of the famous “Lost Stories” of Mr. Meredith, without which, Mr. J. M. Barrie has said, no edition of his works can pretend to be complete. The publishers will also issue an édition de luate of the same volume, beautifully printed on hand-made paper, and artistically bound, half-parchment. Price 25s. net. A unique feature of this large-paper edition is that it will contain as a frontispiece a recent privately taken portrait of Mr. Meredith, reproduced by the photogravure process by Messrs. Walker and Boutall; also a photogravure of the Châlet at Box Hill, where Mr. Meredith does the great part of his literary work. The edition, will consist of 250 numbered copies only for England and America. The author who writes under the name of “Hilarion ” has in the press a new book entitled “Greece : Her Hopes and Troubles.” A short story, entitled “Teddy,” by the same writer, appeared in the December number of “The Monthly Packet,” and his novel, “A Jersey Witch,” has been translated into Swedish, and is now running as a serial in Norra Skane one of the chief newspapers of Sweden, in which “Gräfin Kinsky,” also by “Hilarion,” appeared some time ago. The author of “A Forgotten Great English- man,” Mr. James Baker, is about to contribute a series of articles upon Egypt to some important journals, and has just left England for that country. He sailed on the 12th ult. from Plymouth by the ss. Austral. Sir William Charley, Q.C., D.C.L., has just published (Sampson Low, Marston, and Com- pany) a historical vindication of the House of Lords, which should be read by everybody interested in the subject—by those who defend the House of Lords, and by those who wish to pull it down ; the former will find arguments, the latter will learn to moderate their statements. It is, indeed, astonishing how loose and ignorant is the common kind of talk about the House of Lords. What is claimed to be the most complete history of modern art which has ever been attempted, will shortly be published by Messrs. Henry and Co. It is from the pen of Dr. Richard Muther, keeper of the Royal collection of prints and engravings at Munich, and will be a work of considerably over two thousand pages. The title will be “The History of Modern Painting.” The story opens with the English art of the eighteenth century, and treats at length of the English painters and illustrators of the present century. France, Germany, Belgium, Denmark, Holland, Italy, Norway, Sweden, and Spain occupy a share of the author's space ; America and American painters living abroad come in for due notice ; and even the influence of Japan on European art has not been overlooked. The work will be profus-ly illustrated. It will be issued both in parts and volumes. “The Old Pastures” is the pleasant and attractive title given by Mrs. Leith Adams to her new serial story, which will begin in House- hold Words On Jan. 26 In the sonnet by the Rev. John Lascelles, quoted in our last number, there is an error. In the last line, “and stooped and kissed the dust” should be “and stooped and kissed my dust.” Mr. Headon Hill, the author of “The Rajah's Second Wife, &c., is correcting the proofs of a new volume of short stories shortly to be issued by Messrs. Ward, Lock, and Bowden Limited. The same author has also just completed and delivered a serial novel, written to the order of Mr. C. Arthur Pearson, of Pearson's Weekly, which will commence in August, and run through twenty issues of that journal. The “Confessions of a Poet’” (Hutchinson and Co.), by Prof. Harald Williams, is a volume of verse, the third volume which this poet has pro- duced. Most modern poets appear with a little dainty volume of tiny poems. Prof. Williams comes with a volume of closely printed lines, 500 pages in length. We cannot in these pages review it as it deserves, but those of our readers who buy and read new books of verse we recom- mend to make a note of this, and not to be deterred by its length. Mr. Percival H. Almy will produce imme- diately a volume of verse called “Scintilla Carminis.” The publisher is Mr. Elliot Stock. The price of the work will be 3s. 6d.  ## p. 248 (#262) ############################################ 248 THE AUTHOR. AN AMERICAN TRIBUTE TO STEVENSON. (From the New York Daily Tribune, Jan. 5.) HE Robert Louis Stevenson memorial meeting at Music Hall last night proved to be a worthily appropriate expression of . the grief that the death of the great romancer has caused among his numerous readers and friends in this city. On the stage were the president of the evening, Edmund Clarence Stedman, and most of the vice-presidents, among whom were included: William Dean Howells, Frank R. Stockton, Laurence Hutton, Professor George Woodberry, Moncure D. Conway, David Christie Murray, Joseph B. Gilder, Brander Matthews, Professor William M. Sloane, Richard Watson Gilder, FI. C. Brunner, Charles A. Dana, Professor T. R. Lounsbury, William Winter, Rudyard Kipling, Richard Henry Stoddard, George W. Cable, E. L. Godkin, Henry Marquand, Professor Francis H. Stoddard. George Parsons Lathrop, Edward Eggleston, Walter H. Page, and many others. Mr. Stedman’s address was as follows: “Such an assemblage—in the chief city in the Western World—is impressive from the fact that we have not come together for any civic, or political, or academic purpose. I have been thinking of its significance in view of con- siderations quite apart from the sorrowful cause of our gathering. But of these this is not the time to speak. On its face, this demonstration is a rare avowal of the worth of literary invention. It shows a profound regard for the career of a writer who delighted us, a sense of loss instan- taneously awakened by the news of his death. For the moment we realise how thoroughly art and song and letters have become for us an essential part of life—a common ground where- upon we join our human love and laughter and tears, and at times forego all else to strew laurel and myrtle for one who has moved us to these signs and emotions. Yes, we are brought together by tidings, almost from the Antipodes, of the death of a beloved writer in his early prime. The work of a romancer and poet, of a man of insight and feeling, which may be said to have begun but fifteen years ago, has ended, through fortune's sternest cyllicism, just as it seemed entering upon even more splendid achievement. A star surely rising, as we thought, has suddenly gone out. A radiant invention shines no more ; the voice is hushed of a creative mind, expressing its fine inaginings in this, our peerless English tongue. His expression was so original and fresh from Nature's treasure-house, so prodigal and various its too brief flow, so consummate through an inborn gift made perfect by unsparing toil, that mastery of the art by which Robert Louis Stevenson conveyed those imaginings to us so picturesque, yet wisely ordered, his own romantic life—and now, at last, so pathetic a loss which rene WS The Virgilian cry The sense of tears in mortal things that this assemblage has gathered at the first summons in tribute to a beautiful genius, and to avow that with the putting out of that bright intelligence the reading world experiences a more than wonted grief. Stevenson was not of our own people, though he sojourned with us and knew our con- tinent from east to west as few of this large audience can know it. But a British author now, by statutory edict, is of our own. Certainly his fame is often made by the American people—yes, and sometimes unmade. Theirs is the great amphitheatrum. They are the ultimate court of review. All the more we are here “for the honour of literature;” and so much the more it is mani- fest that the writer who lightens our hearts, who takes us into some new wonderland of his dis- covery, belongs, as I say, to the world. His name and fame are, indeed, a special glory of the country that bore him, and a vantage to his native tongue. But by just so much as his gift is absolute, and therefore universal, he belongs in the end to the world at large. Above all, it is the recounter—and the Greeks were clear-headed in deeming him a maker, whether his story be cast in prose or verse—who becomes the darling of mankind. This has been so whether among the Grecian isles, or around the desert camp fires, or in the gardens of Italy; and is so when he brings us his romance, as in our modern day, from Our Pacific Eldorado, or from Indian barracks and jungle, or from the land of the Stuarts, or, like Stevenson and our own Melville before him, from palm-fringed beaches of the Southern Sëa,S. Judged by the sum of his interrupted work, Stevenson had his limitations. But the work was adjusted to the scale of a possibly long career. As it was, the good fairies brought all gifts, save that of health, to his cradle, and the gift-spoiler wrapped them in a shroud. Thinking of what his art seemed leading to—for things that would be the crowning efforts of other men seemed prentice-work in his case—it was not safe to bound his limitations. And now it is as if Sir Walter, for example, had died at forty-four, with the Waverley novels just begun. In originality, in the conception of action and situation, which, however fantastic, are seemingly within reason, once we breathe the air of his Fancyland; in the  ## p. 249 (#263) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 249 union of bracing and heroic character and adven- ture; in all that belongs to tale-writing pure and simple, his gift was exhaustless. No other such charmer, in this wise, has appeared in this gene- ration. We thought the stories, the fairy tales, had all been told, but “Once upon a time” meant for him our own time, and the grave and gay magic of Prince Florizel in dingy London or Sunny France. All this is but one of his provinces, however distinctive. Besides, how he buttressed his romance with apparent truth ! Since Defoe, none had a better right to say: “There was one thing I determined to do when I began this long story, and that was to tell out everything as it befell.” One or two points are made clear as we look at the shining calendar of Stevenson's productive years. It strengthens one in the faith that work of the first order cannot remain obscure. If put forth unheralded it will be found out and will make its way. In respect of dramatic force, exuberant fancy and ceaselessly varying imagination, on the one hand, and on the other of a style wrought in the purest, most virile and most direct temper of English narrative prose, there has been no latter- day writing more effective than that of Stevenson's longer fictions—“Kidnapped,” with its sequel, “David Balfour; ” “The Master of Ballantrae,” and that most poetic of absolute romances, “Prince Otto.” But each of his shorter tales as well, and of his essays — charged with indi- viduality —has a quality, an air of distinction, which, even though the thing appeared without signature, differentiated it from other people's best, set us to discovering its authorship, and made us quick to recognise that master-hand elsewhere. Thus I remember delighting in two fascinating stories of Paris in the time of Francois Willon, anonymously reprinted by a New York paper from a London magazine. They had all the quality, all the distinction, of which I speak. Shortly after- ward I met Mr. Stevenson, then in his twenty- ninth year, at a London club, where we chanced to be the only loungers in an upper room. To my surprise he opened a conversation—you know there could be nothing more unexpected than that in London—and thereby I guessed that he was as much, if not as far, away from home as I was. He asked many questions concerning “the States; ” in fact, this was but a few months before he took his steerage passage for our shores. I was drawn to the young Scotsman at once. He seemed more like a New Englander of Holmes's Brahmin caste, who might have come from Harvard or Yale. But as he grew animated I thought, as others have thought, and as one would suspect from his name, that he must have Scandinavian blood in his veins—that he was of the heroic, restless, strong and tender Viking strain, and certainly from that day his works and wanderings have not belied the surmise. He told me that he was the author of that charming book of gipsying in the Cevennes, which just then had gained for him some attentions from the literary set. But if I had known that he had written those two stories of sixteenth century Paris—as I learned afterwards when they reappeared in the “New Arabian Nights” —I would not have bidden him goodbye as to an “unfledged comrade,” but would have wished indeed to “grapple him to my soul with hooks of steel.” Another point is made clear as crystal by his life itself. He had the instinct, and he had the courage, to make it the servant, and not the master, of the faculty within him. I say he had the courage, but so potent was his birth-spell that doubtless he could not otherwise. Nothing commonplace sufficed him. A regulation stay-at- home life would have been fatal to his art. The ancient mandate, “ Follow thy Genius,” was well obeyed. Unshackled freedom of person and habit was a pre-requisite; as an imaginary artist he felt—Nature keeps her poets and story-tellers children to the last—he felt, if he ever reasoned it out, that he must gang his own gait, whether it seemed promising, or the reverse, to kith, kin, or alien. So his wanderings were not only in the most natural but in the wisest consonance with his creative dreams. Wherever he went, he found something essential for his use, breathed upon it, and returned it fourfold in beauty and worth. The longing of the Norseman for the tropic, of the pine for the palm, took him to the South Seas. There, too, strange secrets were at Once revealed to him, and every island became an “Isle of Voices.” Yes, an additional proof of Stevenson's artistic mission lay in his careless, careful, liberty of life; in that he was an artist no less than in his work. He trusted to the impulse which possessed him—that which so many of us have conscientiously disobeyed, and too late have found themselves in reputable bondage to circumstances. But those whom you are waiting to hear will speak more fully of all this—some of them with the interest of their personal remembrance— with the strength of their affection for the man beloved by young and old. In the strange and sudden intimacy with an author's record which death makes sure, we realise how notable is the list of Stevenson's works produced since 1878; more than a score of books—not fiction alone, but also essays, criticism, biography, drama, even history, and, as I need not remind you, that spontaneous  ## p. 250 (#264) ############################################ 250 THE AUTHOR. poetry which comes only from a true poet. None can have failed to observe that, having recreated the story of adventure, he seemed in his later fiction to interfuse a subtler purpose— the search for character, the analysis of mind and soul. Just here his summons came. Between the sunrise of one day and the sunset of the next he exchanged the forest study for the mountain grave. There, as he had sung his own wish, he lies “under the wide and starry sky.” If there was something of his own romance, so exquisitely capricious, in the life of Robert Louis Stevenson, so, also, the poetic conditions are satisfied in his death, and in the choice of his burial-place upon the top of Pala. As for the splendour of that maturity upon which we counted, now never to be fulfilled on sea or land, I say—as once before, when the great New- England romancer passed in the stillness of the night: What though his work unfinished lies P The rainbow’s arch fades out in upper air ; The shiming cataract half-way down the height Breaks into mist; the haunting strain, that fell On listeners unaware, Ends incomplete, but through the starry night The ear still waits for what it did not tell. Half bent *- As 2-se r- - -e CORRESPONDENCE I.—How LONG TO WAIT P J. OUILD not all editors agree upon a certain C set of rules, such as these ? All MSS. to be sent with stamped addressed envelopes, months allowed for reading and decision. A proof sent upon accept- ance, and the MS. paid for at the end of the month (or some other given time). Where MSS. are not returned let a certain time be stated, after which the author may conclude that his work is cremated; or, when rejected MSS. are not returned, let it be noted that acceptance will be notified to the author within a given time, otherwise he may conclude that the MS. is destroyed. It certainly is a grievance that authors have no means of ascertaining how long they must wait for news, good or bad, of their MSS., or when they are to consider that, having a copy, they may sent it elsewhere. * II. “If I send a contribution to a paper which declines to return rejected communications, how am I to know whether it is relegated to the waste paper basket or reserved for future use? And am I at liberty, after a month say, to offer my jeu d'esprit elsewhere, or must it be lost for ever ??” [There is no custom by which a contributor may be guided in such a case. The best way would be (1) always to keep a copy; (2) to write, after a month or so, and inform the editor that the author of such a paper will send it to another editor unless he hears that it is accepted. A copy of this letter should be kept.] II.-A MEMORIAL TO ROBERT Louis STEVENSON. I wish to call your attention to the following letter, which appeared in the Westminster Gazette of the 17th ult., in reference to a memorial to Robert Louis Stevenson. As “a rider” to the letter, may I suggest that a committee be at once formed, say, of half a dozen or more, of the best living names in literature, to discuss and carry out the scheme, which I think must commend itself to the followers of literature and to the public. Will you, Sir, set the ball still further rolling P THOMAS R. MACQUOID. The Edge, Tooting Common. Robert Louis Stevenson’s inimitable work will keep his memory green ; but his countless readers owe him for this work a large debt of gratitude, which they are bound to pay to his memory. This tribute, I think, should be paid not in the form of a statue or of any work of art, but rather by the founding of some institution connected with literature—which has been made so much richer by this master's work. Will not some of our leading authors and others form a committee to carry out this idea, and when a sufficient sum is collected to determine on the nature of the memorial P It seems to me a large sum would soon be raised, even by small contributions, from Stevenson’s admirers. THOMAS R. MACQUOID. The Edge, Tooting Common, Jan. I5. III.-A WHOLE ARTICLE QUOTED. Some years ago, my friend, the editor of the North China Daily News at Shanghai, requested me to write for him an account of a visit paid by me to Lord Tennyson at Farringford House, Freshwater. The article was published in due course, and the editor sent me a few reprints of it in proof form, which I have kept by me ever Sll) Ce, One evening last December I happened to take up a copy of Galignani’s Messenger. Conceive my astonishment at finding in it my own article headed “Reminiscences of Tennyson,” and intro- duced by a statement that “A correspondent sends us the following interesting account of a  ## p. 251 (#265) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 25 I visit,” &c. l I immediately wrote to the editor claiming the article as my own, inclosing slips of the original reprint from the North China Daily News, signed B., together with my card, and requesting the insertion of my protest. No notice whatever was taken, After waiting more than a week I wrote again, with precisely the same result. Now, if the editor of Galignani’s Messenger had been duped by his “correspondent,” he would surely have lost no time in exposing the fact, and doing justice to the real author. As he did not do so, am I unreasonable in attributing his dis- courtesy to the very possible fact that my article was simply “conveyed ” to the columns of the Messenger in his own office, and that his obliging “Correspondent,” is a myth? FREDERIC H. BALFOUR. Willa, Carlandrea, San Remo, Jan. 1895. Since the above was written, the following paragraph has appeared in Galignani : We are requested to state that Mr. Frederic H. Balfour, formerly of Shanghai, was the author of the interesting article entitled “Reminiscences of Tennyson,” published in our columns on the 26th ult. This explanation explains nothing. It does not acknowledge the fact that the paper was taken from the North China Daily News, and it makes it appear as if Mr. Balfour had sent the article to the Messenger. IV.-AMERICAN REPRINTs. The other day a friend, who has occasion to see some of the American papers, saw in one of them the announcement of a New York publisher offer- ing several recent successful English novels at 20 cents, a copy. He wrote for four—“The Yellow Aster,” “Dodo,” “Esther Waters,” and another. I told him he had thrown his money away, but, much to my astonishment, he has just received the books. They have come through the post in an ordinary wrapper. One would like to know (1) whether this sort of thing is done to any extent; (2) whether there is any way of stopping H. J. A. it. W.—EARLY EDITIONS OF By RoN. May I ask through the columns of the Author if first or early editions of Byron's works are scarce or of any value P I have what appears to be a first edition of “The Prisoner of Chillon,” in a brown paper cover, and published in 1816. It contains an advertisement “Published this day, in 8vo., 5s. 6d., a Third Canto of ‘Childe FIarold.’” With “The Prisoner of Chillon’’ are published a “Sonnet,” “Stanzas to —,” 5 “Darkness,” “Churchill's Grave,” “The Dream,” “The Incantation,” and “Prometheus.” I have also editions of “The Bride of Abydos,” and “The Giaour;” the former a second edition, the latter a fifth, published in 1813. In my edition of “Mazeppa,” which appears with “The Ode to Venice,” there is appended a weird story in prose called “A Fragment,” and dated June 17, 1816. It deals with a strange and mysterious incident, which would seem to have happened to Lord Byron himself, as it is told in his own person. I should like to know if this “Fragment” is generally bound up with Lord Byron's poems ? It is not to be found in a complete edition which I have. I do not remember seeing it anywhere else than at the end of this poem of “ Mazeppa,” printed in 1810. # may be that some readers of the Author may be able and willing to give the information I seek. CHARLES D. BELL. The Rectory, Cheltenham, Jan. I I, I895. VI.-IIITERARY PENSIONs. Would it be going outside the province of the Author, or I may say the Society of Authors, if they strive to bring before Parliament the question of literary pensions, both as regards the inadequacy of the amount at present distributed and the way it is apportioned P This matter has been forcibly brought to my mind through the call at my office some time back of a technical writer asking for a donation owing to his destitute circumstances. This gentleman some years ago wrote several impor- tant engineering books, which were accepted as standard works, and I have no hesitation in saying that they have been of absolute money value, not only to this country but to the world at large. Owing to the necessarily limited circu- lation of purely technical works it is impossible for the writers thereof to make much money directly from them, and if they have no other vocation they may, if lucky, develop into a technical publisher's literary hack—if not, starve, In a wealthy country like England the amount set apart for literary pensions, and for helping such cases as I have described, appears to me to be absolutely beggarly, and a standing disgrace when we bear in mind the vast sums that are annually lavished in other ways. Is there no way of altering this, or at any rate trying to ? M. PowIS BALE. *º-º-º-º-e  ## p. 252 (#266) ############################################ 252 THE AUTHOR. VII.-REVIEWING. I trust you will not consider it an impertinence on my part in writing to you upon a subject which, after all, has some importance with respect to the vast reading community of England. I mean the art of criticism, and more particularly that section of it which has to do with modern fiction. It is a custom in these days, in lieu of careful and legitimate criticism, to provide a mere summary of a book, to lay bare the plot and motive of the story—the very soul and nervous system. To illustrate my point I will refer only to “The Manxman,” the thorough appreciation of which has been quite spoilt for me owing to the fact that I have already gathered from certain newspaper reviews of the story, a concise précis thereof, and in this case one's chagrin and disappointment is especially keen, because “The Manxman ’’ is unquestionably one of the noblest efforts in fiction of the present generation. Now this certainly seems to me utterly unfair, both to the author and his readers, for it must, to some extent at all events, detract from the popularity and kudos that would otherwise accrue to the former, as it very certainly lessens the ardour and interest of the latter, who is forewarned of every turn of event, and consequently misses one half of the interest in the development of character and plot as the story progresses. Surely, it is not beyond the wit of man to estimate a novel, to decide upon its quality and claims for popular favour, and so forth, without undraping and laying bare its very skeleton. *- a -º a- - - THE LATE JOHN O'NEILL, E have to record the death of a member of the Society who took the deepest interest in its work, and has from time to time communicated papers of great interest to these columns. Only a few days before his death he offered the editor a collection of notes on literary matters. The following notice of his life and work is from the Times of Jan. 2 I : Mr. John O'Neill, who died a few days ago at Selling, in Kent, was a man of rare and recondite erudition. He began his career in the War Office, where his ability caused him to be often selected for difficult work lying outside the routine of the department. After retiring on his pension he was selected by the Foreign Office as Accountant- General to the newly appointed British Govern- ment of Cyprus. He solved to the complete satisfaction of Sir Garnet Wolseley, the first Governor, the difficult problem of evolving order out of the complicated fiscal difficulties left by the Ottoman administration of the island. Eleven different currencies had to be dealt with and reduced to a common denomination, without injury to the revenues, to commerce, or private interests, and this task Mr. O'Neill most success- fully achieved. Endowed with an exceptional faculty for mastering languages, he made a special study of Japanese, and the grammar he compiled in that difficult tongue was adopted by the Government of the Mikado when the work of reconstituting the educational system of Japan was resolved upon. For many years Mr. O'Neill was a constant contributor to philological and literary journals in London and Paris; he was a recognised authority on Provençal literature and the Provençal languge, as well as on the medieval literature of France. Recently he published, through Mr. Quaritch, the first volume of “The Night of the Gods,” a work in which he em- bodied the results of his lifelong study of the origins of religions, not only among the Aryan and Semitic races, but among the Chinese, Japa- nese, and Mexicans. The second and concluding volume of this work is in the press, and will shortly be published. *– 2 --> -* THE REWARDS OF LITERATURE. I have just heard from Smith and Elder about the publication of my two volumes on the Catholic Revival. They offer me 3150. In respect to “Renaissance in Italy,” I have already received £950. When, then, I have brought out these two volumes, I shall have had in all 31 IOO for this long bit of work. Allowing for periods in which I was unfit to work, periods in which I sought a change of work, I find that I have spent eleven years upon this task, and pretty hard years of daily labour. The education which enabled me to attempt it was a very costly one, and the abilities which qualified me for it, though not first-rate, were at least unusual in their combination of many-sided intelligence with acquired knowledge and literary style. I have then been paid at the rate of £100 per annum; but I must deduct at least £50 per annum from my gains for books and travel, quite indispensable to the production. This I reckon as really far below the just allowance. Say, then, I have received £50 a year during the eleven best years of life for the eaecution of a laborious work, which implied an earpensive educa- tion and unusual cast of intellect. The pay is about equal to the wages of a third-class merchant's clerk or a second class butler, the latter being also found in food and lodging.—From the “Life of John Addington Symons. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Author, Vol. 05 Issue 09 (February 1895) Subject The topic of the resource <em>The Author</em>, Vol. 05 Issue 09 (February 1895) Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015013732253" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015013732253</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Publication Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1895-02-01-The-Author-5-9 publications The Author https://historysoa.com/files/original/5/274/1895-03-01-The-Author-5-10.pdf efcac77e173a2024aa3762755a6c12ad PDF Text Text ���������������������������� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Author Subject The topic of the resource <em>The Author</em> Description An account of the resource A digitised run of the Society of Authors' monthly periodical, <em>The Author</em>, 1890<span>–</span>1914, made available together for the first time.<br /><br />Currently users can browse issues and <a href="https://historysoa.com/items/browse?search=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Index&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;tags=&amp;exhibit=&amp;date_search_term=&amp;submit_search=Search+For+Items&amp;sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CTitle">indices</a> (not available for all volumes). Full text search for all issues, and other additional search functionality, will be added in 2022. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1890–1914 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context The-Author-Issues Publication Date The date of an event (in YYYY, YYYY-MM or YYYY-MM-DD format) 1895-03-01 Volume 5 Issue 10 Pages Page range in volume 253–280 Ngram Date Version of the date in YYYYMMDD format for use by the Ngram plugin 18950301 Ngram Text Version of the text with no HTML formatting for use by the Ngram plugin C be El u t b or, (The Organ of the Incorporated Society of Authors. Monthly.) CON DUCTED BY WALTER BES ANT. VoI. V.-No. 10.] MARCH 1, 1895. [PRICE SIxPENCE. For the Opinions earpressed in papers that are signed or initialled the Authors alone are responsible. None of the papers or para- graphs must be taken as earpressing the collective opinions of the committee unless they are officially signed by G. Herbert Thring, Sec. 3- ~ * = * *-es 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. *— 2- --" * * *-*. WARNINGS AND ADVICE, I . RAWING THE AGREEMENT.-It is not generally understood that the author, as the vendor, has the absolute right of drafting the agreement upon whatever terms the transaction is to be carried out. . . Authors are strongly advised to exercise that right. In , , every form of business, this among others, the right of drawing the agreement rests with him who sells, leases, or has the control of the property. 2. SERIAL RIGHTS.—In selling Serial Rights remember that you may be selling the Serial Right for all time; that is, the Right to continue the production in papers. If you object to this, insert a clause to that effect. . 3. STAMP YOUR AGREEMENTS. – Readers are mos URGENTLY warned not to neglect stamping their agreements immediately after signature. If this precaution is neglected for two weeks, a fine of £10 must be paid before the agree- ment can be used as a legal document. In almost every case brought to the secretary the agreement, or the letter which serves for one, is forwarded without the stamp. The author may be assured that the other party to the agree- ment seldom neglects this simple precaution. The Society, to save trouble, undertakes to get all the agreements of members stamped for them at no expense to themselves . eacept the cost of the stamp. WOL. V. 4. ASCERTAIN WHAT A PROPOSED AGREEMENT GIVEs To BOTH SIDES BEFORE SIGNING IT.-Remember that an arrangement as to a joint venture in any other kind of busi- ness whatever would be instantly refused should either party refuse to show the books or to let it be known what share he reserved for himself. 5. LITERARY 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. 6. COST OF PRODUCTION.--Never sign any agreement of which the alleged cost of production forms an integral part, until you have proved the figures. - 7. CHOICE OF PUBLISHERS.–Never enter into any cor- respondence with publishers, especially with those who ad- vertise for MSS., who are not recommended by experienced friends or by this Society. 8. FUTURE WORK.—Never, on any account whatever, bind yourself down for future work to anyone. 9. PERSONAL RISK.—Never accept any pecuniary risk or responsibility whatever without advice. IO. REJECTED MSS.—Never, when a MS. has been re- fused by respectable houses, pay others, whatever promises they may put forward, for the production of the work. II. AMERICAN RIGHTS.—Never sign away American rights. Keep them by special clause. Refuse to sign any agreement containing a clause which reserves them for the publisher, unless for a substantial consideration. 12. CESSION OF COPYRIGHT.-Never sign any paper, either agreement or receipt, which gives away copyright, without advice. 13. ADVERTISEMENTS.--Keep some control over the advertisements, if they affect your returns, by a clause in the agreement. 14. NEVER forget that publishing is a business, like any other business, totally unconnected with philanthropy, charity, or pure love of literature. You have to do with business men. Be yourself a business man. * Society’s Offices — - 4, PORTUGAL STREET, LINCOLN's INN FIELDs. HOW TO USE THE SOCIETY. I. VERY member has a right to ask for and to receive advice upon his agreements, his choice of a pub. lisher, or any dispute arising in the conduct of his business or the administration of his property. If the advice -- A. A 2  ## p. 254 (#268) ############################################ 254 THE AUTHOR. 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. 2:3. Send-to the office copies of past agreements and past accounts with the loan of the books represented. This is in order to ascertain what has been the nature of your agree- ments, and the results to author and publisher respectively so far. The Secretary will always be glad to have any agreements, new or old, for inspection and note. The infor- mation thus obtained may prove invaluable. 4. If the examination of your previous business trans- actions by the Secretary proves unfavourable, you should take advice as to a change of publishers. 5. Before signing any agreement whatever, send the pro- posed document to the Society for examination. 6. The Society is acquainted with the methods, and—in the case of fraudulent houses—the tricks of every publish- ing firm in the country. 7. Remember always that in belonging to the Society you are fighting the battles of other writers, even if you are reaping no benefit to yourself, and that you are advancing the best interests of literature in promoting the indepen- dence of the writer. 8. Send to the Editor of the Author notes of everything important to literature that you may hear or meet with. - 9. The committee have now arranged for the reception of members’ agreements and their preservation in a fireproof safe. The agreements will, of course, be regarded as con- fidential documents to be read only by the Secretary, who will keep the key of the safe. The Society now offers :-(I) To read and advise upon agreements and publishers. (2) To stamp agreements in readiness for a possible action upon them. (3) To keep agreements. (4) To enforce payments due according to agreements. . *-- ~ *-* •- THE AUTHORS, SYNDICATE. i / TEMBERS are informed : - 1. That the Authors' Syndicate takes charge of the business of members of the Society. That it submits MSS. to publishers and editors, concludes agree- ments, examines, passes, and collects accounts, and, gene- rally, relieves members of the trouble of managing business details. - 2. That the terms upon which its services can be secured will be forwarded upon detailed application. 3. That the Authors' Syndicate works only for those members of the Society whose work possesses a market value. 4. That the Syndicate can only undertake any negotiations whatever on the distinct understanding that those negotia- tions are placed ea clusively in its hands, and that all communications relating thereto are referred to it. 5. That clients can only be seen by the Director by appointment, and that, when possible, at least two days' notice should be given. . . . - 6. That every attempt is made to deal with all communi- cations promptly..., That stamps should, in all cases, be sent to defray postage. * * - - - - - - - - - *, * 7. That the Authors' Syndicate does not invite MSS. without previous correspondence ; does not hold itself responsible for MSS. forwarded without notice; and that in all cases MSS. must be accompanied by stamps to defray postage. 8. That the Syndicate undertakes arrangements for lectures by some of the leading members of the Society; that it has a “Transfer Department ’’ for the sale and purchase of journals and periodicals; and that a “Register of Wants and Wanted ” is open. Members are invited to communicate their requirements to the Manager. There is an Honorary Advisory Committee, whose services will be called upon in any case of dispute or difficulty. It is perhaps necessary to state that the members of the Advisory Committee have no pecuniary interest whatever in the Syndicate. - 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. r - The Editor is always glad to receive short papers and communications on all subjects connected with literature from members and others. Nothing can do more good to the Society than to make the Awthor complete, attractive, and interesting. Will those who are willing to aid in this work send their names and the special subjects on which they are willing to write P Communications for the Author should reach the Editor not later than the 21st of each month. All persons engaged in literary work of any kind, whether members of the Society or not, are invited to communicate to the Editor any points connected with their work which it would be advisable in the general interest to publish. Members and others who wish their MSS. read are requested not to send them to the Office without previously eommunicating 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. w The Authors’ Club is now open in its new premises, at 3, Whitehall-court, Charing Cross. Address the Secretary for information, rules of admission, &c. Will members take the trouble to ascertain whether they have paid their subscriptions for the year P If they will do this, and remit the amount, if still unpaid, or a banker’s order, it will greatly assist the Secretary, and save him the trouble of sending out a reminder. - - - Members are most earnestly entreated to attend to the warning numbered (8). It is a most foolish and may be a most disastrous thing to enter into an agreement binding for a term of years. Let them ask themselves if they would give a solicitor the collection of their rents for five years to come, whatever his conduct, whether he was honest or dishonest P Of course they would not. Why then hesitate for a moment when they are asked to sign them- selves into literary bondage for three or five years P Those who possess the “Cost of Production” are requested to note that the cost of binding has advanced 15 per cent. This means, for those who do not like the trouble  ## p. 255 (#269) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 255 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 £948. 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. *= a -ºr wº- - - THE GENERAL MEETING OF THE SOCIETY, HE General Meeting of the Society of Authors was held on Monday, Feb. 25, at 4.30 p.m., in the rooms of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society, at 20, Hanover- square. Mr. W. Martin Conway took the chair, and amongst those of the committee and council to support him were Mr. Hall Caine, Mr. Rider Haggard, Mr. Anthony Hope, Mr. W. E. H. Lecky, Mr. J. M. Lely, and Mr. E. Clodd. Mr. Conway stated that as the report had been circulated to all the members of the Society he would take it as read, but would be glad to hear if any of the members present had any sugges- tions to make, or anything to say on the matter. He further stated that the work done by the Society had been very satisfactory. They had settled virtually IOO cases during the past year, and had elected 233 new members. Mr. Stuart-Glennie proposed that there should be a more detailed statement of account in the next year's report, and Mr. Conway replied that he would gladly put the matter before the Com- mittee at their next meeting. The report was then unanimously approved by the meeting. Mr. Hall Caine was then called upon to propose the following resolution :-‘‘That in the opinion of this meeting of the members of the Incor- porated Society of Authors the Canadian Copy- right Act is unjust and impracticable, and calculated to affect injuriously the interests of all authors.” Mr. Hall Caine stated his diffidence in speaking on such a subject before the meeting, as authors were more at home with the pen. He, however, pointed out what had been the legisla- tion of all civilised countries with regard to the matter of copyright. That the property of authors had after many years of considerable struggle been recognised universally to be distinct and apart from any trade considerations. Then he proceeded to point out the danger of Canada obtaining the Royal Assent to the Copy- right Bill in its present condition, and finally summed up by saying that he thought all authors should bind together to oppose the passing of the Act. - Mr. Rider Haggard seconded the resolution; discussing shortly the provisions of the Canadian Act, and pointing out the impracticability of its working. Mr. W. Oliver Hodges, who acted on behalf of the society in conjunction with the Secretary on the General Committee which was summoned. last year to consider the question of Canadian copyright, pointed out the fallacy of the licensing clause in the Canadian Act, and how unsatis- factory the collection of the royalties had been in past years. Mr. W. E. H. Lecky also spoke of the necessity of energetic action, as it was understood that the Royal assent would be given, if at all, within the next four weeks. After short speeches on the subject by several other members, the motion was put and unani- mously carried. t Mr. Stuart-Glennie then rose to bring forward the following resolution: “That the executive of the Society be now instructed to take more vigorous action in ascertaining, defending, and enlarging the rights of authors; and that a special committee be appointed to report to the Society with reference to such more vigorous action.” He referred as one of his reasons to his own case which had been before the committee during the past year. He stated, however, that he did not mean to bring the motion forward as a vote of censure on the committee. Mr. Bigelow seconded the motion on Mr. Glennie's behalf. As the Chairman (Mr. Conway) considered that the action of the Committee of the Society had been called into question, he asked the solicitors of the Society to make a short statement in defence of the action of the committee. - Mr. Emery, the Society's solicitor, pointed out how it had been impossible to take up Mr. Glennie's case; that the Society had on two separate occasions taken legal advice on the sub- ject, and finally put the issues at stake from a statement of facts prepared by Mr. Glennie's and the Society solicitors before counsel; that counsel had given it as his opinion that Mr. Glennie could not succeed. Under the circumstances, therefore, the action of the committee had been thoroughly  ## p. 256 (#270) ############################################ 256 THE AUTHOR. justified, and there was no cause for blaming the committee. Mr. Rider Haggard then moved the rejection of the motion on the grounds of the facts stated by the solicitors, and he further pointed out that Mr. Glennie's motion virtually amounted to a vote of censure on the committee. Mr. Haggard's amendment was seconded by Mr. Douglas Sladen. - There were various other speakers, who all seemed to coincide with the opinion of Mr. Haggard that Mr. Glennie's motion amounted to a vote of censure on the committee. - Mr. Bigelow rose and stated that he had no idea in seconding the motion that a vote of Censure had been intended. Mr. Haggard’s amendment rejecting the reso- lution was then put, and was carried with but One dissentient. The proceedings then terminated. -** * LITERARY PROPERTY. I.—MUSICAL PUBLISHING. \PIE musical composer, like the dramatist, but unlike the author, has two rights in his work, the copyright and the performing right. He ought, therefore, if his work were pro- perly managed, to have two sources of income, but this is not the case. - The musical composer, like the author in the past, seems to be absolutely ignorant of his rights, and is still in shackles, bound hand and foot. The perusal of many of the musical publishers' agreements in all their varieties clearly shows this. And the case is more disastrous, as the performing right and the copyright might be of great value, both being good properties, whereas for the dramatic writer the performing right is virtually his only pro- perty, and for the author of literary wares his copyright. As a matter of fact, the musical composer recklessly assigns away both his rights to the publisher in absolute ignorance of their value. What does he get in return ? For the performing right nothing, and even the publisher very seldom uses what might be a good property. This abandonment of valuable property has been going on for so long that it has almost become a recognised custom. It is not, however, too late to change the procedure, but the difficulty is for the composer to bring about this alteration. If he endeavours to do so, he is met by alternative answers from the publisher: (I) A willingness to publish on certain terms, the composer retaining the performing right; (2) A refusal to publish without the assign- ment of this right. Under case (I) the terms are generally so stringent that the composer cannot possibly accept them. If, however, he should make an agreement the question is how, to utilise this right. An intending performer calls on the publisher and states what he wants. He receives the answer at once that the performing right is held by Mr. , who will probably make a charge, whereas if he purchases from them some other composer's work they will let him have the right of performing for nothing. - It is obvious that handicapped to this extent it is impossible for the composer alone to make the alteration. There ought, therefore, to be a combination between composers and publishers. For the latter, although originally mere agents, have become through the stringency of their agreements and the carelessness of composers holders of valuable property. Such a combina- tion would be easy, as the music publishers are few, and it would not be difficult to arrange so that the outside public would be forced to pay for other people's property which they now receive gratis. The publishers would at once feel the benefit, as they are the greatest holders of per- forming rights. The composers would, it is hoped, feel the benefit in the near future, when they have come to recognise the value of their own property. The argument that the publishers—who do not care about wandering from their old and well worn track—would at once bring forward is, of course, that the public would not pay for performing rights. This argument may, however, easily be repudiated, as is shown in the case of dramatic works. The English musical public is constantly on the increase, and is as eager for some new thing as the theatrical world. These remarks on the performing rights of com- posers refer chiefly to the longer compositions, such as Cantatas, oratorios, operas. They only refer in a minor degree to songs. For the difficulty in the way of enforcing a claim in the latter case is obvious, and the charge would be small. If, however, some simple method of collection could be devised, the right is still a valuable OT162, The next question to be considered is what the composer receives for his copyright. In many cases the pleasure of seeing his work produced is considered sufficient reward. If it should chance  ## p. 257 (#271) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 257 that terms are proposed, he is offered four different kinds of agreements. These agreements may be termed: (1) The commission agreement. (2) The purchase outright. (3) The royalty agreement. (4) The half-profit agreement. But they differ frºm the ordinary book pub- lisher's agreements of these names in that the music publisher appropriates all the performing rights and copyrights, and is otherwise more stringent in his terms, and in many cases threatens the composer with non-publication unless these rights are transferred. (I) is perhaps the most unsatisfactory system for the composer, for, although the publisher undertakes to publish the work, he in reality does little more than produce it. He makes no attempt to place it before singers, does not advertise it, does not send it round with his travellers (or, if he does, does so in a half-hearted way), but lets it lie in a neat brown paper parcel on One of the shelves of his warehouse. If the song is to have a success, it must come from the result of the composer's unaided efforts; but success does not attend this method of publishing except through some extraordinary chance. In addition, the com- poser pays for the cost of production, and this is generally put at £2 or £3 more than the real cost. The total result therefore is a considerable loss to the composer and a slight gain to the pub- lisher. If, however, through the untiring energy of the composer, the song is placed before the public, the publisher reaps a fair commission, a Commission for which he has mot worked. In fact, it pays the publisher to let the song lie idle. He cannot lose, he may make a fair amount; and perhaps, if the composer subsequently becomes famous, a great amount (2) When a publisher purchases a work out- right he generally does so with the idea of making it a success. He employs all the means in his power to bring it to notice. He sends out copies to singers; he advertises it in the papers; he gets up concerts for its performance; he pays singers to sing it, or parts of it; he sees that the concerts are well reported. The consequence is very often a great success, and the composer sees the publisher making hundreds of pounds where he has only made tens, and where he cannot hope to make any more. It must be remembered that the cost of production of a Cantata or a song compared with its selling price is much less than the cost of a book, so this is much sooner covered by the sales, and the profits are consequently greater. There is only one advantage to the composer in this method of publication, and this is a deferred advantage in case he desires to place another song or other musical composition before the public. (3) The royalty system is the only one in which under the present methods it appears that the author can reap any proportionate profit. The ordinary royalty is a variable quantity, varying sometimes, but not always, with the prices of the work if it chances that the price is mentioned in the agreement, an omission which frequently occurs. In any case the royalty is always smaller than with the author when the two costs of production are compared, and especially when in the payment of these royalties seven copies count as six. In the booksellers’ trade thirteen copies count as twelve, or twenty- five as twenty-four, but the iniquity of seven as six is only reached in the publication of music. * There are various other arrangements in which a royalty is paid : sometimes after the sale of a certain number of copies, sometimes after the cost of production has been govered. It is, how- ever, impossible to exhaustively discuss the different forms of agreement or to show in what proportion the royalties should be raised in arrangements where the publisher is virtually protected from loss before the composer receives any remuneration. One point, however, it is necessary to mention before leaving royalty agreements, that is, on what form of production a royalty is paid. In the case of songs and small pieces of instrumental music it is paid on the vocal part with the piano score, or on the piano score; and this is fair, for this is the only form that has a sale. The sale and hire of band parts must be small, and would hardly cover the cost of production, possibly might never do so. In the case of Cantatas, oratorios, glees, and part songs, it is paid on the vocal part with the piano score, but there is this difference between the two instances: in the latter the publisher produces the vocal parts — treble, alto, tenor, bass — separately, and sells them or hires them in this form to choral societies. As on the separate parts no royalty is paid, he, to a great extent, nullifies his own agreement with the composer, and certainly puts his interest as agent and that •ot the composer as principal at variance. The curious part of this transaction is that the publisher, in a half-profit agreement, credits and debits the accounts with the moneys expended and received on this item, but in a royalty agree- ment does not recognise the sale. The composer should always take care that the publishers’ interest and his own are parallel. (4) The objections to an half-profit agreement are most serious, yet can only be mentioned in this short paper and not discussed: (1) The complication of accounts.  ## p. 258 (#272) ############################################ 258 THE AUTHOR. (2) The control of all expenditure, including advertisements, lying with the publisher. (3) The ignorance of the author of the cost of production. (4) The ignorance of the author of the methods and necessities of publication. In short, it must be stated that this form of agreement which sounds so fair is in reality the worst for the composer. Finally, it should be pointed out that there are certain elements in the cost of musical production that do not enter into the production of literary wares. The actual paper, &c., is no doubt much cheaper compared with the selling price, but in the first instance the writer of the words has to be paid. His claim is generally settled by a sum paid down. In case (1) it is paid by the author; in cases (2) and (3) by the publisher; and sometimes in case (3), and always in case (4), it is brought into account before royalty or profit is paid. Then the music of songs and smaller pieces is sent out gratis broadcast. Fifty or sixty copies of a book may be sent out for review. Five or six hundred copies of songs are sent out to musical people, singers, &c. Lastly, the singer has to be paid to sing the song in public ; for this he is paid by a sum down or by a royalty. All these items tend to reduce the profit in songs and pieces to which they specially apply. On the other hand, it must be taken into con- sideration that some of the musical publishers also run concerts, which are very lucrative invest- ments, for the special purpose of airing their own Wą,I'êS. - - From the business point of view, however, to sum up the whole situation, musical composers are in a shocking position, and the sooner they band together either to run a new publisher or to refuse to publish except on equitable terms the better it will be for them. The old stories are still cropping up of terms settled at the pub- lisher's dinner table, the unbusiness like propen- sities of composers, and the absolute impos- sibility of getting them to sign agreements. Surely it would be an easy thing for the publisher, who is a man of business, to insist on business- like arrangements. The only deduction that can be made is that it pays him better not to do so. II.-ANGLo-AUSTRIAN COPYRIGHT. Vienna, Wednesday.—The official Gazette to- day announces that the operation of the Anglo- Austrian copyright treaty has been extended to India, Newfoundland, Natal, Victoria, Queens- land, Western Australia, and New Zealand.— Reuter. III.—EDUCATIONAL AND SCIENTIFIC Books. Of all kinds of literary profits those in educa- tional and scientific works are hardest to estimate before actual publication. There is, however, the undoubted fact that the educational branch of literary property is by far the most valuable and the most profitable. If a work dealing with some educational or scientific subject gets once an estab- lished position as a standard book for school use in England or America, the returns are constant and most substantial. There would seem, however, to be no midway between a good and substantial return and virtually no return at all. Under these circumstances it is of great importance to educational and scientific writers never to sell out- right a work which may be a mine of gold, and never, under any circumstances whatever, to part. with the copyright of such a work. It has been stated by some publishers that they will refuse to deal in any educational or scientific work unless the author will assign the copyright to them, on the ground that it is necessary, should the work prove a success, that they should be able to benefit by that success as well as the author. On the other hand, it must be remembered that it is, of the most vital importance that the author should ot lose, but should retain, the command —which he can only do by retaining the copy- right—of his work. - The following are among the reasons why an author should retain his copyright: º I. An educational or a scientific book must be altered from time to time in order to be brought up to date. New scientific discoveries may make the best book antiquated. New methods may be introduced; new theories may be advanced. The only way for the author to meet these changes is. by making corresponding changes in his book. 2. But the publisher is interested in these changes. He may be. He may not be. He may have a younger man to advance, thinking that he will be more popular. - 3. He may sell his business, or go into bank- ruptcy, or buy another man's business. In either case an author's book goes with his other Copyrights, perhaps to find himself on the same shelf with his most important rival. - It is, of course, always possible to insert clauses in the agreement by which the publisher shall have the option of producing second, third, and subsequent editions on reasonable terms. Should the publisher refuse to deal except on the condition of getting the copyright, the author should go elsewhere. - - One case, however, has come before the Society. in which a publisher fully recognised the import. ance of giving the author a free hand with regard  ## p. 259 (#273) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 259 to alterations in a scientific work, and although the author had inadvertently assigned the copy- right to the publisher, the latter consented to reassign it on consideration that he should have the option of publishing subsequent editions. It is necessary that this warning should be con- stantly before educational and scientific authors, “that they should on no account whatever assign their copyright.” They may, if they so desire, give the publisher every help and assistance with regard to the right to publish future editions, but they must make no assignment. If they do not know how to draw the necessary agreement, the Society will advise them in the matter. IV.-AN IMPORTANT CASE. H. RIDER HAGGARD AND LoNGMANs, GREEN, AND Co., complainants, against THE WAVERLY CoMPANY, defendant. (Circuit Court of the United States, District of New Jersey.) Brief of Respondents on demurrer to the Bill of Complaint. - STATEMENT. — The principal ground of de- murrer urged by the defendant is the third : “That said bill fails to show that due and law- ful notice of said pretended copyright and copy- rights was inserted as required by section 4962 of the Revised Statutes of the United States in the several copies of every edition published in manner and form in said section aforesaid speci- fically set forth.” The clauses of the bill thus attacked are as follows: “Fourth.—And your orators further show that the aforesaid editions of their said copyright book, entitled ‘Nada the Lily,’ were printed from plates made within and type set within the limits of the United States, as required by law. That due notice of said copyrights and entries, and that said copyrights had been completed, was given by the Secretary of the Treasury by publication in his official cata- logues of the title entries of books and other ar icles in the weekly lists of the title of all books wherein the copyright has been completed, all of which said catalogues are ready to be produced in court. That the notice required by section 4962 of the Revised Statutes of the United States has been duly and lawfully given in the several copies of said editions so published as aforesaid.” Section 4962 of the Revised Statutes is as follows: “Section 4962. No person shall maintain an action for the infringement of his copyright unless he shall give notice thereof by inserting in the several copies of every edition published, on the title page, or the page imme- diately following, if it be a book, or if a map, chart, musical composition, print, cut, engraving, WOL. W. - * photograph, painting, drawing, chromo, statue, statuary, or model or design intended to be per- fected and completed as a work of the fine arts, by inscribing upon some visible portion thereof, or of the substance on which the same shall be mounted, the following words, viz.: “Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 5 by A. B., in the office of the Librarian of Con- gress, at Washington,’ or at his option, the word ‘ copyright,’ together with the year the copyright was entered, and the name of the party by whom it was taken out, thus: “Copyright, 18 , by A. B.’” The demurrer claims that the bill is bad because it does not in its terms declare that the copyright notice has been inserted “in the several copies of every edition published; ” the actual averment being that the notice required was “duly and lawfully given in the several copies” of the editions published as set forth in the complaint, being all the editions men- tioned therein, except defendant’s alleged pira- tical edition. Subordinate grounds of demurrer are that the book in question was not composed by a citizen or resident of the United States— which attacks the constitutionality of the Inter- national Copyright Law—and that the com- plaimants by asking, in their prayer, for damages and the delivery for destruction of the unsold copies of the piratical edition demand more than a court of equity can grant. A further ground of demurrer is alleged indefiniteness in the charge of infringement. These points will be considered in the foregoing order, which is the order of im- portance as urged by demurrant. First.—I. The requirements of the statute which are conditions precedent to the perfection of copyright are—I. Deposit before publication of printed copy of the title. 2. Deposit after publication of two copies of the book. 3. Print- ing of the prescribed notice in the copies pub- lished: (Wheaton v. Peters, 8 Peters, 591 ; Merrell v. Tice, IO4 U. S. 557; Thompson v. Hubbard, 131 U. S. 123.) It has been held that as matter of fact the requirement of notice means that the prescribed words shall be inserted in the several copies of every edition which the proprietor of the copyright, as controlling the publication, publishes : (Thompson v. Hubbard, 131 U. S. 123; Supreme Court of the United States, May 13, 1889.) Since the last-named decision the International Copyright Act has been passed (March 3, 1891), which greatly widens the field of application of copyright law. Is it still true that, to maintain an action on his copyright for infringement, a person must literally and exactly give the United States copyright notice “in the several copies of every edition published” by him P. The section in question (section 4962) IB B  ## p. 260 (#274) ############################################ 26o THE AUTHOR. was not altered by the Act of 1891, but was in force previously. Doubtless the possible effects of not changing this section escaped the aqtention of the legislators. For, if there be no limitation in construction put upon the words “every edition published,” an English author, for example, publishing his book not only in the United States, but also in Great Britain, or in Australia, or in South Africa, or in China, loses his United States copyright unless notice of the latter be inserted in every copy published anywhere in the world. And this will be the case, notwithstanding he com- plies fully with the English copyright laws. We submit that this is not the legal intention of the Act. That such is not the intention is evidenced by the provisions of section 4956 of the Copy- right Act, to the effect that in order to complete copyright the two copies of the book required to be deposited with the Librarian of Congress must be “printed from type set within the limits of the United States or from plates printed there- from.” And during the existence of the copy- right the importation into the United States of any book so copyrighted, or any edition or edi- tions thereof, or any plates not made from type set within the United States, is prohibited. That is to say, in order to avail himself of the protec- tion of the copyright law of the United States, the author, foreign or otherwise, must print and publish within the United States, and the impor- tation of any edition printed from type not set or plates not made within the United States is for- bidden. It matters not, then, how many foreign manufactured editions are published outside. The United States law does not protect them, nor does it allow them to interfere with books manu- factured and copyrighted here. They are ex- cluded from the consideration of the Copyright Act. Hence it would be absurd to hold that the notice required by section 4962 means, literally, “every edition published ” by the person copy- righting. It means every edition published, printed from type set or plates made within the United States—that is, every edition manufactured in the United States. This must be so, because no other editions can be made the subject of copyright law at all. * * II. It is fundamental that in the construction of statutes the whole and every part must be con- sidered. “The intention of the law-maker will prevail over the literal sense of the terms; and its reason and intention will prevail over the strict letter:” (Kent's Com., 461 ; Sutherland on Sta- tutory Construction (1891), p. 32O.) “The mere literal construction ought not to prevail if it is opposed to the intention of the Legislature apparent from the statute; and if the words are sufficiently flexible to admit of some other con- complaint P struction by which that intention can be better effected, the law requires that intention to be adopted: ” (Sutherland on Stat. Construction, p. 321, and cases there cited.) These well-esta- blished doctrines have received application in regard to the international copyright law in the United States Circuit Court, District of Massa- chusetts, in the case of Werckmeister v. Pierce and Bushnell Mfg. Co., decided Aug. 7, 1894, Putnam, J. This was the case of a painting sought to be copyrighted by a German subject, on the original of which no notice of United States copyright, as required by section 4962, was ever inscribed, although the other conditions of copyright were complied with, and the copyright notice was inscribed on the published photo- graphs of the painting. In this case the court departs from the literal reading of the statute, and holds that the intent of the law must govern, and that under construction according to the intent, it is not necessary to place the copyright notice upon the original, though the statute expressly says, that if the article be a painting, the notice shall be inscribed, “upon some visible portion thereof, or of the substance on which the same shall be mounted.” If, for the purpose of sustaining the intent of the legislators, so bold a departure from the literal sense, as in this case, may be taken in construing section 4962, how much more, in the case at bar, is a construction warranted, which alone can make the Act har- monious in its parts, and without which the whole law would become a nullity. Its purpose in securing international copyright otherwise would be entirely defeated. As a matter of fact it is not the custom to put the United States copyright notice on English editions of a work copyrighted in America. Much more unlikely would such notice be thought important in editions published in more remote countries. The result would be to make the copyright protection evidently intended to be given to works manu- factured in the United States practically null and void, and to destroy the International Copy- right Law. III. Thus much premised, are the allegations in the bill sufficient? They set up the publica- tion of the editions described, “printed from plates made within and type set within the limits of the United States, as required by law. That the notice required by section 4962 of the Revised Statutes of the United States has been duly and lawfully given in the several copies of said editions so published as aforesaid.” The only question here would seem to be will the court presume, outside the record, that there are other editions of the work than those set forth in the If it should be the fact that the  ## p. 261 (#275) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 26 I editions pleaded constitute “every edition pub- lished,” there is, of course, a sufficient cause of action. Will the court presume otherwise upon demurrer? Reasonable presumptions are ad- mitted by demurrer as well as the matters expressly alleged : (Foster's Federal Practice, vol. I, p. 209; Amory v. Laurence, 3 Clifford, 523, 526.) But, says the court in Warfield v. Fisk (1883; 136 Mass., p. 219), “We cannot draw inferences of fact upon demurrer.” If it appear that the required notice was given in the several copies of every edition of which the court can take any cognisance, it is a “reasonable pre- sumption ” that the law has been complied with. It would be a violent presumption to assume outside the record, that there are other editions in which no notice, or defective notice, was given. The bill would be sufficient on the hearing if the facts alleged were proved. It would not be necessary even to prove literally the insertion of the notice in every copy. Pro- duction of one copy with the notice and general testimony as to the issue of the edition would be sufficient: (Falk v. Gast Lith. and Eng. Co. Ld., 4o Fed. Rep. 168.) The contention of the defen- dant would make his pleading a “speaking de- murrer” where by argument or inference a mate- rial fact is suggested that is not alleged in the bill. Such a demurrer will be overruled: (Beach, Modern Equity Practice, vol. I, p. 265, and cases there cited.) Moreover, the copyright is per- fected by taking the three steps required by statute before and coincident with publication. Primă facie then, the copyright being perfect, the complainants are entitled to maintain their action. A copy of the record in the office of the Librarian of Congress, with the books showing the notice, make out a primá facie case against an infringer. If there has been any omission in subsequent or other editions than those pleaded, it is for the defendant to plead and prove that the complainant has by his omissions lost the copy- right he once had and which presumptively he still has. The notice is not a condition to the obtaining a copyright, but to the maintaining an action for infringement. If the facts allow it, the defendant, in case of lack of universality of the notice, must plead in abatement. He has no standing on demurrer. It may be added that the practice books giving forms of bills of complaint in copyright cases, give a pleading setting out generally that the complainants are the owners of a copyright taken out “previous to the publica- tion of the book in question, and secured according to law.” No other detail of fact is given in order to make out a primá facie case: (Beach, Modern Equity Pleading, vol. 2, p. 1281.) In Thompson v. Hubbard (131 U. S. 123), on which VOL. W. the demurrant seems to rely, the decision was rendered after the facts appeared on the trial and not on demurrer. Second.—Inasmuch as the demurrant in its brief does not insist upon the ground of demurrer questioning the constitutionality of the Interna- tional Copyright Act, the complainants will not discuss that topic at this time. Third.—There is no merit in demurrant's con- tention respecting failure to waive penalties end forfeitures. At the most the prayer of the com- plainants in this respect is surplusage. A bill to obtain relief against an infringement of a copy- right need not contain a waiver of the com- plainant’s statutory right to a forfeiture of the piratical plates: (Foster's Federal Practice (2nd ed.), vol. I, p. 175; Farmer v. Calvert Lith. Co., I Flippin, 228.) If any part of the relief is proper, the demurrer on this point will be over- ruled. This is the latest doctrine in these cases: (Chicago, M. & St. P. Ry. Co. v. Hartshorn, Treas., &c., 3O Fed. Rep., 54 I (1887; Shiras, J.); Town of Strawberry Hill v. C. M. & St. P. Ry. Co. et al, 4 I Fed. Rep. 568 (1890).) Fourth.-Nor is there room for argument that the charge of infringement is indefinite. The defendant is charged with having published, without authorisation, the book copyrighted. What has been copyrighted has been set forth in the bill. This is sufficient to put the defendant upon his answer. Fifth. — The questions involved before the court at this present time are purely questions of law. The defendant in his brief, has seen fit to talk “ to the galleries,” and to claim that this action was brought in bad faith, “solely for the purpose of intimidating the trade.” This autho- rises the complainants to say that there is no doubt whatever that the complainant, H. Rider Haggard (an author of no mean repute) is the author of the work “Nada the Lily;” that Longmans, Green, and Co. (the oldest firm of publishers in the world, and of undoubted re- spectability and standing) are the authorised publishers of the work; that the defendant, the Waverly Company, has published, without autho- rity, a piratical edition of this book, with the idea that through some technical lapse, the copy- right due to the complainants, and which they have believed they possess, has been vitiated ; and the said defendant is now trying to defeat complainants in the enforcement of these supposed rights upon which they have always in good faith relied. The complainants are prosecuting this action, not alone to secure their own rights, but also in behalf of the trade to ascertain, for the benefit of all, what the meaning of the Inter- national Copyright Law is, by its proper judicial B B 2  ## p. 262 (#276) ############################################ 262 THE AUTHOIR. onstruction. Too important interests are in- volved for the case to be determined upon tech- nicalities; and though the complainants are advised and firmly believe the demurrer should be overruled, they ask, in case the court should take a different view, that they may have leave to amend on the usual terms; whereupon they will so amend by setting forth fully the exact facts in the case, and all collateral facts, that a full adjudication may be obtained upon demurrer before the highest tribunal, as to the meaning of the new law. Resting upon such an adjudication the entire book and publishing trade may intelli- gently shape its course. The main question involved is as to the meaning of section 4962, the complainants' contention respecting which has been hereinbefore urged. Upon this point, espe- cially, the complainants pray for an authoritative expression of judicial opinion. And they asked that the demurrer in all respects be overruled, with costs. (Argued Oct. 6, 1894, before Hon. Marcus W. Acheson, at Philadelphia.) DICKINSON, THOMPson, AND MCMASTER, No. 1, Montgomery-street, Jersey City, N.J., Solicitors for Complainants. DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPson, No. 111, Broadway, N.Y. City, Of Counsel. W.—CANADIAN COPYRIGHT. The following letter appeared in the Times of the 26th Feb. : - “SIR,-Attention has already been called in your columns to the fact that the Canadian Copyright Bill, now awaiting the Royal assent, seriously menaces the interests of English authors and copyright owners. It is understood that a decision will shortly be arrived at on the question at issue between the Canadian and Imperial authorities. The danger being therefore imminent, those whose interests are threatened must now enter their protest against the Bill. By it any Canadian publisher will be permitted to produce, in any form and at any price he pleases, the work of any British author which has not, within one month of its first publication in this country, been reprinted and published in Canada, on the sole condition of paying a royalty of Io per cent. on the published price of the book. The officers of the Department of Inland Revenue are charged with the duty of collecting and paying these royalties, but they are specially exempted from any obligation to ‘account for any such royalty not actually collected.’ “The objections to these proposals are weighty and obvious; it will suffice to indicate one or two. “The limit of one month is ridiculously insuffi- cient, and the provision suffices to deprive English authors, with the possible exception of a few writers of popular fiction, of any real copyright in Canada. “The absurd machinery which makes the Inland Revenue officials at once responsible and irrespon- sible for the collection of royalties is not new, and is of proved inefficiency. English authors and publishers can only look back with grim amusement on the futile attempt on the part of Canada to collect similar royalties on American pirated reprints with similar machinery. More- Over, in the absence of accounts, how is an English author to seek a remedy when he has reason to believe that a particular publisher has failed to make due payment P The needful evidence would not in practice be obtainable. It is true that the Canadian market is not large, nor, in the absence of a leisured and cultured class, is it likely to prove expansive. If Canada. Only were in question, English authors would probably submit to the injury likely to be caused by piracy of their works in a small literary area. But Canada does not stand alone. If this Bill becomes law, Canadian reprints will inevitably flood, as they are intended to flood, the market of the United States, and the rights which English owners of literary property now enjoy there will be seriously endangered. If, in Consequence of the action of Canada, the United States were to repeal their International Copyright Act, English authors would suffer great and irreparable loss. “In order to give united expression to the objections felt by persons whose interests are threatened by the proposed legislation, a petition to the Colonial Secretary has been prepared, which it is hoped will be largely signed during the next three weeks by authors, pub- lishers, artists, and owners of copyrights gener- ally. Copies of this petition may be obtained from the secretary of the Society of Authors, and signatures should be forwarded to him at the Society's offices, 4, Portugal-street, Lincoln’s-inn- fields, W.C. “I am, sir, your obedient servant, “W. M. ConwAy, Chairman of Committee of the Incorporated Society of Authors.” *- - -º w" -  ## p. 263 (#277) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 263 NOTES FROM NEW YORK, RATHER curious survival of the old A colonial attitude towards England is demonstrated by the fact that any impor- tant series issued in the mother country is sure to be published over here; while, on the other hand, when an American series is brought out, only those volumes having more than a local interest appear in England. Thus, of the Great Commanders Series, which contains biographies of “Admiral Farragut’ by Captain A. T. Mahan, of “General Taylor " by General O. O. Howard, U.S.A., of “General Jackson " by James Parton, of “General Greene’’ by Captain Francis W. Greene, U.S.A., of “General J. E. Johnston ’” by Robert M. Hughes, of “General Thomas” by Henry Copee, LL.D., of “General Scott’ by General Marcus J. Wright, of “General Washington’ by General Bradley T. Johnson, of “General Lee’” by General Fitzhugh Lee, and of “General Hancock’” by General Francis A. Walker, only one volume has so far been repro- duced in England, and that was the first, which was doubtless due to Captain Mahan's own reputation. It was evident that the subject of the biography was not well known, since in the Times it was announced as “a new book by Captain Mahan, a life of the great Confederate Admiral, Farragut.” To another of our impor- tant series, that on American Men of Letters, there has just been added the biography of “George William Curtis,” by Mr. Edward Cary. This series is edited by Mr. Charles Dudley Warner, who contributed the first volume, the life of “Irving.” The other volumes are “Noah Webster,” by Horace E. Scudder; “Thoreau,” by Frank B. Sanborn; “George Ribley,” by O. B. Frothingham; “Cooper,” by T. R. Lounsbury; “Margaret Fuller Ossoli,” by T. W. Higginson; “Emerson,” by Dr. Holmes; “Poe,” by George E. Woodberry; “N. P. Willis,” by Henry A. . Beers; “Benjamin Franklin,” by John B. McMaster ; “Bryant,” by John Bigelow; and “William Gilmore Simms,” by William P. Trent. Of all these, the volumes on Cooper and on Emerson are the only two published in England. Two books of the series are model biographies —the “Cooper’ by Professor Lounsbury, and the “Poe’” by Professor Woodberry. In each case the authors took an immense amount of trouble to amass material, and then wrote a clear, concise, and comprehensive biography, which protruded no trace of the work behind it. There are soon to be added to this series the lives of “Lowell,” by Professor Woodberry, of Columbia College; “Whittier,” by Professor George R. Carpenter, of Columbia; “Motley,” by Professor Brander Matthews, Jameson; and “Parkman,” by Mr. John Fiske. This series is modelled on Mr. John Morley's “English Men of Letters,” only that the American volumes always contain a steel engraved portrait and a careful index—adjuncts lacking in the British books. An instance of failure to give “every man his due,” which would never have occurred in America, is to be found in the case of the “Great Educators Series.” This series was thought out, planned, brought out, and edited by Professor Nicholas Murray Butler. It is an international series having volumes by American, French, and British authors. It is printed in America and published here by Scribner's. Certain of the volumes have been exported to England and issued by Heinemann, and it is there known as Heinemann’s “Great Educators Series,” no mention whatsoever being made about Professor Butler's share in its production, or of its American origin. Macmillan and Co. are continuing their two- volume experiment at a dollar a volume, or 8s. for the work. This experiment was begun with “ Marcella,” and then continued with “ Katherine Lauterdale,” and now with “The Ralstons.” Mr. Crawford is the most popular of American novelists, and every new book of his sells at the rate of from 50,000 to 60,000 copies, while its immediate predecessor has a renewed sale of about Io,000. Although an American, Mr. Crawford does not know his New York as he does his Italy, and it is pleasing to note that in “Casa Braccia *-now running in the Century— he has returned to his old fields of operation, and is telling a new melodramatic tale of cos- mopolitan life. Four seasons ago Mr. T. J. B. Lincoln founded a literary club, called “The Uncut Leaves.” The club began very modestly with only a few members, who met once a month either at each other's houses or in a small hall hired for the occasion, where they listened to authors of various nationalities read from their unpublished manu- scripts. The success of this venture has been so great that the club now has several hundred members enrolled on its lists, and a suite of rooms is engaged for its monthly meetings at one of the best known halls in New York. Six readings are given during a season, and prominent men of letters are most happy to read or talk before such a sympathetic audience as is found gathered together on these occasions. Strangers are heartily welcomed, and Mr. Christie Murray has twice been present at the meetings, and each time succeeded in amusing the members. Mark Twain, Edward Eggleston, Mrs. Wiggin, and Mr. H. C. Bunner have all either  ## p. 264 (#278) ############################################ 264 THE AUTHOR. read or spoken before the club this winter or last. There are no committees, nor is there even a president to run the club, Mr. Lincoln under- taking all the work, such as getting the speakers, fixing dates, hiring the hall, seeing to the announcements, and even constituting himself treasurer and presiding officer for the introduc- tion of the readers. An experiment has recently been tried by Mr. Alexander Black, who is both an amateur photo- grapher and a journalist. It is a form of enter- tainment which he calls a “picture play.” Mr. Black has written a story entitled “Miss Jerry,” which he reads to his audience, giving each character its own individuality by a slight change in his voice. At the same time numerous photo- graphs, which illustrate the many situatiºns, are thrown by a magic lantern slide on a large sheet. The plot of the story is a mere thread on which is strung many incidents that introduce well-known people. Miss Jerry is a bright, vigorous girl, who takes up the business of reporter as a con- genial means of livelihood, and her adventures in that capacity form the basis of the plot, around which is woven a slight love story. Mr. Black has been to much pains to make his photographs as realistic and natural as possible, and thus we See Miss Jerry boarding an elevated train, inter- viewing Mr. Chauncey Depew in his office, visiting the slums, and taking part in a brilliant ball. These are only a few of the many sides of New York that Mr. Black has written about and depicted. Whether this venture will prove a lasting success it is impossible to say, but that it is a mºst enjoyable form of entertainment, and has many as yet undeveloped possibilities in it, is very evident. - The travelled American has often stated that he wondered why no American periodical had as large a circulation as the Strand Magazine. As a matter of fact, two of our periodicals have over three-quarters of a million circulation, yet neither of them is published in New York, the centre of the publishing trade. The papers referred to are the Ladies' Home Journal, issued in Philadelphia, and the Pouth's Companion, issued in Boston. It was on the former of these that the English Woman at Home was modelled. The Ladies’ Home Journal is a monthly of thirty or forty pages of the size of the Illustrated London News, and its sale is principally outside this metropolis, for it aims to appeal to a more provincial audience. From its title it would be judged exclusively a woman’s paper, but this is not the case. There are always running through the year some articles especially applicable to men, such as the series called “When He is Sixteen,” articles written by four prominent women on all that concerns a boy at that age—his studies, amusements, choice of professions, &c. Now a new series has been begun entitled one month “The Woman Who Has Most Influenced Me,” and the next “The Man Who Has Most Influenced Me ;” these naturally are written alternate months by men and women. The monthly always contains at least one serial story, and it was in this paper that Mr. Howell’s “Coast of Bohemia’’ appeared, and also Mr. Stockton’s “Pomona's Travels;” and there is, besides, generally a short story or two. A most delightful series of articles are now being written for it by Mr. Howells on “My Literary Passions.” The editorials are always timely, and on some broad subject. Besides this there are articles of general interest, comic or otherwise, and a poem or two. Another feature of this paper is the separation of the departments for answering correspondents, divided under the heads of “Floral Helps and Hints,” “Side-Talks with Girls,” “Hints on Home Dressmaking,” “Sug- gestions for Mothers,” “Art Help for Art Workers,” “Literary Queries,” and, lastly, “The Open Congress;” these (i.epartments are all under the direction of what might be called specialists. The illustrations and printing are both of a high order, and it would be hard to cite a periodical that has more widespread influence—an influence which is elevating both morally and intel- lectually. The Youth's Companion is a paper of an entirely different stamp, and with a different mission to fulfil. It is a wholesome weekly of good literary style, designed for readers of both sexes from fourteen to twenty-four years. Amongst its announcements for 1895 appear the following: A paper on “Nursing,” by Princess Helena of Schleswig-Holstein, and an account of a sculptor's work, called “The Story of a Statue,” by Princess Louise (Marchioness of Lorne); an article on the “Recollections of My Physician,” by Mr. Gladstone; a reminiscent account by Mr. J. M. Barrie, entitled “A School Revisited;” an article by Mr. Rudyard Kipling, “The Bold 'Prentice;” a speculative paper, “If Telescopes were Bigger,” by Camille Flammarion; an article on “How to Tell a Story,” by Mark Twain, and one on “An Editor's Relations with Young Authors,” by Mr. Howells; also “Bits of Scottish Character,” by the late Robert Louis Stevenson. From this array of names it is easy to see that the taste of the American youth is as much considered as that of his seniors. Indeed, we are singularly lucky in the type of our juvenile periodicals, for Harper's Young People and St. Nicholas have enormous circulations and much influence, and both have very high standards of literary and artistic merit. Thus  ## p. 265 (#279) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 265 the young American mind is not only catered to, but elevated. A circular has recently been sent around to the various members of the writing craft that a table of statistics concerning newspaper reviews had been made, and that the New York Times “led all the rest " in regard to the number of books criticised in its columns, and in regard also to the space it devoted to literature. On looking through the table, it is surprising to find that of the 419 American and British works appearing during the period of Oct. I to Dec. 31, 1894, the Times has actually reviewed 277, and that these reviews have occupied 117 columns. The promptness with which these reviews appeared after the publication of the books is also much to be com- mended—out of the 277, at least 240 were reviewed within a month. The statistical pamphlet is arranged in alphabetical order as regards the pub- lishers, and thus, as an example, out of the fifteen books issued by Longmans, Green, and Co., the Times reviewed eleven, and devoted fifty and one-half columns to them, whereas the Tribune reviewed five of them, the Post four, and the Sun only two. But, on the other hand, the JPost has far more book advertisements than the Times; sometimes it has as many as three pages. It is a great convenience to authors and publishers to know where books are most likely to receive prompt attention, and so this table of statistics is welcome. Ibsen's latest play “Little Eyolf’’ has just been published by Stone and Kimball, of Chicago, in the Green Tree Library. The volume is a dainty specimen of bookmaking, being tastefully and well bound, of a convenient size, and printed with care and thought. It has been most warmly received. It is interesting to note how curiously alike it is in subject to Mrs. Margaret Deland’s recent novel, “Philip and His Wife.” Although differing in every detail and in most of the inci- dents, yet the two books are almost parallel in the problem they present. It is a pleasure to announce that Mrs. Deland’s book has been deservedly a great success, and is already in its fifth edition. It is astonishing how the “Trilby’’ boom keeps up, and even seems on the increase. Word has come from Harper and Brothers that so far in printing the book IOO tons of paper have been used. It is a great pleasure to mention the fair- ness with which Harpers have dealt with Mr. Du Maurier. Upon accepting “Trilby,” the publishers, believing in the book, offered Mr. Du Maurier a very handsome royalty; but the author preferred a lump sum in proportion to their belief in the book, which was very great. Now, seeing the enormous success of the story, : Hugo's remarks. Harper and Brothers have notified Mr. Du Maurier that from Jan. I of this year he will receive a royalty, and not only a royalty on “Trilby,” but also on “Peter Ibbetson,” for which they had also paid a large sum down, but which has been lately carried along by the success of its author’s more recent book. A parody has just appeared, entitled “Biltry,” and the drama- tisation of “Trilby " by Mr. Paul Potter is quite completed, and Mr. A. M. Palmer expects to produce it on March 4 in Boston. A “Trilby’’ afternoon has been arranged in aid of the New York Kindergarten Association. There are to be tableaux, taken from the illustrations, and all the songs mentioned in the story will be sung—thus it will be seem that “Trilby’’ has taken New York hearts by storm. One of the latest jokes current at present is the answer which supposedly appeared in a paper to an anxious inquirer—“No, Napoleon did not write ‘Trilby;” you have confused the magazines.” HALLETT ROBINSON. *~ - ~-' r—- - ---, LETTER FROM PARIS, AM writing this in the melancholy of the loss of our dear Auguste Vacquerie, a friend of twelve years' standing, a very kindly man, who, for his way of life, was one to be looked up to in this career of ours. He was in every sense of the word a gentleman of letters, and these are few in France. The first time that I met Auguste Vacquerie was twelve years ago, at the house of Victor Hugo, whose inseparable companion he was. Of the two poets, the disciple—for Vacquerie always pro- claimed himself but the disciple of Victor Hugo— haddecidedly the superior distinction, and, to con- fess the truth, I listened with far more interest to the things that he said that night than to Victor I frequently met him after- wards at the same house, and was on one occasion invited to call and see him at his own home, a fine mansion in the Rue Durmont d'Urville. I called there one morning and found Vacquerie in bed, for, as he told me, he never rose till noon. “I wake at seven,” he said, “and immediately read all the morning papers ”—the floor of the bedroom and the counterpane of the bed were strewn with gazettes—“ and when I have read all the news, I write my daily article for the Rappel.” By the bedside stood a little table, with writing materials on it, and a bowl of bouillon, in draughts of which the editor sought inspiration. His process was different from that of Victor Hugo, and indeed he remarked on  ## p. 266 (#280) ############################################ 266 THE AUTHOR. this, for Hugo always wrote standing, imitating Voltaire in this respect. “But,” said Vacquerie, “I am only a disciple.” Ithink that it was a pity that he contented himself with his position of disciple and imitator of Hugo, for he had decided originality and a particular sweetness of style, which would have sufficed to give him an excellent standing of his own in French literature. I shall never forget the kindness of his reception of me on that occasion, miserable little journalistic hack that I was at the time. He insisted on keeping me to breakfast, and after breakfast showed me over his art collection. I remember with what glee he pointed to a Delacroix, a picture of the good Samaritan, which he had bought for 50 francs, “a picture worth a hundred times that sum to-day.” He pressed me to return and see him, and I did so once or twice, but it is now a long time since I saw him last. I contented my- self with being his contemporary, and liked to think that there was a kindly Auguste Vacquerie, who was well disposed towards me, living in Paris. One has many friends like that. And now he is dead and buried, and I shall never see him again Paris seems different to me to-day. I noticed that several papers commented on the divorce between Jeanne Hugo and Léon Daudet with comments which were unjustifiable. Thanks to the excellent French law in this matter, no particulars of divorce cases may be published in the French papers—a law that might well be introduced, in despite of the penny and half- penny editors, into England—and, as In conse- quence nobody except the friends of the family knew anything about the case, nobody was in a position to comment upon it. It was a mere case of incompatibility of temper, and, though separated, the two ex-spouses have remained excellent friends. This is a good thing for the sake of the little boy, Victor Hugo’s great-grand- SOIl. I had expected to be able to give a description in this letter of the banquet which was to be given on Friday last to Edmund de Goncourt by his friends and admirers. In consequence, how- ever, of the sudden and regretted death of Auguste Vacquerie, M. de Goncourt wrote to the organisers of the banquet to ask them to postpone it till the following week. This being so, I fail to understand why certain French journalists have pointed to this postponement as another proof of the persistent bad luck which has pursued the de Goncourts through life. It is true that their first book was killed by the fact that it was published on the very day on which the coup d'état was carried out in Paris, and consequently passed unnoticed ; but since then Having done so, fortune has, in my opinion at least, made ample reparation to the surviving brother. He holds a unique place in French literature, and will remain standing after many of the apparently more fortunate ones have been swallowed up in obscurity. Certainly his books have not sold by the hundred thousand, but that is a circum- stance on which so perfect an artist may rather congratulate himself. I am greatly interested at present in the writings of the German philosopher Nietzsche, which are being greatly read in Paris. The writer, I am sorry to say, will be silent hereafter, for his brain has given way, and he is confined in some German madhouse. Possibly this may be a subject for congratulation, for it is evident, from the direly pessimistic tone of his enunciations, that he was a very unhappy man—a Schopenhauer without Schopenhauer’s obvious insincerity—a Leopardi without the consolation of the poet’s art; and where ignorance is bliss—you know the rest The following is one of Nietzche's sayings about bad books: “Das Buch soll nach Feder, Tinte und Schreibtisch verlangen: aber gewöhnlich verlangen Feder, Tinte und Schreibtisch nach. dem Buche. Deshalb ist es jetzt so wenig mit Büchern.” The study of pessimism is an excellent one for young people. Pessimism is a disease, which, like measles, attacks everybody at least once in a lifetime. It is well to inoculate oneself with it early in life, so as to be protected against it at a time when it might less easily be borne. Ten years ago I was the gloomiest of melancholy Jacques. To-day the world seems a charming place to live lll. Amongst my papers I find the following auto- graph letter from William Wordsworth. It has never been printed before, and so I give it. Things have not greatly changed in the matter of poetry since the day on which it was written : MY DEAR SIR, Very pressing engagements have prevented me. looking over the MSS. you sent me till this evening. and remembering your conversation with me upon the subject, it seems unnecessary that I should say more than that the verses in some respects do much credit to their author, and show an easy command of language and are not deficient in harmony; and the story of the tale, though not having much novelty in it, is agree- able. I mention to you what is apparent enough, that poetry is not much in favour with the public at present, and there- fore if I thought these specimens of merit much superior to what, candidly speaking, I reckon them to be, I could not feel confident that their publication would be profitable to the writer. I must add, however, on the other side, that, as tastes and  ## p. 267 (#281) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 267 fancies are so various, it is impossible to foresee what would or would not succeed. - I remain, my dear sir, Faithfully yours, WM. WORDSwor'IH. Rydal Mount, Jan. 28, 1841. Wordsworth used to be overwhelmed with MSS. from all parts of the world—an experience common to most writers whose names are known to the public. A whole room in Rydal Mount was set aside for the storage of these manuscripts, but, in spite of every precaution, many used to get lost. I remember my mother telling me that when she was quite a little girl, and was staying at Rydal Mount, she was one morning greatly upset by a pathetic letter from some poet in the South of England, who wrote saying that he had sent a long epic to Wordsworth some months previously, and that, though he had applied for its return several times, he had never received any answer. He added that all his hopes in this world were based on that epic, and implored for its return. She spent all that day, and the next day too, in looking for this manuscript, but was unable to find it. In the end she selected from a pile of poems, which for some reason or other could not be returned to their writers, one which was also an epic, and of about the same length as the missing one, and sent it to the poet, saying that she hoped that this one would as well. She inclosed in the letter the sum of half-a-crown, the whole contents of her savings-box, and asked the poet to accept this as a solatium. He was apparently satisfied, for he never wrote again. Speaking of the old days reminds me that a day or two ago I was looking over a book of accounts, which was kept in the house of an English nobleman, in the years 1622-23-24. It is most methodically kept, and includes every penny that was spent in that family during that period. The items vary from “Almesmonie,” as, for instance, “Item given to the prisoners in the Fleet,” or “Item given to my sister Anna Walker to helpe to buy her a wedinge gown,” to “Chardges in Travell,” &c. I have read all the items through without finding that during those three years there was spent in that nobleman's family a single penny on literature in any shape or form, and this in spite of the fact that periodical visits were paid by his lordship and family to town. Things have certainly improved in England since those days, and fortunate it is for us who write that this is so. Is it not a pity that the very best portrait of our gentle Stevenson should be in America, and that there is little chance of its ever being seen in England again P. This is the portrait painted by Mr. Alexander, of Paris, whom many consider, with Whistler and Sargent, the finest portrait painter in the world. More than this, it is, next to his remarkable portrait of Walt Whitman, the painter's best work. What good portraits of Stevenson are there in England for our great- grandchildren to look at P Any publisher or editor who wants a cheap advertisement need only follow the example of various American editors and publishers in offering fantastic sums to Count Tolstoi for the right of publishing his new works. Tolstoi always refuses any dealings with his books and so no risk is run and Messrs. Puff, Quack, Réclame, and Co., of Paternoster-row, can safely offer him 2 dollars a letter for his work, as the American publisher did the other day. Nay, they might offer £10 a word, provided that they let the fact be known, and the paragraphists would do the rest. Are we not all very glad of the great success of Mr. Sala's last book—the most entertaining set of memoirs which has appeared for some years P. It is a book that every literary aspirant should read for his encouragement—the story of a brave life in a hard career of persistent heroism. One is proud to be the confrère of such a man. Daudet's new book, “La Petite Paroisse,” is a very clever study of jealousy—a passion much à la mode for literary treatment in Paris just now. Lemaître expounds it after his fashion in “Le Pardon ’’ at the Comedie. In the copy which Daudet sent me he wrote that he hoped I had been jealous, so that I might tell him if his book were true. I was glad to be able to tell him that, since childish jealousies in the matter of tops or tarts, I had never experienced that feeling which is said to be the only mental suffering which is a physical suffering at the same time. I under- stand that jealousy produces a very painful feeling below the breastbone, as when one has eaten too many blackberries. These are not sensations that I run after. Daudet's hero suffers badly, but is very brave through it all, and here again Daudet has shown that, in spite of all, he will look on the bright side of life, and on what is good in human nature. This is what is so excellent in his work. - I was very sorry to hear of the death of John O'Neill, announced in last month's Author. I had never met him, but just before I last left London I received a very kind and encouraging letter from him, which came at a time when I was extremely despondent. Letters like that are a blessing to struggling authors. I had hoped to thank John O'Neill for writing to me in person, and now that can never be. Marcel Schwob’s translation of “Moll Flanders” is the book of the season in Paris, next to Daudet's latest. Schwob has an excellent know-  ## p. 268 (#282) ############################################ 268 THE AUTHOR. ledge of English literature, and is the personal friend of many of our leading writers. We English owe him a debt of gratitude for his championship of English literature in a country where people are singularly ignorant of its beauties. RobºFT H. SHERARD. I23, Boulevard Magenta, Paris. *- -* - * *-y NOTES AND NEWS, E need merely chronicle here the elections of Mr. W. Martin Conway as chairman of the committee of management, and of Mr. Anthony Hope Hawkins as a member of the council and of the committee of management. A brief report of the general meeting of the Society, which was held in the room of the Medical and Chirurgical Society, on the afternoon of the 25th ult., will be found in another column. We wish to call the attention of members to the resolution moved by Mr. Hall Caine and seconded by Mr. Rider Haggard, relating to Canadian Copyright. In another column will be found the Chairman's invitation to members to sign the petition which has been drawn up, and is lying for signature at the offices. It should be borne mind that the threatened legislation would destroy the homogeneity of British copyright, and would jeopardise the whole of the benefits resulting from American copyright. The danger is real and urgent, and members are invited to send in their names forth with. A communication addressed by Mr. R. Under- wood Johnson, the secretary of the American Copyright League, to the (New York) Evening Post is disquieting. From this it appears that a Copyright Bill has been introduced and reported by the Committee on Patents with a proviso which limits the total sum to be recovered under the statute (sect. 4965, ch. 3, title 60) to double the value of the “thing infringed upon,” &c. Mr. Johnson enters a protest against this reform on many grounds, and points out that the proviso extends so as to cover literary as well as artistic work, so that, while this legislation is ostensibly intended to protect innocent infringers of photo- graphic copyright from blackmailing proceedings, it promises to enable any pirate to copy any periodical matter, whether literary or artistic, with comparative impunity. Though belated, for reasons which need not be explained, we lay a wreath upon the grave of Christina, Rossetti, The words found in another column are written by one who knew her. These are the occasions on which the mere critic, even the admiring or the reverential critic, must stand aside to let those speak who had the privilege of knowing the dead poet. *– ~ * e- - - THE LOSSES IN LITERATURE, 1894. BIE losses in literature, which have been both numerous and severe, include Professor James Anthony Froude, LL.D. ; Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson; Mr. Walter Pater; Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes ; Professor William Robertson Smith, D.D., LL.D. ; Professor Henry Morley, LL.D.; Rev. Richard Morris, LL.D.; Sir James F. Stephen, the legal writer and essayist; Sir Austen H. Layard, of Nineveh fame; Miss Christina Georgina Rosetti; Professor John Nichol, biographer and poet, late Professor of English Literature in Glasgow University; Dr. John Weitch, Professor of Logic and Literature in Glasgow University; M. Leconte de Lisle, the distinguished French poet; the Comtesse Agenor de Gasparin; Professor William Dwight Whitney, the philological and Orientalist author; Mr. Edmund Yates ; the Hon. Roden Noel ; Mr. Charles H. Pearson, LL.D., the constitutional writer; Mrs. Augusta Webster; Mr. R. M. Ballantyne, the popular story writer; M. Maxime du Camp, the French author and academician; Professor James Darmesteter; Dr. George Bullen, formerly keeper of the Printed Books at the British Museum; Mr. William T. M'Cullagh, Torrens; Miss Alice King, the blind novelist ; Rev. R. Brown-Borthwick, the hymnologist; Mr. George Ticknor Curtis; Rev. Alexander J. D. D'Orsey; Rev. Edmund S. Ffoulkes; Dr. Brian Houghton Hodson, the Orientalist writer; F. W. Weber, the Prussian poet ; Dr. Francis Henry Underwood ; Señor Oliveira Martins, the eminent Portuguese historian ; Mr. John Francis Waller, LL.D.; Miss Elizabeth Peabody; Dr. H. W. Dulcken ; Miss Constance Fenimore Woolson; Dr. Terrien de Lacouperie, the Orientalist writer and scholar ; Dr. John Lord, LL.D., the his- torian; M. Armand Pagès, the French novelist; Dr. James M'Cosh, the philosophical writer; Captain Lovett Cameron ; Mrs. Pitt-Byrne; Mrs. Jane Austin, the American authoress; Miss Sophia Dobson Collett, writer on Theism and Atheism; Miss E. Owens Blackburne, the Irish novelist; the Rev. Robert Anchor Thompson, historical writer; Miss Patton-Bethune, writer of sporting novels; M. Dugast-Matifeux, an eminent French antiquary ; Rev. J. Hamilton Thom ; Rev.  ## p. 269 (#283) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 269 John Nassau-Simpkinson; Ludwig Pfau, the German poet and art critic; Mrs. Augusta Theodosia Drame, a well-known Roman Catholic writer; M. Victor Fournel, the literary critic; Mr. Andreas Edward Cokayne, antiquarian writer; Professor Karl Dillmann the emi- ment Ethiopic writer; Mr. Thomas George Stevenson, an Edinburgh author and publisher; M. Foucaux, Professor of Sanskrit at the Collège de France; M. Astié, Professor of Philosophy at Lausanne ; the Rev. Naphthali Levy, Jewish writer; Mr. Walter H. Tregellas, a Cornish author; Mr. Thomas Farrall, a popular Cumber- land writer; Mr. Henry Vizetelly, author of “Glances back through Seventy Years,” &c.; Mr. J. J. Shean, of Hull, a county historian ; Mr. John Chessell Buckler, antiquarian writer; Mr. Mansfield Parkyns, writer on Abyssinia; Herr J. ter Gouw, author of the “History of Amsterdam. ”; Mr. Brackstone Baker, writer on Canadian and railway subjects; Herr Max Moltke, the German poet, philosopher, and translator; Mr. John Patrick Prendergast, author of “The Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland”; M. Dussieux, author of works on the reign of Louis XIV. ; Professor J. Von Dümichen, the eminent writer on Egyptology; Dr. J. Bradshaw, editor of “Grey ’’ and “Milton,” and of “The Chesterfield Letters ”; Voislav Ilic, the “Servian Heine ‘’; Helgi Hálfdanorson, the Icelandic poet ; Mr. Henry Manners Chichester, writer on British military history; Dr. William F. Poole, compiler of the “Index to Periodical Literature"; Dr. Frankl, Austrian poet and prose writer; Professor Wilhelm Roscher, the eminent political economist; Mr. Edward Capern, the postman poet of Bide- ford; Mr. Cecil Robertson; Rev. Josiah Wright, classical writer; M. Louis Roumieux, the French “Provincial Ovid’’; Mr. W. O'Neill Daunt, Irish historical writer; Mme. Betty Paoli (Barbara Glück), the Austrian poetess; Mr. Herbert Tuttle, historical writer; Mr. J. Dobie, Professor of Hebrew in Edinburgh University ; Nikolai Michailowitsch Astyrew, the Russian author; Mrs. Celia Thaxter; M. Jean Fleury; Mr. Eugene Lawrence, American historical writer; Dr. Siegfried Szamatolski, a promising German writer; Miss Augusta de Grasse Stevens; Mr. W. Douglas Hamilton, historical writer; Mr. John Russell, assistant editor of Chambers’s Journal; Dr. H. N. Van der Tunk, the greatest Malayan scholar of the century; Mr. Francis Romano Oliphant; Mr. John Askham, the Northamptonshire poet; M. Léon Palustre, a learned writer on the French Renaissance ; Professor Dr. Henrich Rudolf Hildebrand, the linguist and lexicographer; Mr. J. Bedford Leno, the Buckinghamshire poet; Mr. George H. Jennings; M. François de Caussade, of an almost unique personality. librarian of the Mazarine Collection; M. Claudio Jannet, Professor of Political Economy in the Catholic University of Paris; M. Victor Duruy, the historian; Rev. Caesar Malan, the Oriental scholar; Dr. John Chapman, proprietor and editor of the Westminster Review ; Mr. Alexander Ireland; Dr. Heinrich Hoffman, author of the famous “Struwwelpeter’”; and the Rev. William John Blew, hymnologist, &c.—The Times, Jan. I. *- : *-* * * - CHRISTINA, G, ROSSETTI. ſ TVHE editor of this periodical has courteously T requested me to say something about Christina Rossetti in the March number of the Author, and I comply with his request, though with diffidence. Words are only the means whereby we strive to express our conceptions or to convey our impressions. And never does a writer feel so keenly how inadequate words are at the best as when he strives to show to others in some measure the sweetness, the irresistible fascination For the influence of personal qualities, such as those possessed by Christina Rossetti in so remark- able a degree, is well-nigh untranslatable into words. Time, skill in word-painting, and above all much preparatory thought, are needed before any success, however small, can be attained in such an endeavour. But if a volume is ever written, revealing the inner aspects of her character, as far as these could be revealed with a due sense of delicacy and proportion, the volume will be a permanent and priceless addition to English litera- ture. And, despite the difficulty of his task, I envy him who shall write the volume; the con- templation of such a character as that of Christina Rossetti will alone recompense him for his labour. The critic of the far future, of whom we hear so much and think so little, will accord a high place among the great poets of the century to the poet to whom we owe “Amor Mundi,” “An Apple Gathering,” “Maude Clare,” “The Con- vent Threshold,” and “Maiden-Song.” He will single out as among the finest love songs in our language such a flawless lyric as “When I am dead, my dearest "-a lyric so full of atmosphere, so perfect in its tenderness and portrayal of unchanged and unchangeable affection. Nor must we forget that Christina Rossetti—whether we look to the quality or quantity of her devotional poetry—was pre-eminent among the illustrious English poets who have enriched  ## p. 270 (#284) ############################################ 27O THE AUTHOR. Christian literature by their genius. As long as Christianity remains the most vital force in the lives of millions of English-speaking people the memory of that poet of their faith who gave them such a poem as “Passing away, saith the world, passing away,” or “Paradise,” with its exquisite last stanza, the very quintessence of Christian expectation — who gave them that beautiful hymn, part of which, beginning “The Porter watches at the gate,” was sung so fittingly at her funeral service — who gave them the perfect lines, beginning “Thy lovely saints do bring Thee love,” will be cherished and honoured. Personally, Christina Rossetti had the quiet simplicity of real greatness, and this simplicity was doubtless in itself an evidence of genius. In intercourse with her one lost consciousness of being in the presence of a distinguished poet, because one became conscious of being in the presence of a woman distinguished in the more noble womanly qualities. Nature evidently had endowed her not only with the gifts proper to a poet, and these in a lavish degree, but also with choicest gifts of the heart and soul. But if this was so, it was equally true that Christina Rossetti had herself matured and perfected her natural gifts by that sublimest education of all—the education of the soul. She was a recluse, but she never talked to me as such, and even amid weakness and suffering she was constantly cheerful. The very tones of her voice, in their slow and distinct intonation, were pleasant to hear. She was quite willing to talk about her favourite authors, and I remember the amusement she betokened on learning that a French translation of “David Copperfield,” which I had picked up secondhand on the Quais during a recent visit to Paris, was entitled “Le Neveu de Ma Tante.” Deeply religious, she never obtruded her piety, yet I felt instinctively that I was in the company of a holy woman. In a copy of her “Verses,” given to me, she wrote in her own clear hand- writing—handwriting firm as long as she could continue to write at all—“Faith is like a lily, lifted high and white,” and to her the things and persons of the future life were realities. Probably this was the reason of her wonderful—her heroic endurance of pain. Despite her profound humility, and her vivid sense of human short- comings, she was sustained by the conviction that God’s angel Death would soon release her, and she no more doubted the existence of a state of coming blessedness than the traveller doubts the existence of the place for which he is bound, when setting out on a journey. I shall always feel proud and glad that I knew personally one of the most lovable women who ever lived. MACKENZIE BELL. *~ - --" r- * ~, MRS. CARLYLE. ILL a voice ever be raised in defence of Carlyle P Much has been written touching Mrs. Carlyle’s married un- happiness, which everyone lays at the door of this long-suffering philosopher. In a recently published article, by the late Mrs. Alexander Ireland, she describes a visit she paid to Froude, in order to gain his permission to write Mrs. Carlyle's life. She gained Froude's permission because their view of Mrs. Carlyle's character was identical, for she says that Froude “deeply compassionated Mrs. Carlyle.” Perhaps it hovers closely on superfluousness. and temerity to argue so difficult a question, or to seek to readjust the balance between these two vexed and irreconcilable immortals; yet, in justice to Carlyle's memory, I would affirm that there was no lack of love, or even tenderness, on his part towards his wife. I have often heard one speak, who, in a quiet unobtrusive way, held intimate intercourse with the Carlyles, having experience of them in one of their gloomiest periods, for it was in the ten years during which Carlyle, under the shadow of his “Frederick the Great,” wrestled with the writing of his history. It was also the time when the unconscious philosopher paid his much resented visits to Lord and Lady Ashburton—at least, the period when Mrs. Carlyle most resented his so doing. But the impression this lady received, when she saw them together, which she did often, was of Carlyle's deep and abiding love for his wife, and of the high value he set upon her literary judgment, always reading to her his MS. and altering passages at her advice; how he strove with these emendations the following little touch by Mrs. Carlyle, related tâté-à-tête, best shows:– “The first day Mr. Carlyle came down very cross, in the evening, saying that he had done nothing all day, hang it ! had spent all the after- noon trying to alter that paragraph of hers, and he could not. The second day uneasy; the third day more so ; the fourth, sent J. in post haste to recall the proofs, that he might strike out the whole of “our melancholy friend's remarks.’ Mrs. Carlyle sorry to find fault, and not to seemed pleased, as he is always dispirited himself at first, and wants encouraging.”  ## p. 271 (#285) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 27 I One questions if from the mocking satirical spirit of Mrs. Carlyle there ever flowed much encouragement, prone as she was to discourse of him to friends and acquaintances in a carping, unkindly spirit. On the other hand, I have heard this lady before quoted assert that in his bearing to his wife there was a chivalrous, reverent strain, difficult to describe; said she always in conclusion, “his manner to Mrs. Carlyle was beautiful.” As tending to the cause of some unhappiness between them, much stress has been laid upon her superior position socially, and of the luxury and comfort she relinquished on her marriage; but between a Scotch country doctor's daughter, at the beginning of this century, and a farmer's son, was there such a yawning gulf fixed P Might not genius and love have bridged it over P at least if Mrs. Carlyle had been dowered with but a little more of the latter golden elixir—then perhaps she would not have deemed it such an unmitigated misfortune to have made a pudding, or baked a loaf of bread; though her biographers have dealt as darkly upon her days of domestic activity at Craigen- puttock as did Charles Dickens, with more reason, upon his days of degradation in the blacking factory. - Mrs. Carlyle, or rather wayward Miss Jane Welsh, desired before all things to marry a man of genius. It was the survival of an early girlish ambition, and, unlike the general course of girlish ambition, it was fulfilled, for fate, a trifle maliciously, as the sequel proved, chose to fasten it upon her by producing the man. It failed to make her happy, because she was unable, partly by health and temperament, to face all the discomforts and disenchanting details which fall to the lot of the wife of a struggling, ill-paid man of genius; and “the plain living and high thinking,” coupled with the absolute silence and solitude necessary to the “high thinking,” grew irksome to her. These were the conditions of her early married life; then, when success came, with social homage to herself, it found her a dis- appointed, embittered woman, bereft of any but the most fitful power of enjoyment, seeing all things clad in her own feverish distaste for them. In a letter written to her from her intended husband not long before their marriage, he strenuously insists upon that which eventually proved to be the essential need of her whole life, for he writes: “You have a deep, earnest, and vehement spirit, and no earnest task has ever been assigned to it. You despise and ridicule the meanness of the things about you. To the things you honour you can only pay a fervent adoration, which issues in no practical effect.” Was not this the root of the restless misery in her life? Destitute of any earnest purpose, her brilliant gifts found no outlet; instead her mocking spirit played round men and things, and her keen satire, like sheet lightning, lit up the words and the deeds of the men and women round her with the cold light of destructive irony, which recoiling at the last upon her heart, warped it from all invigorating effort. But she was a shrewd and kindly friend to those she loved. Far be it from me to dwell upon her character, or life, in a censorious spirit. Novalis has it, character is destiny; and her perpetual malady of unhappiness was in a measure due to lack of health, but still more to that which she herself described, in humorous despair, as an absence of “the faculty of being happy.” At times one is almost tempted to think she wore her grief as a fantastic garment, for in the dolorous liturgy of her diary there is some- thing theatrical and unreal. When all literary and fashionable London rolled up to her door, still she railed at fate, because it failed to amuse her. There must be a great many “mute, inglorious ” Mrs. Carlyles in the world who cannot give voice to their disillusionment with life as wittily as did she, who yet make a very cheerful fight of it, having successfully learnt the gentle art of being happy ; therefore is not the world a little harsh in its judgment when it ascribes all Mrs. Carlyle's lamentations due to the temper of the melancholy Creator of “Sartor Resartus P” GRACE GILCHRIST. *- Am aims--> ,- w -. AN AUTHORS BEST WORK T is important to an author to know the circumstances under which he ordinarily does his best work. The experience of the majority of writers shows that the hour at which a man works, the place, and not a few other attendant circumstances of his labours—circum- stances in themselves apparently unimportant— exercise a great effect upon his ordinary capacity for literary production. The phenomenon is not quite universal. Anthony Trollope trained him- self into writing at any time, and in almost any place. Charles Dickens, when he was young, would write his newspaper reports on the palm of his hand, by the light of a dim lamp, in a post-chaise. But these were exceptional cases. Later Dickens' letters mention predilections for quiet spots in which to write, and yearnings for strolls in the streets of London to inspire him; and probably nineteen authors out of twenty will echo the sentiments of a dramatist of some  ## p. 272 (#286) ############################################ 272 THE AUTHOR. note who has said that all his happiest ideas present themselves to him in his own library. Nevertheless, many authors seem to give no serious attention to the lessons that might be derived from their experience of the difference both in quantity and quality of copy produced under more or less favourable circumstances. That is a mistake. The time of an author who is at all successful soon becomes very valuable, and its loss by mismanagement—and more time is lost by mismanagement than in any other way— is a real misfortune. The greater too a man’s success, the greater his reason for doing every- thing in his power to maintain his work at its highest level. It would be, in consequence, mere common prudence for an author to watch himself, and to take to heart as many lessons about his own strength and weakness, and about the circumstances under which he does his best work, as his experience will afford him. Such lessons are sometimes valuable results of failures, things that “one learns by making mistakes *- to quote Metastasio. It is true that some writers fall into an oppo- site error. Quite recently, amongst an author’s papers, was found a journal, not of hours only but of minutes, covering months and years, in which the employment of every moment had been chronicled with scrupulous accuracy with a view to ascertaining what time had been most profitably employed. Such finicking attention to infinitesimal details is a temptation to minds of a certain mould. It leads, of course, to waste, and not to economy of energy. Without, however, falling into this mistake, those who will “know themselves” may learn from a little self-observation a great deal that is well worth remembering. Personal experience will immediately suggest in every case to what the individual should turn his more particular attention, and to enumerate all that an author might with advantage try to observe would far exceed the limits of the present article. The following seem to be leading points which might suggest others. Where does a man find his finest stimulants of thought and invention ? Dickens found them in the crowded streets of London. More men have found them in the completest solitude. Few realise to how great a degree all that seems most spontaneous is really recollection. In conse- quence many men never adequately work the mine of their own memories. Instead they go about seeking—honestly, painfully, and often with many disappointments—what they all the time carry within themselves. M. Dumas, Fils, observes that “books teach nothing.” Those who, like Molière, take men rather than books for their study, will immediately understand the statement. Still Molière's favourite author was Lucretius, and Lucretius was never yet a favourite with any man who was not a close and careful reader. M. Dumas' dictum has also been flatly contradicted, and the assertion made that “books teach everything.” That may be an exaggera- tion or an epigram, two things much alike; yet De Balzac observes, with truth, “the mission of art is not to copy nature, but to express nature,” which means, for the novelist, that the literary habit of thought is indispensable. But how wide a question is here opened for every author who would know what amount of inspiration he draws from the world, and how much from his reading. What assistance does an author get from his common-place books? Some years have passed since Mr. James Payn recommended the memo- randum-book to every one who desired to write. And it is needless to say how many authors have availed themselves of the help of note-books. But may not every author with advantage ask himself how much aid his note-books, have given him, or how little P And, if so, why little P One phenomenon connected with note-books must be familiar to all who have used them, their tire- Some suggestiveness of what is not wanted, and the temptation, never to be allowed an instant’s influence over the judgment, to use something, because it is in the note-book, and because it looks telling, when it is evidently not quite in place. An author, who has made his memoranda, has still something of importance to learn in dis- covering the best way of using them. What time and what labour an author saves who has found out what is, in his own case, the best method of perfecting a plot, and of resolving upon the lines of each successive chapter after the plot has been constructed Mr. William Black has said that many of his tales have been planned in the open air. M. Zola confesses his absolute inability to think out anything unless he has a pen in his hand. “My ideas only come in writing. I could never evolve any idea. by sitting in my arm-chair and thinking.” An English authoress has said the exact contrary. “I never attempt to write anything until I have Sat still for a long time thinking.” Here are three different ways of proceeding. And there are no doubt many others. Only it must be most important for an author to know which way is most helpful to himself. A man, who has not yet discovered that, might be in the position of Zola in an easy chair. On the other hand, here is a passage from a letter of Dickens: “I didn’t stir out yesterday, but sat and thought all day; not writing a line, not so much as the cross of a,  ## p. 273 (#287) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 273 “t” or the dot of an “i’ I imagined forth a good deal of Barnaby by keeping my mind steadily upon him ; and am happy to say I have gone to work this morning in good twig, strong hope, and cheerful spirits.” Another complete contrast between Dickens and Zola, suggests how great a difference there may be in the degree of elaboration which diffe- rent authors find it worth their while to give a scenario. Zola's scenario is longer than his book. Dickens, when he made a scenario, wrote only a few suggestive lines for each chapter. One author may waste his energies and tie his own hands by preparing a scenario that affords no scope for the development which the tale will take under his hands; and another lose time by constructing a scenario inadequate for his needs, so that he is compelled to recommence inventing his tale when he wants to be writing it. A writer ought to know exactly what form of scenario is most helpful to himself. A little attention to his own experiences would always show him how to construct it. That naturally next suggests the question of rapidity of composition. Rapid work is generally successful work. Hurried work is never rapid work. Any attempt to hurry invariably results in the composition dragging and everything going wrong. On the contrary, composition that flows out rapidly of itself is ordinarily a man’s best work. “The works and passages in which I have succeeded have uniformly been written with the greatest rapidity the parts in which I have come off feebly were by much the more laboured,” says Sir Walter Scott. “Slowness of production,” wrote Eugéne Delacroix, “is a blot on the talent of the artist. It leaves a stamp of fatigue.” Now, no phenomenon of literary work is so remarkable as the astonishing speed at which literary work can be done, at which some of the most remarkable literary work in the world has been done. Does it not follow that a man, who discovers something perpetually standing in the way of his getting on with his work, is probably pursuing a mistaken method, one perhaps con- genial to another man, but fatal to himself. He has not yet discovered the circumstances under which he does his best work. Many writers, for instance, never find a rapid flow of composition possible until after they have been writing for an hour or two. Dickens mentions this peculiarity. “I worked pretty well last night, but I have four slips to write to complete the chapter; and, as I foolishly left them till this morning, have the steam to get up afresh.” Suppose that a man who had thus “to get up steam ” thought that he could write easily and without fatigue by “doing a little every day,” then he would never reach the point where, in his case, the real flow of spirits and invention commenced. Connected with this difficulty of “getting up the steam ” may be the indisposition some men feel to set to work. Others start with a real zest. Perhaps these do not have to get up steam. But many can certainly echo De Balzac's Je m'y mets avec désespoir. It is almost impossible to exag- gerate the reluctance such men feel to beginning. When this is the case an author should certainly discover what is, in his case, the best method of dealing with this dislike to going to work. Another question there is of a very different kind. An ancient adage runs, “Tailors and writers must follow the fashion.” The highest work will always lead the fashion rather than follow it; but failures are occasioned by insuffi- cient attention to what people desire to read, and it is possible for an author, annoyed by ill- success, to turn his attention to writing rather what is popular than what his own feelings prompt him to write. It would be most valuable to him to observe the results of his experiment. More is involved than at first sight appears in a consequent success or failure. He may find that it was a mistake to quit, a speciality that suited him. He may discover that he has a much greater versatility than he suspected himself of possessing. He may even descry a path leading to successes never previously obtained because the direction in which they lay had escaped his observation. This is touching up on a few salient points alone. Only in the cases mentioned would it be possible to overrate the value to the author of knowing the circumstances in which he could reckon upon doing his best work. HENRY CRESSWELL. *-- z- - --> THE WALUE OF A NOWEL, Tº: following case is reported, as follows, in the Daily Chronicle for Feb. 17: Yesterday, in the Westminster County Court, the case of Johnson v. Dicks came before his Honour Judge Lumley Smith, Q.C., and was a claim in formá pawperis for £50, as damages for the loss of MS. The plaintiff said that in 1888 he was at the house of Mr. John Dicks, at Streatham, and he asked him to write a story, which he sent to the defendant's place of business in the Strand, and was told a cheque would be forwarded, but he was afterwards informed that the story had been destroyed. He therefore claimed 350 for the damage. He had published many books, “Fairy Tales” in 1869, and others. Plaintiff said this was a large volume novel, and he was a well-known author. His Honour: But “Paradise Lost’’ was sold for £15, was it not P Plaintiff : But Black gets £1000 for a  ## p. 274 (#288) ############################################ 274 THE AUTHOR. short novel, and reserves to himself the copyright. I have had 3 Io a week for thirteen weeks from the London Journal. Defendant said he never saw the story, and was not a member of the firm now. His Honour : I think 392 will pay you well. Defendant : But I am not liable. His Honour: 382 will not hurt you. (Laughter.) Judgment for the plaintiff for £2. If this case is accurately reported, and there is no reason for believing the contrary, it is a most extraordinary and wonderful case. The author sues in formá pauperis (thus keeping up the glorious traditions of the literary profession) for the sum of £50 as damages for the loss of a MS. - Very good. He said that he was at the house of Mr. John Dicks in 1888, and was by him invited to write a story for him, i.e., one supposes for one of his papers. Here come one or two questions: (1) Was he asked to write a story without specification of length or subject? (2) Was his story to be sent in on approval, or was the author's reputation taken as a guarantee of good work P. (3) What price was proposed by the publisher ? (4) What price did the author's stories usually command, i.e., what was he accus- tomed to receive P (5) Would the author name some of his stories, and mention what prices he received for them P (6) Was Mr. John Dicks authorised to invite novelists in the name of the firm or company P These questions, observe, are not hostile to either party; they are only necessary to get at the truth. The plaintiff then said that he was promised when he delivered the story that a cheque should be sent. What was the amount he was to get by that cheque? It does not appear. He was then told that the MS. had been destroyed. How P By fire! If so it would be arguable whether the firm was liable. dentally P Also it might be arguable whether the firm was liable. He assessed his own damages at £50, and said it was a “large volume novel.” What is a “large volume novel P” Is it a three- volume novel, or one of the average length of a three-volume novel, which is about 180,000 words P The defendant said that he had never seen the story; that he was not a member of the firm ; and that he was not liable. to leave a firm in which he has been a partner, is he still liable to that firm’s engagements P Then the judge, after some irrelevance about “Paradise Lost,” ordered the defendant to pay £2 | Now, either the defendant was liable or he was not. If he was not, why should he pay anything P If he was, he ought to have paid the value of the work, calculate 1 on the value of other works by the same author. As it is, the author appears to have been insulted, and the Acci- If a man is allowed publisher appears to have been fined. One more question ought to have been asked, Why did the author wait for seven years before bringing his claim P *- a -º r- - - ON, SELLING A BOOK OUTRIGHT. HIS is a method which has one or two obvious advantages. It gives the author what he very likely wants, a sum of money down; and it relieves him of any anxiety about the commercial success of his book. On the other hand, it sometimes makes him part with a very valuable copyright for a song ; and it tempts him to spend at once what should be spread over a term of years, viz., the whole life of his book. Most of the miseries of authors have been due to their regarding as income the lump sum obtained by selling the work of years. When, however, an author wishes to sell his book outright, or a publisher wishes to buy it, there are certain obvious considerations. To capitalise an author's interest in his book should be Conducted, as in every piece of business, with due regard to the probable, or the certain, results of the book. For instance, to buy a book of an author for a sum of money not one-tenth of what it will produce, as the purchasers know, but the author does not Know, is very commonly done. The following figures will show some of the points to be considered : We take our old friend the 6s. volume. It costs, we will say, Is. a copy to produce. It is sold to the trade at 3s. 7#d. ; the author on a 20 per cent. royalty would receive about 1s. 2%d. a copy; the publisher about 1s. 5d. If an author sells his book for a certain sum, what amount of sales would that cover ? Say he takes £50, that would cover royalties representing a sale of 825 copies. Say he takes £100, that would cover royalties representing a sale of 1650 copies. Say he takes £400, that would cover royalties representing a sale of 3400 copies, and so on. All copies beyond that limit would belong to the publisher, together with his own royalty on the preceding copies. - If, on the other hand, there is a certainty that the book will sell so many copies as a minimum, and a probability that it will sell so many more, the sum to be paid must represent that minimum first and the probability next ; and, of course, in such a transaction there is always the element of chance on both sides, so that one may give too much—of which we seldom hear—and the other may get too little, of which we often hear. -  ## p. 275 (#289) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 275 In making any such calculation or bargain as the above one must remember that the old- fashioned half-profit system still lingers as a rough-and-ready recognised method of apportion- ing the returns. Without accepting it formally, one may take it as a basis. The purchase of a book for a small sum, either knowing that it is going to prove a certain pro- perty or in the well-founded hope that it will do so, is a very important secret in the art of getting rich by the labour and brains of other people. Readers of the Author will remember how the venerable and religious Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge was proved to be in pos- session of this important secret, and how its righteous committee used the secret in a manner truly Christian by purchasing for £12, 320, £25, books which ran into thousands upon thousands. Let us take another case—a book sold for 3s. 6d. costing, in quantities, about 8d., a copy. As a rule it would be less. The author receives, say, £20, £25, or 330. The book is sold for 2s., which leaves a profit of Is. 4d. Tor the price of .820 means a royalty of 7d. for a sale of ................................. 700 copies. £25 means a royalty of 7d. for a sale of .............. ................ 850 copies. 330 means a royalty of 7d. for a - sale of ................................. I IOO copies. After which the publisher has the whole future proceeds o' the book for himself. * ~ *-** e- * = BOOK TALK, Sº authors will doubtless appre- ciate the following extract from Harriet Martineau’s “Autobiography:” “I do not very highly respect reviews, nor like to write them ; for the simple reason that in ninety- nine cases out of a hundred the author under- stands his subject better than the reviewer. It can hardly be otherwise while the author treats one subject, to his study of which his book itself is a strong testimony; whereas the reviewer is expected to pass from topic to topic to any extent, pronouncing, out of his brief survey, on the results of deep and protracted study. Of all the many reviews of my books on America and Egypt there was not, as far as I know, one which did not betray ignorance of the respective coun- tries. And, on the other hand, there is no book, except a very few which have appeared on my own particular subjects, that I could venture to pro- nounce on ; as, in every other case, I feel myself compelled to approach a book as a learner, and not as a judge. This is the same thing as saying that reviewing, in the wholesale way in which it. is done in our time, is a radically vicious practise; and such is indeed my opinion. I am glad to see scientific men, and men of erudition, and true connoiseurs in Art, examining what has been done in their respective departments; and everybody is glad of good essays, whether they appear in books called Reviews, or elsewhere. But of the reviews of our day, properly so-called, the vast majority must be worthless, because the reviewer knows less than the author of the matter in hand.” The sixth volume of the fifth edition of “Chitty's Statutes of Practical Utility,” which is being published in about twelve volumes by Sweet and Maxwell Limited and Stevens and Sons Limited, under the editorship of Mr. J. M. Lely, has just appeared. The arrangement of the statutes is in alphabetical and chronological Order, under about 200 titles, such as “Act of Parliament,” “Adulteration,” “Copyright,” “Death Duties,” “Intoxicating Liquors,” “Local Government,” “Poor,” “Water,” and the like. Each title is prefaced by a separate table of contents, and so are many of the particular Acts. The foot-notes give the effect of or reference to decided cases and statutory rules. The final volume will contain a chronological table of the statutes printed in the work, an alphabetical table of short and popular titles of statutes, and a “general index,” in the compilation of which Mr. Ormsby will assist. Assistance in the annotation has been given by Mr. Craies as to the Metropolitan Acts, the Local Government Act 1894, and other subjects; by Mr. Mundahl as to the Extradition Acts; by Mr. W. A. Peck as to the Conveyancing Acts, the Settled Lands Acts, and the Trustee Acts; by Mr. Pulling as to the Merchant Shipping Act; and Mr. Simey as to the Factors Act and Highway Acts. The price of the whole work to subscribers was six guineas, but the price is now One guinea per volume. “A Mountain Path" is the title of a book by Mr. John A. Hamilton (Sampson Low, Marston, and Co. Price 3s. 6d.). It is a collection of parables, fables, and talks about natural things which have already appeared in periodicals. The author states that the only aim in writing this book was to foster natural piety in children. “Walter Inglisfield” is publishing through Messrs. Sonnenschein a new volume of verse. . Miss F.F. Monterson has produced (Hutchinson and Co.) her new work, “Into the Highways and Hedges.” g  ## p. 276 (#290) ############################################ 276 THE AUTHOIR. Mrs. Cliffe's translation of Longuardi's poems ls about to appear in a second edition. Byrne's story called “A Fragment,” together with his Parliamentary speeches, is published in the fifth volume of the Tauchnitz edition of his complete works. In recognition of his numerous historical articles that have appeared in the magazines and reviews, but perhaps more especially for his important contribution to fourteenth and fifteenth century history, the volume entitled “A Forgotten Great Englishman,” Mr. James Baker, the author, has just been elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He is at present travelling in Egypt, from whence he is writing a series of articles on that country. Miss Margaret Cross has completed a new novel, which Messrs. Hurst and Blackett will publish next month. It is called “Newly Fashioned,” and it will have on its title-page the suggestive motto, Such is the power of that sweet passion, That it all sordid baseness doth expel, And the refined mind doth newly fashion Into a fairer form. Mr. William Tirebuck's new story, “Miss Grace of All Souls,” will be published by Beinemann and Co. in the spring. It is dedicated to the author's brother, the Rev. Thomas Tirebuck, of Birmingham. The arrangements were concluded by the Authors' Syndicate. Mr. Basil Thomson’s “Diversions of a Prime Minister” (Blackwood and Sons). The Prime Minister is Mr. Thomson himself, and the realm which he administered was the island of Tonga. Messrs. A. and C. Black will publish this month a novel in one volume called “The Grasshopper.” It is by Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick, who under the name of Mrs. Andrew Dean has contributed several stories to the Pseudonym Library. “His Egyptian Wife,” a novel by Hilton Hill, will be issued in March by Digby, Long and Co. The book will be published simultaneously in New York and London. “Conscience makes the Martyr,” by S. M. Crawley Boevey is published by Mr. Arrowsmith, and has been kindly criticised by the Literary Płorld, The Academy, and other papers. The Authors' Syndicate has arranged for the publication of Mr. John Lloyd Warden Page's new book, “The Coasts of Devon and Lundy Island,” through Mr. Horace Cox. The volume will be profusely illustrated. M. Dim. Vikelas, the eminent novelist, is the president of the International Committee of the Olympic games to be held at Athens from April 5th to 15th, 1896. The official programme of the games is now in type. Mr. Gladstone, the inexhaustible, is ready with another volume—his edition of the Psalter, to be published in Europe and America immediately. IIe contributes a concordance and a condensed commentary. Mr. Balfour's book on “ The Foundations of Belief.” has undoubtedly been the book of the past month. As usual, someone has turned up to accuse the writer of having stolen his ideas. This time it is Dr. Beattie Crozier, who publishes his plaint in the Chronicle. Sir Benjamin Richardson has confided to a con- temporary not only that he possesses a number of sketches and jottings made by Cruikshank for his own biography, but that he also hopes some day to write this hitherto neglected book, and embody his valuable material. It is hard reading for authors whose manu- scripts are returned to read that there are quite a number in the habit of declining publisher's invitations. A contemporary says that Mrs. J. R. Green, for instance, is unable to do any literary work for at least four years; while Dr. Jessop is said to have mortgaged the next six years. Mr. Stanley Weyman, we believe, has gone for a year's holiday, during which he refuses to work; while Mr. S. R. Crockett has contracts signed, sealed, and delivered for all the work that he can possibly produce during the present century. The Westminster Gazette wishes to know what has become of the Life of Adam Smith, by Mr. Leonard Courtney, and that of Bishop Berkeley, by professor Huxley. To these might be added a number of bookly promises not performed. For instance, first and foremost, where is Mr. John Morley's Life of John Stuart Mill? Second, where is the long expected and greatly desired Life of John Delane of the Times 2 Third, where is Lord Rowton’s Life of the Earl of Beaconsfield P Professor Rhys Davids, upon whose pension from the Civil List such a bitter attack was made in Parliament, has been delivering a course of lectures called “The Literature and Religion of India,” at Harvard and John Hopkins Univer- sities, in the United States, and Messrs. Putnam will shortly publish them simultaneously on both sides of the Atlantic under the above title. Messrs. Osgood will begin the publication of the collected works of Mr. Thomas Hardy in a few weeks with “Tess.” The volumes will be monthly, and the second will be “Far from the Madding Crowd.”  ## p. 277 (#291) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 277 The following interesting series of impromptu dedications written by Stevenson in a set of his works given to his American physician, Dr. Trudeau have appeared in the New York Book- Öuyer. “A CHILD’s GARDEN OF VERSEs.” ——To win your lady (if, alas ! it may be) Let's couple this one with the name of Baby | “TREASURE ISLAND.” I could not choose a patron for each one : But this perhaps is chiefly for your son. “KIDNAPPED.” ——Here is the one sound page of all my writing, The one I’m proud of, and that I delight in. “DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE.” Trudeau was all the winter at my side : I never spied the nose of Mr. Hyde. “ UNDERWOODs.” Some day or other ('tis a general curse) The wisest author stumbles into verse. “THE DYNAMITER.” As both my wife and I composed the thing, Let's place it under Mrs. Trudeau's wing. “MEMORIES AND PORTRAITs.” Greeting to all your household, small and big, In this one instance, not forgetting—Nig “THE MERRY MEN.” If just to read the tale you should be able, I would not bother to make out the fable. “TRAVELs witH A DONKEY.” It blew, it rained, it thawed, it snowed, it thundered— Which was the Donkey P I have often wondered “PRINCE OTTO.” This is my only love tale, this Prince Otto, Which some folks like to read, and others not to. “MEMOIR OF FLEEMING JENKIN.” The preface mighty happy to get back To its inclement birthplace, Saranac “FAMILIAR STUDIES OF MEN AND Books.” My other works are of a slighter kind; Here is the party to improve your MIND ! VIRGINIBUs PUERISQUE.” I have no art to please a lady’s mind. Here's the least acid spot, Miss Trudeau, of the lot. If you’d just try this volume, 'twould be kind Mr. Le Gallienne's name is prominent among the announcements of new books. His “Book- Bills of Narcissus,” the first and, perhaps, the most charming book he has written, has just been published in an enlarged edition, and a new edition of his “English Poems” is to be issued imme- diately. Besides these a new volume of verses called “Robert Louis Stevenson : an Elegy; and Other Poems, Mainly Personal,” and a collection of odds and ends of literary criticism entitled “Retrospective Reviews: a Literary Log,” are announced. Mr. Lane is, of course, the pub- lisher. The next volume in Arrowsmith's Bristol Library will be “The Adventures of Arthur Roberts: by Railroad and River,” told by him- self and chronicled by Mr. Richard Morton. It is to be an anecdotal biography of the famous burlesque actor. The forthcoming season promises to be specially rich in biographies. For instance, Mr. John Rae’s “Life of Adam Smith;” a “Biography of Sir John Drummond Hay, for forty years our Repre- sentative in Morocco,” by his daughters; a “Life of George Borrow,” by Professor Knapp, of Chicago; a “Biography of Dr. Holmes,” by Mr. John T. Morse, jun. ; “Reminiscences of Richard Cobden,” by Mrs. Schwabe, with a preface by Lord Farrer; the “Life of Sir Samuel Baker;” and Mr. Leslie Stephen's Memoirs of his brother, Sir James Fitzjames Stephen. - Mudie's Library is said to have refused Mr. Arthur Machen’s book, “The Great God Pan.” - Mr. Fisher Unwin, who publishes already half- a-dozen “libraries '' or series of books, announces yet another, with the comparatively commonplace title of “The Half-Crown Series.” Mr. Robert Buchanan’s “Diana's Hunting ” will be the first, and Mrs. Rita L. Humphreys—who is best known by her Christian name—the second, called “A Gender in Satin.” - It seems strange that Mr. Stanley should have waited so long before giving the world an account of “My Early Travels and Adventures.” Much of this book has never been reprinted from the newspapers to which it was originally contributed, and part of it is entirely new. It will be con- cerned with Indian warfare in America and the tragic end of General Custer, who was out- manoeuvred and killed by Sitting Bull; the early history of the Suez Canal; and the exploration of Palestine, Persia, the Caucasus, and Armenia. Messrs. Sampson Low and Co. will issue the book about Easter. Messrs. Cassell and Co. have hit upon an idea for an important series of books, to be entitled the “Century Science ’’ series, of which Sir Henry Roscoe is the editor. The first, to be published immediately, will be by the editor himself, and called “John Dalton and the Rise of Modern Chemistry.” It will be followed by “The Rise of English Geography,” by Mr. Clements R. Markham, the distinguished President of the Royal Geographical Society. Two new reprints of standard authors are just making their appearance. The first is Messrs. J. M. Dent's complete edition of Defoe, in sixteen volumes, with editorial notes and illustrations,  ## p. 278 (#292) ############################################ 278 THE AUTHOR. produced in the delightful style to which this firm has accustomed us. The series costs 28. 6d. a volume, net, and will be completed by October. The second reprint is the new edition of George Eliot’s works, which Messrs. Blackwood will issue. It is to be known as the “Standard” edition, and to consist of twenty-one volumes, also at 2s. 6d. “Adam Bede’’ is to appear at once in two volumes, and “The Mill on the Floss '' will follow. The star of Ouida does not shine so brightly as it once did. Perhaps her forthcoming book, which Messrs. Methuen announce, will win her back something of the public approval which seems rather unjustly to have left her. The titles of some of its articles—such as “The Failure of Christianity,” “The Sims of Society,” “Some Fallacies of Science,” “The State as an Immoral Factor,” and “The Penalties of a Well-known Name "—promise, however, more polemics than entertainment. * Mr. Henry Arthur Jones has been a devoted contributor to the magazines, and lecturer before playgoing societies, on theatrical topics. No doubt his forthcoming book, “The Renascence of the English Drama,” to be published immediately by Messrs. Macmillan and Co., is a reprint of these. Mr. Jones's plays are of varying interest, but his opinions, whether expressed on the stage, the page, or the platform, are always original and interesting — as Matthew Arnold found when he was captivated by “Saints and Sinners.” Three new monthly magazines have to be chronicled as the month's contribution to the flowing tide of periodical literature. First, London Home, an obvious competitor to the Strand Magazine, at half the price, edited by Mr. Ralph Caine, and published by Horace Cox. Second, On Watch, edited by Mr. Herbert Russell, the son of Mr. Clark Russell, and pub- lished by Sampson Low at 6d., is to be entirely given up to naval subjects and news. Third, Messrs. Chapman and Hall are about to join the ranks of publishers who have magazines of their own, and announce, for publication in May, Chapman's Magazine, a 6d. monthly, to be edited by Mr. Oswald Crawfurd, the chairman of Chapman and Hall Limited. Besides these, the indefatigable Mr. Shorter has issued during the past month the Album, a 6d. weekly collection of photographs; and he is about to launch still another illustrated weekly, devoted entirely to sport. . A new series called “The Northern Library” is announced by Mr. Nutt. Among the early volumes to appear will be “The Saga of King Olaf Tryggwason,” translated by the Rev. John Sephton ; “The Ambales Saga,” edited and translated by Mr. Israel Gollancz; and “The Faereyinga Saga,” translated by Mr. F. York Powell, Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford. Two books by Colonel Reginald Hart, Director of Military Education in India, entitled “Reflec- tions on the Art of War,” and “Sanitation and Health,” have just been published by Messrs. W. Clowes and Sons Limited. They have both been very well reviewed. Messrs. Dent and Co. will shortly issue a revised and illustrated edition of Mrs. Alford Baldwin’s “Story of a Marriage.” “A Year of Sport and Natural History,” edited by Mr. Oswald Crawfurd, C.M.G., has just been published by Messrs. Chapman and Hall. It is composed of a series of natural history articles that were issued in Black and White. The work is beautifully illustrated, and is in every way first class. CORRESPONDENCE, I.—“EDITIONs.” HE announcement in the last number of the Author that Pierre Loti’s new book bears on the title page the legend of its being the “twenty-eighth edition,” though, in fact, the work is not yet issued to the public, raises the old ques- tion of what is an “edition;” whether it is worth the publisher's while to continue such literary fictions as “second edition, “third edition ”—or even “twenty-eighth edition ?” An “edition ” may mean any number of copies from 50 to 50,000. At one time it meant that the volume had been reprinted a specified number of times, and was therefore some guarantee that the book was not only in good demand, but had received the author's latest corrections; in fact, what is now termed a “new edition.” In a day of universal printing from stereos, this is no longer the case, even with technical treatises. In short, this numbering of “ edition,” is little better than a transparent fraud on the less sophisticated part of the publishers “public.” By a sort of vague understanding, never reduced to any protocol, and therefore never acted upon, an “edition ” was supposed to be IOOO copies, though why sales need have been counted in this rather cumbersome fashion it is rather difficult to understand. If it is allowable to estimate the merits of a book by its sale, would it not be more in accordance with reason, not to say common honesty, to intimate that the  ## p. 279 (#293) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 279 booksellers have taken 500, 800, 15OO, to 5000, or whatever may be the numerical expression of their confidence in the selling value of the author's name P But even then this does not quite meet the merits ºf the case. There are, as poor authors sometimes learn on settling up accounts with the modern Sosii, such things as “ sale or return,” which enable them to discount the inflated an- nouncements about the number of copies ordered “by the trade,” or which have been subscribed for in the after-enthusiasm of Mr. So and So's annual dinner. Pierre Loti’s twenty-eighth- edition-in-anticipation is no doubt perfectly justified by experience. But what is to be said of the minor novelist who prints at least three “editions” at the same time, though actually the total number of copies may be counted by hundreds P. On the other hand, it would not be difficult to point to popular books which sell by the thousand, without the publishers thinking it necessary to stimulate the flagging zeal of the public by announcements which, at best, are meaningless, and at worst might be characterised by a word not to be whispered where the dealings •of such honourable men as the purveyors of literature are concerned. R. B. II.-A DEFENCE OF RUSTIC READING. I think your contributor who speaks of village reading is dealing with what was the case thirty or forty years ago, rather than at the present time. I have had the means of knowing a good deal of what is the course of literature in an average south country parish, in great part agricultural, but not far from a large railway station. A man who acts as agent for a local weekly 'paper, and is also clerk to the parish council, and secretary to the village club and reading room, tells me that there are not above a dozen houses where a newspaper of some sort is not taken in, either Lloyd's or a local one ; and I have certainly found even the elder children at the schools aware of public events. There is a centre in the county which lends out books to village reading rooms, and for the last six or eight years this has kept up a constant exchange of biography, travels, good novels, and tales of adventure. Marryatt, Kingston, Mayne Reid, Harrison Ainsworth are favourites with the younger men and lads, and they read eagerly any tale of seafaring life. - There are besides, two lending libraries, chiefly for the women and children, but that the men also read the books is shown by the inquiries for print large enough for father. I know from the reports of a society for which I am the literary associate, that most parishes have likewise good libraries, generally well resorted to. The women also are apt to obtain books of the penny dreadful order, of course on their own account. “Fox's Book of Martyrs’’ is often to be met with, generally an inheritance ; and the two books that all have heard of and wish to read are the “Pilgrim’s Progress" and “Robinson Crusoe,” but I cannot think that the writer of “Rustic Reading ” can really know John Bunyan's great classic if he thinks it likely to terrify children into the way of virtue. It generally contains only one illustration at all alarming, e I doubt, too, whether he can be familiar with parish magazines. The two most popular ones, The Banner of Faith and the Church Monthly, certainly contain tales and papers that do not deserve the term mawkish. Perhaps I may also observe that the nickname Hodge is one that greatly displeases both the peasant and all that are interested in him. C. M. Y. III.-LITERATURE IN RUSSIA. The new young Tsar, Nicholas II., apparently holds men of letters in high esteem, and is capable of estimating the true worth of their efforts for the dissemination of knowledge among the classes through the medium of the press and other channels, he having granted a sum of £50,000 (500,000 roubles) to be paid out of the exchequer for the formation of a special fund to relieve journalists, authors, and others engaged in literature, in distress, and to permanently pro- vide for their widows and orphans at death. A grand and general burst of joy and jubilation went forth from the united Russian Press at the reception of the glad news, as every indigent pressman is now sure that, when the breadwinner is removed, his wife and family will not be left to starve. The Russian Emperor has truly set a noble example, which might with advantage be emulated by our Government. Count Leo Tolstoi has completed a new work entitled “Master and Servant.” It will make its appearance in the columns of the Northern Gazette in the course of a month or so. A few details of the everyday life of this veteran writer may be of interest to the readers of the Author. When I visited him at Yasuaja Poliana, on his own estate, I was very hospitably entertained by him and his family, and shall never forget the kindness shown me. Count Tolstoi is a staunch teetotaler, a strict vegetarian, and a non-smoker. He invariably rises at 8 a.m., and, after partaking of a cup of coffee, adjourns to his study, a sparely furnished room, which he tidies up and dusts  ## p. 280 (#294) ############################################ 28O THE AUTHOR. himself, as no abigail is allowed to enter its sacred precincts, where he writes until ten. He then takes his constitutional, returning for lunch about twelve. The bill of fare during my stay was boiled millet, cabbage sprouts, cauliflower, and stewed apples and plums. Lunch ended, he enjoys a snooze. An hour later he is hard at work again in his sanctum. At six he dines of much the same fare as at lunch. His family are not all vegetarians and teetotalers; in fact, the countess, his wife, strongly disapproves of his ascetic habits, and takes no trouble to conceal her dislike of them. The count sometimes mows the grass, but he has given up tilling the ground, as his medical advisers have forbidden over exertion as dangerous in the weak state and poor action of his heart. Coffee has also been pro- scribed, and he is gradually weaning himself from its use. The count is still hale and hearty, and when he can take “Shank’s pony” to Moscow and back without feeling any evil effects from his pedestrian feat, one is inclined to prophesy a good lease of life yet for the great novelist. He has crossed the span of life alloted to man by the Psalmist, and now stands on the threshold of the outside limit, which can only be attained by reason of strength. Odessa, 27 Feb. 8. W. ADDIson. IV.-A World of ENCOURAGEMENT. then resigned their membership. An instance is also cited in the Author for the current month of a writer, who, under such circumstances, became a member, his obligation to the Society being £15 at the time of his resignation against a set- off of one guinea entrance fee. I, for one, most strongly protest against such an abuse being permissible a second time, and consider that in justice to the Society we should protect our- selves against such vampires, who would only cripple its interests and usefulness. Cannot a resolution be passed rendering any member abusing an advantage of the Society ineligible for re-election ? ANNIE BRADSHAw. Feb. 16. W.—How LONG TO WAIT P I think “S. B.'s.” suggestions in your last issue are well worthy the attention of the Society of Authors, especially that of a limit of time as to payment after publication. The great uncertainty as to the date of pay- ment is the cause of much difficulty and distress amongst women writers especially, who do not like to press for payment, and yet often need the money sadly. I write for several periodicals, the publisher of one of which sends a cheque regularly at the end of the following month after publication; another, once in three months; one, only once in the year, i.e., in January. I do not object to any of these arrangements, for, although I consider the first-named the best, I know when to expect the money due, and can arrange accordingly. But in the case of other periodicals, which profess to settle accounts every three months, the money is usually, after the first quarter of the year, withheld until the following January (this year until Feb. 1), and therefore the sum due to me in June, 1893, does not reach my hands for seven months, while that due in September is four months late in payment. In my own case this does not press so hardly as it might in many others, as I happen to have an income independent of my writings; but I tremble to think to what depths of despair my poorer sisters must be reduced by this long drawn- out “hope deferred.” Moreover, it is a species of dishonesty, for the money thus withheld for seven months should bear interest, and this is a clear gain to the publisher, and a similar loss to the writer. I notice in the report of the Committee of Management for the year ending in January, a statement to the effect that writers have joined the Society when in difficulty, and upon being released from their difficulty, at possibly both trouble and expense to the Society, they have Surely this might be remedied by a “certain set of rules” being drawn up (as suggested by “S. B.”), by which all the , members of the Society of Authors should abide, forwarding with the MS. a printed copy of these rules, and thus avoiding the unpleasant necessity of either “dunning” the editor (with the probable result of dismissal, or rejection of future MSS.) or living on expecta- tions, instead of cash down, for an unlimited number of months. R. L. I. VI.-AUTHORS AND PUBLISHERs. I have read with interest the letter from the Secretary of the Incorporated Society of Authors in the issue of the Athenaeum of 23rd Feb. It is evident from the statement of facts that it would have been impossible for the Society to support such a case. I have no doubt its decision will strengthen the Society’s hands. The judicial manner in which you have acted throughout will, I am sure, very much strengthen the feeling of confidence which members of the Society have in your judgment and discretion. I think that you have been largely instrumental in preventing the Society from drifting into aimless and inutile litigation. A WELL-WISHER. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Author, Vol. 05 Issue 10 (March 1895) Subject The topic of the resource <em>The Author</em>, Vol. 05 Issue 10 (March 1895) Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015013732253" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015013732253</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Publication Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1895-03-01-The-Author-5-10 publications The Author https://historysoa.com/files/original/5/275/1895-04-01-The-Author-5-11.pdf dda658d5a986bf4e3eae741472a2a88c PDF Text Text ������������������������ Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Author Subject The topic of the resource <em>The Author</em> Description An account of the resource A digitised run of the Society of Authors' monthly periodical, <em>The Author</em>, 1890<span>–</span>1914, made available together for the first time.<br /><br />Currently users can browse issues and <a href="https://historysoa.com/items/browse?search=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Index&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;tags=&amp;exhibit=&amp;date_search_term=&amp;submit_search=Search+For+Items&amp;sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CTitle">indices</a> (not available for all volumes). Full text search for all issues, and other additional search functionality, will be added in 2022. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1890–1914 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context The-Author-Issues Publication Date The date of an event (in YYYY, YYYY-MM or YYYY-MM-DD format) 1895-04-01 Volume 5 Issue 11 Pages Page range in volume 281–304 Ngram Date Version of the date in YYYYMMDD format for use by the Ngram plugin 18950401 Ngram Text Version of the text with no HTML formatting for use by the Ngram plugin C be El u t b or, (The Organ of the Incorporated Society of Authors. Monthly.) CONDUCTED BY WALTER BESANT. VoI. V.-No. 11.] APRIL 1, 1895. [PRICE SIXPENCE. For the Opinions earpressed in papers that are signed or initialled the Authors alone are responsible. None of the papers or para- graphs must be taken as earpressing 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. *- WARNINGS AND ADWICE, agent. 4. AscERTAIN WEAT A PROPOSED AGREEMENT GIVEs To BOTH SIDES BEFORE SIGNING IT.-Remember that an arrangement as to a joint venture in any other kind of busi- ness whatever would be instantly refused should either party refuse to show the books or to let it be known what share he reserved for himself. 5. LITERARY AGENTs.-Be very careful. You cannot be too careful as to the person whom you appoint as your Remember that you place your property almost un- reservedly in his hands. Your only safety is in consulting the Society, or some friend who has had personal experience of the agent. Do not trust advertisements alone, 6. CoST OF PRODUCTION.——Never sign any agreement of which the alleged cost of production forms an integral part, until you have proved the figures. 7. CHOICE OF PUBLISHERS.–Never enter into any cor- respondence with publishers, especially with those who ad- vertise for MSS., who are not recommended by experienced friends or by this Society. 8. FUTURE WORK.—Never, on any account whatever, bind yourself down for future work to anyone. 9. PERSONAL RISK.—Never accept any pecuniary risk or responsibility whatever without advice. Io. REJECTED MSS.—Never, when a M.S. has been re- fused by respectable houses, pay others, whatever promises they may put forward, for the production of the work. II. AMERICAN RIGHTS.—Never sign away American rights. Keep them by special clause. Refuse to sign any agreement containing a clause which reserves them for the publisher, unless for a substantial consideration. 12. CESSION OF COPYRIGHT.-Never sign any paper, either agreement or receipt, which gives away copyright, without advice. 13. ADVERTISEMENTs. -- Keep some control over the advertisements, if they affect your returns, by a clause in the agreement. I4. NEVER forget that publishing is a business, like any other business, totally unconnected with philanthropy, charity, or pure love of literature. You have to do with business men. Be yourself a business man. Society’s Offices :— 4, PoETUGAL STREET, LINCOLN's INN FIELDs. -- - *-- - --" - - - HOW TO USE THE SOCIETY. I. RAWING THE AGREEMENT.-It is not generally understood that the author, as the vendor, has the absolute right of drafting the agreement upon whatever terms the transaction is to be carried out. Authors are strongly advised to exercise that right. In every form of business, this among others, the right of drawing the agreement rests with him who sells, leases, or has the control of the property. 2. SERIAL RIGHTS.—In selling Serial Rights remember that you may be selling the Serial Right for all time; that is, the Right to continue the production in papers. If you object to this, insert a clause to that effect. 3. STAMP You R AGREEMENTS. – Readers are most URGENTLY warned not to neglect stamping their agreements immediately after signature. If this precaution is neglected for two weeks, a fine of £IO must be paid before the agree- ment can be used as a legal document. In almost every case brought to the secretary the agreement, or the letter which serves for one, is forwarded without the stamp. The author may be assured that the other party to the agree- ment seldom neglects this simple precaution. The Society, to save trouble, undertakes to get all the agreements of members stamped for them at mo ea'pense to themselves eacept the cost of the stamp. WOL. V. I. VERY member has a right to ask for and to receive advice upon his agreements, his choice of a pub. lisher, or any dispute arising in the conduct of his business or the administration of his property. If the advice C C 2  ## p. 282 (#296) ############################################ 282 THE AUTHOR. 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 is in order to ascertain what has been the nature of your agree- ments, and the results to author and publisher respectively so far. The Secretary will always be glad to have any agreements, new or old, for inspection and note. The infor- mation thus obtained may prove invaluable. 4. If the examination of your previous business trans- actions by the Secretary proves unfavourable, you should take advice as to a change of publishers. 5. Before signing any agreement whatever, send the pro- posed document to the Society for examination. 6. The Society is acquainted with the methods, and—in the case of fraudulent houses—the tricks of every publish- ing firm in the country. 7. Remember always that in belonging to the Society you are fighting the battles of other writers, even if you are reaping no benefit to yourself, and that you are advancing the best interests of literature in promoting the indepen- dence of the writer. 8. Send to the Editor of the Awthor notes of everything important to literature that you may hear or meet with. 9. The committee have now arranged for the reception of members’ agreements and their preservation in a fireproof safe. The agreements will, of course, be regarded as con- fidential documents to be read only by the Secretary, who will keep the key of the safe. The Society now offers:—(1) To read and advise upon agreements and publishers. (2) To stamp agreements in readiness for a possible action upon them. (3) To keep agreements. (4) To enforce payments due according to agreements. *-- ~ *-* •- ~~~ THE AUTHORS’ SYNDICATE, EMBERS are informed : I. That the Authors' Syndicate takes charge of the business of members of the Society. That it submits MSS. to publishers and editors, concludes agree- ments, examines, passes, and collects accounts, and, gene- rally, relieves members of the trouble of managing business details. w 2. That the terms upon which its services can be secured will be forwarded upon detailed application. 3. That the Authors' Syndicate works only for those members of the Society whose work possesses a market value. 4. That the Syndicate can only undertake any negotiations whatever on the distinct understanding that those negotia- tions are placed ea clusively in its hands, and that all communications relating thereto are referred to it. 5. That clients can only be seen by the Director by appointment, and that, when possible, at least two days' notice should be given. 6. That every attempt is made to deal with all communi- cations promptly. That stamps should, in all cases, be sent to defray postage. 7. That the Authors' Syndicate does not invite MSS. without previous correspondence ; does not hold itself responsible for MSS. forwarded without notice; and that in all cases MSS. must be accompanied by stamps to defray postage. 8. That the Syndicate undertakes arrangements for lectures by some of the leading members of the Society; that it has a “Transfer Department * for the sale and purchase of journals and periodicals; and that a “Register of Wants and Wanted '' is open. Members are invited to communicate their requirements to the Manager. There is an Honorary Advisory Committee, whose services will be called upon in any case of dispute or difficulty. It is perhaps necessary to state that the members of the Advisory Committee have no pecuniary interest whatever in the Syndicate. NOTICES, HE Editor of the Awthor begs to remind members of the Society that, although the paper is sent to them free of charge, the cost of producing it would be a very heavy charge on the resources of the Society if a great many members did not forward to the Secretary the modest 6s. 6d. subscription for the year. The Editor is always glad to receive short papers and communications on all subjects connected with literature from members and others. Nothing can do more good to the Society than to make the Awthor complete, attractive, and interesting. Will those who are willing to aid in this work send their names and the special subjects on which they are willing to write P Communications for the Author should reach the Editor not later than the 21st of each month. All persons engaged in literary work of any kind, whether members of the Society or not, are invited to communicate to the Editor any points connected with their work which it would be advisable in the general interest to publish. Members and others who wish their MSS. read are requested not to send them to the Office without previously communicating with the Secretary. The utmost practicable despatch is aimed at, and MSS. are read in the order in which they are received. It must also be distinctly under- stood that the Society does not, under any circumstances, undertake the publication of MSS. The Authors’ Club is now open in its new premises, at 3, Whitehall-court, Charing Cross. Address the Secretary for information, rules of admission, &c. Will members take the trouble to ascertain whether they have paid their subscriptions for the year P. If they will do this, and remit the amount, if still unpaid, or a banker's order, it will greatly assist the Secretary, and save him the trouble of sending out a reminder. Members are most earnestly entreated to attend to the warning numbered (8). It is a most foolish and may be a most disastrous thing to enter into an agreement binding for a term of years. Let them ask themselves if they would give a solicitor the collection of their rents for five years to come, whatever his conduct, whether he was honest or dishonest? Of course they would not. Why then hesitate for a moment when they are asked to sign them- selves into literary bondage for three or five years P Those who possess the “Cost of Production ” are requested to note that the cost of binding has advanced 15 per cent. This means, for those who do not like the trouble  ## p. 283 (#297) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 283 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. *-*. --> THE COMMITTEE, R. HENRY NORMAN, the author of “Real Japan,” “The Peoples and Politics of the Far East” (just published by Mr. Fisher Unwin), and other books, and the literary editor of the Daily Chronicle, has been appointed to the committee and council of the Society. By Mr. Norman's election the last vacancy on the committee for the current year is filled. *-- - -—º r- - -, LITERARY PROPERTY, I.—CANADIAN COPYRIGHT. H.E Dominion Government have ceased the collection through the Customs of the 12% per cent. royalty on reprints of British copyright works brought into Canada, which has been collected hitherto for the benefit of the authors. The Tariff Act passed last season provided for the discontinuance of the collection of the royalty from March 27 of this year, in order to emphasise Canada's claim to exclusive jurisdiction in the Dominion regarding copy- right.—Standard, April 2. To the Editor of the Times. SIR,--Your issue of Feb. 26, containing the letter of Mr. W. M. Conway on Canadian copy- right, has just been received here, and I must ask the favour of a reply thereto. Mr. Conway overlooks several important points which entirely destroys the force of his arguments. First, the geographical position of Canada, side by side as it is with the United States. Second, that, should the English author fail to publish in the United States before or simul- taneously with publication elsewhere, he loses copyright there, and any United States publisher can reprint the book without payment of any royalty whatever, and send the book into Canada unless it is copyrighted here. Under the Canadian Act, on the other hand, the author has thirty days after publication elsewhere in which to publish in Canada, and thereby secure exclusive copyright. Third, to secure copyright in the United States the author must actually have the type set up within the United States, The Canadian law, on the other hand, specially permits the importation of plates into Canada free of duty. If the English author refuses or neglects to secure copyright in the United States, he loses all rights there. But not so in Canada, for the Canadian Act provides that any publisher here wishing to reprint any such book must first give security for the payment of a royalty of Io per cent, for the benefit of the author. It will be seen, then, that the Canadian Act grants valuable concessions to the English author which concessions are denied him in the United States. Mr. Conway repeats the statement that if the Canadian Bill becomes law Canadian reprints will inevitably flood the United States market. I think I can show Mr. Conway, and those who think as he does, that this statement has no foundation in fact. Section 4956 of the United States Copyright Act reads:—“During the existence of such copyright (in the United States) the importation into the United States of any book, chromo, or photograph, so copyrighted, or any edition or editions thereof shall be and it is hereby prohibited.” Section 4965 of the same Act provides the penalty for the infringe- ment of the foregoing provision. The United States copyright owners are therefore fully protected, and in the face of these provisions of the United States Act it will be worse than folly to continue to assert that Canadian reprints would or could flood the United States market. Mr. Walter Besant's new book, “Beyond the Dreams of Avarice,” furnishes an apt illustration in point. Mr. Besant’s book is issued in London at 6s. It is copyrighted in the United States, and is issued there at I dol. 50 cents. The British copyright owners have, however, issued a special cheap edition for the Canadian market, and Mr. Besant may rest assured that this special Canadian edition (which was printed in London and is now selling in Canada for 75 cents a copy) will not flood the United States market, for the very excel-  ## p. 284 (#298) ############################################ 284 THE AUTHOR. lent reason that the United States copyright owner is fully protected, as the United States copyright law prohibits the importation and sale of unauthorised editions in the United States. So with “The Ralstons,” Mr. Marion. Crawford’s recent novel, which is published in London at 12s. It is copyrighted in the United States, and sells there for 2 dols. owner has printed in London a special cheap edition, which is sold in Canada, for 75 cents a copy; yet the United States market is not being flooded with this cheap edition, although it is published at less than one-half the price of the United States edition, as the United States law prevents any such action. Did space permit, scores of similar cases could be given, and it can readily be seen that the fear that Canadian edi- tions will flood the United States market is utterly unfounded. In conclusion, I suggest that our English friends be perfectly fair in statements they make through the Press. Thus, when Mr. Conway says, as he does in his letter, that “Canadian reprints will flood, as they are intended to flood, the United States market,” and calls for signa- tures to a petition asking for disallowance of the Canadian Act on this account as one of the chief grievances, it is an open question whether every signature so secured has not been secured under false pretences, as Canadian reprints cannot flood, nor, above all, was it ever intended that they should flood, the United States market. Canadians resent and protest at such a misleading statement, as it places their case in a false light before the British public. RICHARD T. LANCEFIELD, Hon. Secretary Canadian Copyright Association. Public Library, Hamilton, March 9. Times, March 22, 1895. To the Editor of the Times. ... SIR,--The letter of Mr. R. T. Lancefield, hon. secretary of the Canadian Copyright Association, does not call for a lengthy reply. He contends that I overlook “ the geographical position of Canada, side by side as it is with the United States.” The fact is that the situation of Canada. is the chief cause of our anxiety. If Canada were a country isolated in the midst of others not English speaking, we should regret her action, but it would not be powerfully injurious, for the Canadian market for books is small, and the loss of it, though regrettable, would be no great matter. But if Canada obtains the right to issue cheap unauthorised reprints of the works of English writers, these reprints will be imported into the United States, all laws and customs houses not- The British copyright . withstanding, for Canada's long land frontier cannot be blocked. Tauchnitz reprints find their way through English customs houses in great numbers; how much more must Canadian reprints invade the United States if ever the threatened system were inaugurated. Mr. Lancefield’s further contention that the Canadian proposals would put an English author in a better position in Canada than he is now placed in the United States is specious; but the fact is not material, for the magnitude of the United States market is a compensation which Canada cannot offer. The question is one of cost. It pays to undergo considerable expense to secure the United States market ; it would not pay to undergo a much smaller expense to secure the Canadian market. Few books will ever be taken for Canada under the conditions of the new Act. The rest will be robbed of anything worth the name of copyright. From an author's point of view the situation threatens to become intolerable. Having written his book and secured an English publisher, he already has to hunt up an American publisher also. This takes time. It is proposed that he shall further have to find a Canadian publisher. If all the other parts of the British Empire follow suit, obviously an author's work in arranging with publishers all over the earth and seeing his book through the press in a dozen simultaneous editions will be much greater than his work in writing it. The only just and sound arrangement is for universal copyright to follow single publication anywhere, and this greatly desired consummation seemed till recently to be coming within the bounds of possibility. Canada’s proposed retro- grade and particularist action threatens to post- pone it indefinitely. Even Mr. Lancefield does not pretend that the Canadian Act is fashioned in the interests of literature, still less in the interests of the authors who make literature, or of the readers that profit by it. The injury is to be wrought solely for the sake of a small body of printers whose profits will be infinitesimal com- pared with the far-reaching damage they will effect.—I am, Sir, your obedient servant, W. M. ConwAY, Chairman of Committee of the Incorporated Society of Authors. 4, Portugal-street, Lincoln’s-inn-fields. Times, March 24, 1895. One or two points may be added to those in Mr. Conway's letter. I. As to the Canadian proposal to retire from the position of civilised states in order to practise piracy openly, he says nothing.  ## p. 285 (#299) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 285 2. As to the flooding of the United States with cheap reprints, he quotes the Act, but neglects to point out how with the enormous undefended frontier it is to be enforced. He then mentions one or two books lately republished in Canada which have not been largely exported to the States. Why P Simply because they are published at 75 cents, or 3s. a copy. There is not likely to be any successful piracy at that price. 3. He is still bold enough to parade the old pretence of a royalty. First, it is to be a Io per cent. royalty—a miserable, iniquitous, and sweating royalty, long since exploded in this country and the States. But, even if it were a fair royalty, what security is there for its collec- tion ? None. The Canadian “royalty” has been with us for many years. Once Charles Reade got eighteenpence by it. Mr. W. H. Lecky, the other day, said that he had once obtained over a pound by it. I have never received a farthing from it. In the face of the absence of any machinery for enforcing the payment of the royalty, and for auditing the accounts; and in face of the miserable nature of the royalty offered; to talk of “con- cessions” to the British author demands, indeed, a brazen front. EDITOR. Also from the Times of the same date :- Mr. Lancefield’s argument appears to be that because the United States, a foreign power, chooses to impose conditions as to remanufacture of books in America before granting copyright protection to British authors, Canada, which is . a part of the British Empire, is justified in attempting to do likewise. He does not pretend that any necessity for this arises from the difficulty of procuring English books in Canada at moderate prices, for he carefully explains that under the present law the works of English authors are offered for sale in the Dominion at lower prices than in Great Britain or the United States. The only apparent reason for seeking to secure the Royal assent to this precious Bill is that it may possibly put a little money into the pockets of a few needy Canadian printers, while it would certainly injure English authors and would probably not benefit Canadian buyers. The logical outcome of such a concession to Canada would be similar legislation in each of the self- governing colonies, with the result that, although fully protected in nearly all foreign countries by the Treaty of Berne, an English author would, if he wished to remain proprietor of his own book, be obliged to provide for the printing of ten or a dozen separate editions. The economic waste of such a monstrous system is positively appalling. F. March 24. *- The petition against the Canadian Copyright Act, which has been lying for the last three weeks for signature at the offices of the Society, has now been forwarded to the Marquis of Ripon. There are more than 1500 signatures to the petition, and amongst them are the names of all the best known writers in science, fiction, &c., in the United Kingdom. In addition, the most im- portant known publishing firms have added their signatures. It is hard in such a long list to discriminate, but a few of the names are appended. Perhaps it is worth while to repeat again the points which make the question one of such great importance. After a long and difficult struggle it was recognised by most of the civilised nations, at the Berne Convention, that copyright was the exclusive property of the author, and was not therefore to be trammeled with trade restrictions. After a still further struggle the Americans were brought to recognise the fact that property existed in copyright, but unfortunately they attached to that property a trade limitation. The step was retrogressive, and opposed to the liberal view of all the nations that signed the Berne Convention. But to obtain any concession across the water was of considerable advantage to the holders and originators of valuable property. The Canadians are now desirous of placing a somewhat similar trade restriction on the property of British and other authors. It is not worth while to go into the Act in detail, but there appears to be no doubt that should it obtain the Royal assent, not only will the American copyright be imperilled, but it is quite possible that the signatories to the Berne Convention may have something to say on the matter. The question is not one concerning the freedom of a colony to legislate on its affairs—as the Canadians so frequently and so vainly assert—but touches the question of piracy, which, when on the high seas, has been long ago suppressed by the unanimous voice and power of the civilised world. L. Alma-Tadema, R.A. George Gissing Edward Arnold Frederick Goodall Sir Robert Ball, F.R.S. Sydney Grundy Robert Bateman Richard Garnett, LL.D. Geo. Bell and Sons Thomas Hardy Walter Besant Anthony Hope Hawkins Augustine Birrell, M.P. William Heinemann A. and C. Black Holman Hunt William Black Prof. Huxley, F.R.S. Hall Caine A. D. Innes and Co. Chappell and Co. Henry Irving Hon. John Collier Jerome K. Jerome W. M. Conway Henry Arthur Jones F. H. Cowen Mrs. E. Kennard A. Constable and Co. Prof. E. Ray Lankester Earl of Desart W. E. H. Lecky Frank Dicksee, R.A. Lady W. Lennox B. L. Farjeon Longmans, Green, and Co. Archdeacon Farrar, D.D. Mrs. Lynn Linton  ## p. 286 (#300) ############################################ 286 A UTHOR. THE Edna Lyall Rev. W. J. Loftie, F.S.A. Sir A.C. Mackenzie, Mus.Doc. Macmillan and Co. James Martineau Helen Mathers S. H. Mendlessohn George du Maurier Phil May Methuen and Co. Justin McCarthy, M.P. John Murray Prof. Max Müller J. C. Nimmo Henry Norman David Nutt Novello and Co. W. H. Pollock Sir Frederick Pollock, Bart., LL.D A. W. Pinero W. H. Russell. George Routledge and Co., Ltd. Sir B. W. Richardson T. Scrutton C.Williers Stanford, Mus.Doc. M. H. Spiellman Herbert Spencer Sir John Stainer Sir Arthur Sullivan Lord Tennyson Sir H. Thompson, Bart. Brandon Thomas Baron H. de Worms John Strange Winter J. McNeil Whistler Stanley J. Weyman Earl of Wharncliffe Florence Warden James Payn I. Zangwill. G. H. Titerse. II.-AN AGREEMENT ON THE CovKRT COPYRIGHT |BILL. (Sent to Congress, Feb. 27.) At a conference comprising representatives of the American Newspaper Publishers’ Association, the American Publishers’ Copyright League, and the American (Authors') Copyright League, held in New York, Feb. 21, 1895, the following sub- stitute for the proviso of the Covert Bill was unanimously agreed upon : “Provided, however, that in case of any such infringement of the copyright of a photograph made from any object not a work of the fine arts, the sum to be recovered in any action brought under the provisions of this section shall be not less than IOO dollars, nor more than 5000 dollars; and provided, further, that in case of any such nfringement of the copyright of a painting, drawing, statue, engraving, etching, print, or model or design for a work of the fine arts, or in case of any such infringement of the copyright of a work of the fine arts, the sum to be recovered in any such action shall be not less than 250 dollars,and not more than IO,OOO dollars.” This substitute is acceptable also to leading art publishers and photographers. It will relieve the newspapers of excessive penalties without endangering the security of copyright property. In behalf of the three above-mentioned national organisations, we respectfully request your sup- port to the effort to pass the Bill, as thus amended, at the present session by unanimous COnsent. W. C. BRYANT, Secretary, A.N.P.A. GEORGE HAVEN PUTNAN, Secretary, A.P.C.L. RoberT UNDER wood JoHNSON, Secretary, A.C.L. III.-ON SELLING A Book OUTRIGHT. A “Publisher,” writing to the Athenæum, calls upon the writer of the article with the above title to “state publicly ” in the Athenæum “what sort of book’’ he refers to as a 6s. book which can be produced at Is. a copy, or a 3s. 6d. book which can be produced at 8%d. I would point out to this “Publisher ” that it is not customary to call upon the writer of an article in one paper to explain himself in another, and that a state- ment made in the Author is as “publicly ” made as in the Athenæum. As he reads the Author, however, I will answer him here. If he will refer to the “Cost of Production,” a copy of which he doubtless possesses, he will find estimates showing exactly the kind of book meant. It is so clearly described as to leave no doubt possible. (Note that on p. 28 and on p. 34 there is a misprint of 5s. for 6s.) Since this pamphlet was printed, binding has gone up about 15 per cent., and composition has slightly advanced, but paper has gone down. From these estimates it is evident that a 6s. book printed in quantities may cost a good deal less than Is. a copy. As regards a 3s. 6d. book, the average book of that price was in the writer's mind, viz., such a story book for boys and girls, as printed in large editions, certainly does not cost more than 8; d. a volume. But in the “Cost of Production,” p. 34, it is shown that actually a long novel issued in a large edition would cost no more than four-fifths of a shilling per copy. The “Publisher ” wants to include advertising in the “cost of production.” Certainly not; for the simple reason that by including it the cost may be made anything. By charging whatever the publisher pleases for advertising as often as he pleases in his own organ, which costs him nothing ; for advertising by exchange, which costs him nothing; by suppressing large discounts received from certain papers; he can load the actual cost of the book indefinitely. Let us not forget the case quoted some time since in the Author, where a demand was made for £30 odd for advertisements; and where the author's adviser offered to pay only whatever money had been actually expended. The amount proved to be under £4 A very little book was thus alleged to have cost £26 more than it actually did by thus swelling the advertisements The amount actually spent for advertising—not, of course, counting a successful novel—is in general very little, except in the rare case of a book which will “bear” it. An ordinary book, calculated to obtain at the best a circulation sufficient to pay its expenses, and a modest something over, cannot possibly, as the smallest knowledge of the figures will show, have a very large sum  ## p. 287 (#301) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 287 spent upon announcing it. The reason may well be understood when it is known that the expenditure of £20—which seems little—in advertising an edition of IOOO copies actually means the addition of nearly 5al. a copy on the cost of production. We will add the advertising to the cost of production as soon as we know that the actual money homestly spent, and no more, is to be charged. To these considerations may be added the fact that publishing firms differ from each other in no respect more than in the money they spend on advertising and in the organs in which they spend it. THE WRITER OF THE ARTICLE. *- A --" - - - ROYAL LITERARY FUND, HE annual meeting of the Royal Literary Fund was held yesterday afternoon at 7, Adelphi-terrace. The chair was taken by Mr. W. E. H. Lecky, one of the vice-presidents, and there were present Mr. F. W. Gibbs, C.B., Q.C., Mr. C. Knight Watson, Mr. Lewis Morris, Mr. W. J. Courthope; Mr. Fraser Rae, Mr. William Stebbing, Mr. Edward Dicey, C.B., Mr. F. D. Mocatta, Mr. George Dalziel, Mr. J. H. Grain, Dr. Macaulay, Mr. Thornton Sharp, Mr. Sidney Lee, Mr. Richard Bentley, Mr. F. C. Danvers, Sir William Farrer, Sir B. W. Richardson, and others. The minutes of the last annual meeting, held last April, having been read and confirmed, Mr. W. J. Courthope read the registrars' report, which classified the grants awarded in 1894 as follows: —Class I., history and biography, nine grants, £455; class II., science and art, two grants, 34O; class III., classical literature and education, seven grants, 3485; class IV., archaeology, topography, and travels, six grants, 3415 ; class W., novels and tales, ten grants, 3400 ; class VI., periodical literature, three grants, 312O ; class VII., miscel- laneous, eight grants, £190. The grants varied in amount from £150 to £10. Of the forty-five persons relieved twenty-seven were men to the extent of £1,130, and eighteen women, 38975. The total sum invested as appearing in the treasurer's report amounted to £49,212 16s. 8d., producing an income of £1667 8s. The annual amounts of the grants had varied from ten guineas in 1790, the date of the foundation of the fund, to £3335 in 1883, which was the highest reached. 32Oo had been invested in Consols, and on Dec. 3 I there was a balance in hand of £199,-Times, March 14, 1895. > º: WOI. W. THE AMERICAN GUILD OF AUTHORS, HERE lies before us a copy of the tract T issued by the American Guild of Authors. It is called “Methods of Publishing.” Four methods are enumerated: 1. The royalty system. 2. That in which the author assumes a share of the cost and receives in return a larger royalty. 3. That in which the author bears the expense and pays the publisher a commission. 4. That in which the publisher buys out the author. On the first it is simply remarked that it is the fairest plan provided the publisher makes an honest return of the books sold. But nothing is said as to the amount of royalty. What is it to be P Why is it adopted as fair? What does it give the publisher and what the author? We recommend these questions very earnestly to our American friends. It is afterwards stated that popular authors are now asking for a “graded” royalty—10 per cent. for the first 3OOO, 15 per cent. up to 15,000 or 20,000, and after that 20 per cent. Let us see how this kind of “graded ” royalty would suit authors on this side. We may take our old friend the six shilling volume, 20 sheets, small pica type, about 258 words to a page. The cost of the first edition of 3OOO copies is about a shilling each — call it a shilling, that of the following copies is about IOd, a copy. The trade price may be taken as generally 3s. 7#d. The following result would be pretty close to the truth :— First 3Ooo. 3OOO–2O,OOO. Royalty Royalty IO per cent. I5 per cent. Author receives ... 3890 £765 Publisher makes ... 3303 ...... 39.1608 The publisher has to pay for the advertising, say £80. - We are willing to believe that the risk of pro- duction is perhaps greater in the States than here, but we are unwilling to believe that the American Guild of Authors desires the publisher to have three times the share of the author. On the second plan it is customary, it is said, for the author to pay the cost of composition and plates, and for the publisher to pay for printing, binding, and advertising, giving the author a 20 per cent. royalty. But it is complained that the publisher charges more than the real cost. Then follow two pages devoted to “tricks.” We are unfortunately familiar with them. The following figures are given as fair prices for printing, &c. : I) D  ## p. 288 (#302) ############################################ 288 THE AUTHOR. I. Composition and electro-plate, 12mo, small pica, about 420 words to a page; per page, I dol. 2. Paper and presswork, per IOOO copies, 257-56 dols. 3. Binding, at 22; cents, per volume, 225 dols. Total cost, 882.56 dols. The cost per volume would be ‘882 dols., or 3s. 6d. each. This is enormous compared with the English cost of production. One cannot under- stand how the business of publishing can be carried on at all against such high figures as these. A form of agreement, said to be customary, is included in the tract. We refrain from comment upon it in order to avoid a charge of interfering in what is not our business. The tract contains at the end a list of “Reputable Publishers.” We are happy to observe that there are a great many in various parts of America. Suppose, however, that it were discovered that one of them was not quite so reputable as had been believed; a new edition of the tract would have to be struck off with the offender's name removed. Would it not be better that the Society should vouch for no one, leaving, as we do, every house to make its own reputation ? *- --> * * *-*. LETTER FROM PARIS. ONSIEUR MARCEL PREVOST has written an indignant letter to the Paris edition of the New York Herald. He begins by saying: “This is what I read in the New York Recorder of Feb. 2 I. ‘Marcel Pre- vost’s much - discussed novel, “The Demi- Virgins,” which will be produced shortly as a play at one of the Paris theatres, has been trans- lated into English by Arthur Hornblow, and will be issued this week by the Holland Publishing Company. I am told that there is plenty of dramatic material in the book for a good play. Here is a golden opportunity for an aspiring dramatist.” Thus in the first place my “Les Demi-Vierges’ is translated without my autho- risation, without any compensation to me for the harm which the translated edition is likely to have on the sale of the original edition ; and secondly, young dramatic authors are cynically invited to make their fortunes by dramatising my story. I am sure, dear sir, that you consider such conduct unworthy of a great nation such as the one to which Mr. Hornblow belongs, and that you will assist me in defending my rights, or at least in protesting against this pillage of my work.” M. Prevost concludes by saying that he is aware that there is no literary convention between France and America, but neither is there one between France and Russia, or between France and Denmark, yet the publishers both in Denmark and Russia paid him fees for the autho- risation to publish translations of “Les Demi- Vierges.” r The Herald devotes a leader to the subject of M. Prevost’s letter, but I am afraid the indig- mant author will derive but small comfort from its remarks, which are summed up in the words concluding the article: “Unfortunately, however, there exists no treaty to protect author's rights of this nature, and so long as this defect in our international treaties remains there is no legal remedy. The appeal to public opinion, which M. Marcel Prevost to-day makes through the Herald's columns, is the only step that can be made towards obtaining an adequate redress.” I think this is the first time that a French author has protested in public against the American pirate, and it is to be regretted that the occasion of this first protest should be a book such as Marcel Prevost’s “Les Demi-Vierges”— a vile book if ever one was written ; and the only interest, to speak frankly, that I take in M. Prevost’s case, is in the information it affords as to the best way of creating for oneself with one's pen a success not only national but universal. It is a great pity that these things should be so, but so they are, and the writer of such books can reap rewards which are refused to men of letters who have a respect for their calling and the feeling of the dignity of their pen. “Les Demi-Vierges” went into over IOO editions in France, and has been translated into every European language. It now, according to Monsieur Prevost, is appearing in America, though I do not think that any publisher will care to undertake its publication in England. The moral seems to be that this is the stuff in which the reading public is most widely interested, and Du Maurier's clever cartoon in this week's Punch, depicting a conversation between a lady porno- grapher and a pornographic publisher is as true to life as are all the scenes depicted by this admir- able artist. It is a great pity that these things should be so, for it seems to show that civilisation is not advancing, and it shows further that the sense of human dignity is fading away through- out the world. I may be called a prude, but I declare very frankly that I have no manner of consideration for the writer who speculates on the hoggishness of the majority of readers, and that he is never, in my estimation, a brother author. I was speaking the other night with a Spanish journalist who has literary ambitions, and I asked him why he never wrote books, for I knew him as  ## p. 289 (#303) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 289 a very clever man, with a wide knowledge of life and a great experience. He said that he could not afford to work for nothing, and went on to explain that a Spanish author gets no money from a publisher, that consequently there are no Spanish authors, as you and I can well understand. I said, “What, not a peseta ?” and he said “Not a peseta.” This is worse than in Russia or Poland, where, I believe, a successful author may look for ten roubles, or even twenty, per sheet of printed matter, that is to say, about £2 for sixteen pages of printed text. We English authors and you French authors are very fortunate II.16I1. Alphonse Daudet has somewhat changed his mind about his intentions in England. He told me that he would accept certain invitations which had been made to him. “But,” he added, “they will have to be content with a bust. A bust is all that I can offer them.” He meant that he cannot appear otherwise than sitting down. It was sitting that our dear master made his memorable speech on the occasion of the De Goncourt banquet. Monsieur José de Herédia was to have been received into the company of the French Academy next month. This, however, has now been put off, and Monsieur Herédia’s reception will not take place for some months. The reason of this is that Monsieur François Coppée has been seriously ill, and will be unable to speak at Herédia’s reception, as had been arranged. The reference above to Polish and Russian authors makes me think, and not without a heaviness at heart, of a very sad experience of mine of a few days ago. Some years past I knew in Paris a Russian author. He had been in the Russian army, and was an exile under sentence of death. A very clever man, very well read, and always reading. He starved at ten roubles the sheet, but though he did not often have a dinner, he always could buy books, and the garret in which he lived—the identical garret occupied by Racine in the rue Wisconti—was full of them. He used to come and see me, and I loved his conversation. But he had strange habits of in- temperance, and in the end I was forced to ask him not to come to see me any more, for riotous- ness at that time appalled me. A year ago I received, when down in the South, a letter from him. He said that he wanted to see me again, that he could not bear the thought of a definite separation. I answered him, I am glad to remember this, in a friendly way, and told him that I would come and see him when I returned to Paris. Last week I found his letter amongst my papers, and at once wrote to invite him to my house. On Thursday morning I received a letter from a sister of charity to say that my old friend was ill and very tired, and could not come to see me, but that my visit would “give him immense pleasure.” I could not go to see him on Thursday, but I went on Friday. The street in which he lived was in a very remote quarter of Paris, and it took an hour in a cab to get there. The door was opened by a beautiful sister of charity in blue. I said, “You have a Monsieur here P” She said, “Yes,” and then added, quite simply, “he died one hour ago.” Then she pressed me to come and see him. “He looks quite nice,” she said, and she spoke of death, as it should be spoken of, as the great desideratum of life. I allowed myself to be persuaded, and followed her to the poor little room in this Polish house of refuge, and there I saw my old friend, with a table by the bedside, and on the table a crucifix and two burning candles. He had been a big, riotous man in the old days, and there he was, so pinched and peaked that his form hardly raised the covers of the bed. It was a terrible meeting, and though the sister wanted me to stay and kneel down Iran from the room. I have thought of nothing since, and I do not think that anything I have ever seen in life more deeply affected me. His poor fingers were stained with ink, and there was an unfinished manuscript on the chest of drawers. No doubt, the sister of charity was right. No doubt, Death was a comforter here. But why had I not arrived two hours earlier 2 “He was looking forward to your visit,” said sister Angéle. “Your letter made him quite joyous.” Death, whether it come as a comforter or no, is the one terrible thing. I met M. Aurélien Scholl, President of the Société des Gens de Lettres, a night or two ago, and he spoke to me for some time about the affairs of the society. Amongst other things which he told me was that certain friends and admirers of Paul de Kock had decided to erect a little statue or memorial to him in the garden of the house in which he lived for many years before his death. “I intend to interest the Society in this matter,” said the President, and he went on to speak of his high admiration for Paul de Kock. I think there never was an author more unfairly treated by fame. One knows what the average reader expects when with twinkling eyes he picks up a de Kock. It is quite unfair. Paul de Kock had wit and verve, and an admirable power of story-telling. He had no desire to attract readers by what has been alluded to above. People think that his speciality. I do not know if his Memoirs have ever been translated into English. They ought to be. I picked up a copy of them at a bookseller's some days ago. It was  ## p. 290 (#304) ############################################ 29O THE AUTHOR. a most interesting book, full of anecdotes about people of notoriety under the Revolution and the Empire. He knew Fouquier-Tinville as a bland young man. He had a famous interview with Emperor Napoleon. The book shows the man as he was, and it is strange that it should be out of print in France. Mr. Grant Allen is in Paris at the time of writ- ing, and, I am sorry to say, is ill. At least when I last heard news of him he was lying in bed with porous plasters wrapped about him. Mr. F. C. Philips is in Paris also, busy as usual, and full of work and schemes for future work. He is one of the English authors who are best known and most appreciated in France, where everybody seems to have read “As in a Looking-glass.” I under- stand that he is at work on a long novel sans pre- judice of any number of short stories and plays. This is a man of very wonderful activity. In reading over “Moll Flanders” in Marcel Schwob's masterly translation, I came across a passage which makes me think less of “Jane Eyre'” as a work of art than I have thought till now. You may remember that just after Jane Eyre has been pressed by the frigid St. John to marry him, she rushes out into the garden and there suddenly hears a cry of “Jane, Jane, Jane,” from the distant Rochester. When Charlotte Bronté was asked how she came to think of so striking a scene—those were the days when tele- pathy was unknown—she used to drape herself in some mystery—I have this from a person who so interrogated her —and reply: “I wrote it because it is true,” leaving one to imagine that this was a thing of her own experience. It was an effec- tive scene, but Defoe had imagined it some years previously, and so we have a sorrowful scholia to enter into our copies of “Jane Eyre.” . . . I have no English Defoe by me, but the scene to which I refer is where Moll Flanders calls for the departed Jemmy, in the inn at Chester, and Jemmy hears her very voice, though then fifteen leagues distant, and so returns to her. And alas and alack into our copies of “The Cenci” a similar sorrowful scholia must be entered, and indeed against those particularly beautiful lines which conclude the play: . . . . Here, mother tie My girdle for me, and bind up this hair In any simple knot; aye, that does well. And yours, I see, is coming down. You know the lines and, like us all, you have admired, with enthusiastic admiration, this con- ception which shows us a woman on the very brink of the precipice thinking about pretty, trivial womanly things. Well, I happened on Webster the other day, and, in turning over the leaves of “La Duchesse d’Amalfi.” in Ernest Lafond's translation, I read a passage where the Duchess just about to be strangled by the execu- tioner gives trivial womanly orders. Her little boy is to have the syrup for his cough, nor is her little girl to be allowed to go to bed until she has said her prayers. It is the finer conception of the two, and, such as it is, it deprives Shelley of all the glory of his lines. I am very sorry, for I think that there was nothing in Shelley that I liked better than this—this picture of femininity under the very shadow of death. But so our idols one after the other get broken and cast down. How true it is—as further exemplified by the preceding remarks—that “ les beaua esprits se rencontrent.” Let me point out that Tennyson's line in “Locksley Hall ”— it is line 38– And our spirits rushed together at the touching of the lips— reads like an almost literal translation of Schiller's lines in “Amalia’’: Seine Küsse—paradiesisch Fühlen Wie zwo Flammen sich ergreifen, wie Harfentóne in einander spielen Zu der himmelwollen Harmonie— Stürzten, flogen, schmolzen Geist und Geist zusammen Lippen, Wangen, brannten, zitterten Seele ranſm in Seele. And, again, as to that beautiful line about the “burden of an honour to which she was not born,” is not memory carried back to line 99 of the sixth Satire of the First Book by Horace: Nollem Onus haud unquam solitus portare molestum. The bitterest thing that was ever said about our poor friend Boulanger was Jules Ferry's remark that he was a “Saint-Arnaud de Café- Concert.” Boulanger called Ferry out for this epigram, and Ferry would not go. I have no comment to make on Ferry's conduct, for he is dead and Boulanger is with him, and those are things not to be talked of now. But I was reminded of this to-day on receiving from Tresse and Stock a copy of Dr. Cabrol’s interesting Memoirs, edited and prefaced by Paul de Régla, which deals exclusively—as the title of the volume indicates—with Marshal Saint-Arnaud in the Crimea. This is a very interesting book, giving a full account, almost day by day, of the last six months of the life of the Marshal, down to the hour when—well, I hardly like to repeat the Doctor's version of how the gallant Marshal met his death, for I have many friends in the Bonapartist camp. In the same packet I received from these publishers a book entitled “Le Roman d’une Fée,” by M. Henri Belliot, an ardent littérateur, who writes to me to say that, as an Englishman, I shall appreciate a fairy-story better than his compatriots. I hope to be able to do so when I have found time to  ## p. 291 (#305) ############################################ THE AUTHOR, 291 read the book. In the meanwhile I mention its existence and wish it very well. A curious offer was made to me the other day. It came by telegraph from the proprietor of a New York daily paper. This person, it appears, has written a historical work—or, rather, has had a historical work written for him by some literary hack—in French. He desired to publish a translation of the work in English, and asked me to do the translation for him. A condition was that my name should not appear in connec- tion with the book. He was to figure on the title-page as the writer. He proposed a remunera- tion of 6s. a thousand words. What amusing people there are in this world to be sure! ROBERT H. SHERARD. 123, Boulevard Magenta, Paris. *— a 2-2 -sº NOTES FROM NEW YORK, New York, March 16. HE most important literary news of the month is the announcement that New York is at last to have a public library worthy of the chief city of a great nation. At the present time this immense town of ours, with a population of perhaps four millions contained within a radius of twenty-five miles from the city hall, is less well provided with books accessible to all citizens than Boston is or Chicago, to make no comparison with London, or Paris, or Berlin. Hitherto the chief public library of New York has been that founded fifty years ago by John Jacob Astor, a German immigrant who had made a fortune in New York, and wished to do some- thing for the city of his choice. He began by giving about £IOO,OOO, and his son and grandson in turn gave similar sums. The Astor Library was very fortunate in its first librarian, Coggswell, and its earlier books were admirably selected. But its endowment was inadequate, and it has grown but little of late years. It has not quite 3OO,OOO volumes, and its buildings, books, and funds are valued at perhaps 340O.OOO. A quarter of a century ago Mr. James Lenox— an interesting account of whose book collecting was written by the late Henry Stevens, of Wer- mont—established by will the Lenox Library, endowing it handsomely, and bequeathing to it all his own rare books, including the finest col- lection of Bibles in the world. This library is housed in a sumptuous building overlooking Central Park, and it has adjacent land, allowing for great expansion. Its assets are said to amount to more than £500,000. VOL. W. A third library was made possible by the will of Samuel J. Tilden, once a candidate for the presidency of the United States; but there was a long litigation over the will, and, after a final compromise, the trustees have now about 2400,000—a wholly insufficient sum with which to buy the land, erect a building, stock it with books, and meet the future expenses of a public library. A proposal was made by Columbia College to grant a site on the new grounds where the college is about to build, but this was not favourably received by the Tilden trustees. Now, however a union has been brought about, and all these institutions are to be merged in one, starting with perhaps 4OO,OOO volumes, and having assets of at least a million and a half sterling. The details of the consolidation are not yet determined upon, but the union itself is an assured fact. The site has not been selected; but probably the buildings of the Astor will be sold, and the new edifice will be erected on the ample grounds belonging to the Lenox. The style and title of the new corporation will be “The Public Library of the City of New York, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations.” This name will invite further benefactors, who might have thought it an impertinence to contribute to the library of the Astor family or to that bearing the names of the late Mr. Lenox or the later Mr. Tilden. The suggestion has been made that the new corporation should also take over the excellent and useful Free Circulating Library, which has half a dozen branches in the most thickly populated portions of the city. The announcement has been made that the new library will be managed in the most progressive manner; it will be open on Sundays, and in the evening ; it will allow books to be withdrawn for home reading; it will provide special privileges for students; it will endeavour to meet every reasonable public demand. Upon the new board of trustees are some of the ablest and most public spirited men in New York. Of course, it will be several years before the full benefit of the consolidation will be apparent; but the news has been received with the greatest satisfaction. The giving of prizes for stories, and plays, and poems has never greatly benefited literature, although it has always been an excellent adver- tisement for the giver. It is sixty years since Poe won a prize of £20 offered by a Baltimore weekly paper for the best short story, but he did not write the tale especially for the contest; he withdrew the “MS. found in a Bottle" from the paper to which he had sold it for £6, and offered it for the prize, and thus made an extra profit of 3I4. Three diffierent sets of prizes are now offered for competition among the American E. E.  ## p. 292 (#306) ############################################ ** ** . . *s. 292 Writers of fiction to-day. The most important o those is that which the New York Herald i prepared to give. Perhaps the conditions of the contest cannot be better set forth than in the actual words of the advertisement: THE HERALD’S PRIZE OFFER. SIXTEEN THOUSAND DoILARs To BE AwarDED TO AMERICAN NovKLISTS AND POETs. The New York Herald will award a prize of Io,000 dollars for the best serial story of between 50,000 and 75,000 words by an American writer, whether professional or amateur. The conditions of this contest are as follows : The manuscripts must be submitted anonymously, and must bear only the initials of their authors or other private identification marks, so that the identity of the writer will not be known to the committee of three examiners, who will be appointed by the Herald, and who will select three stories of the greatest merit. The stories, so selected, will be printed in the Herald, daily and Sunday, as occasion requires, beginning early in October, 1895. The readers of the Herald will be asked to decide by ballot which story they like best, and the prize of Io,000 dollars will be awarded accordingly. The manuscripts, other than the three selected by the examiners, will be returned to the writers, upon their identi- fication by means of their initials or private marks. The writers will be at liberty to publish these returned manu- scripts elsewhere, and no reference will be made by the Herald that they have been rejected. All manuscripts for this competition must be submitted before July 1, 1895. THREE OTHER PRIZES. The Herald also offers three other prizes—the first of 3000 dollars for the best novelette of between 15,000 and 25,000 words; the second, a prize of 2000 dollars for the best short story of between 6ooo and Io, Ooo words; and the third, a prize of IOOO dollars for the best epic poem, based on some event of American history that has occurred since the beginning of the War of the Revolution. The conditions that will govern the competition for the prize of Io,ooo will also govern those for the prizes of 3ooo dollars, 2000 dollars, and IOoo dollars. The chosen manuscripts will be published in the Herald, in turn, upon the conclusion of the serials. All manuscripts for these latter competitions must be submitted to the Herald before Sept. 1, 1895. The obvious comment to be made upon this is that the actual winner of any one of these prizes will be well paid, but that the unfortunate writers of the second best and third best novels, short stories, and epics will receive no payment at all. Far more equitable is the arrangement pro- posed by a syndicate of important papers headed by the Hartford Courant (of which Mr. Charles Dudley Warner is the editor in chief). Their advertisement reads as follow : A TWO THOUSAND DOLLAR PRIZE. A NUMBER OF WELL-KNOWN NEWSPAPERS ANNOUNCE THE LARGEST CAPITAL PRIZE, EVER OFFERED. We will pay a first prize of Two Thousand Dollars for the best detective story from 6ooo to 12,000 words in length, for publication in our daily issues in instalments of about 2000 words per day. be submitted to Prize Editor, THE AUTHOR. We will pay a second prize of Five Hundred Dollars for the second best detective story submitted. * . All manuscripts intended for this competition must Bacheller, Johnson, and Bacheller, Nos. 112 to 117, Tribune-buildings, New York City, on or before May 1, 1895, Every manuscript must be typewritten and accompanied by a sealed envelope con- taining the name of its author. It will not be opened until a decision is reached. For identification said envelope should bear some phrase which also appears above the title of the story submitted. All good stories will be published at a satisfactory price. Other details of the contest and arrangements for an equitable decision will be in charge of Mr. Irving Bacheller, to whom all inquiries should be addressed. - The third set of prizes is offered by the Pouth's Companion, of Boston, one of the most widely circulated weekly papers in the country, and one which has always exhibited remarkable enterprise in securing contributions from writers of prominence. In a former competition of the Youth's Companion a prize of £IOO was carried off by Mr. Frank R. Stockton's tale “An Unhistoric Page.” The stories now to be rewarded must not contain less than 22OO Words, or more than 3ooo; they must be original; they must not be love stories or fairy tales, nor can they deal with religion or politics; their moral tone must be unexceptionable, and the list of prizes is as follows:— Dollars. For the best original story sent us . . . . , 500 For the next in literary and general merit ... , 500 For the third in merit e e º e s a 250 For the fourth in merit ... 250 For the fifth in merit 25O For the sixth in merit 25O For the seventh in merit I OO For the eighth in merit ... IOO For the ninth in merit - . . . . . . . . IOO For the tenth in merit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I OO For the eleventh in merit ... . . . . . . . . . IOO Total ... 25OO To two recent issues of the New York Tribune, Professor T. R. Lounsbury, the author of the masterly “Studies in Chaucer,” contributes an eight column review of Professor Skeat's new edition of the author of the “Canterbury Tales.” The review is written, with all the learning and with all the humour which unite to make Professor Lounsbury a very dangerous opponent. It will probably be reprinted as a pamphlet, in which case it will reach the Chaucer students of Germany and England. Professor Lounsbury declares that Professor Skeat's new edition “will be abso- lutely essential to all who devote themselves to the special study of Chaucer,” and “as such it ought to be welcomed cordially by every lover of litera- ture.” But he accuses Professor Skeat of having made frequent and abundant use of his (Pro- fessor Lounsbury's) labours, without giving him any credit in the first three volumes.  ## p. 293 (#307) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 293 The Authors’ Club of New York, now in its thirteenth year, is at last permanently settled in quarters of its own, of which it has a long lease. Its new apartments are a handsome and commodious suite of four rooms on one of the upper floors of the extension of the magnificent music hall erected by Mr. Andrew Carnegie. As a member of the club, Mr. Carnegie saw that these rooms were specially reserved, and the terms upon which they were secured were ex- ceptionally favourable. “Liber Scriptorum,” the book of the Authors’ Club (of which an account has already been printed in your pages), has been so profitable that it was possible to vote a sum of £600 for the decoration and furnishing of the new apartments; and, in gratitude to Mr. Carnegie for his services in securing them, the original MSS. of the “Liber Scriptorum,” sump- tuously bound in two immense folio volumes, were presented to him. The fortnightly Thurs- day evening meetings of the Authors' Club continue to be among the pleasantest affairs of the kind. The prosperity of the club endures, and its membership increases steadily. Chicago, which has now three richly endowed public libraries, is getting to be a literary centre. Its Twentieth Century Club is a worthy rival of the Nineteenth Century Club of New York, in emulation of which it was founded. Its young and lusty university has not succeeded in attract- ing the best instructors from the older institutions of the East, but it has a tower of strength in Professor Von Holst, who has recently published a learned and acute study of the French Revolution. It has in the Dial one of the most scholarly critical journals in America—a critical journal so excell-nt indeed that its two faults may well be forgiven it. These faults are an undue jealousy of New York (but this is a common failing in Chicago) and an undue deference to the opinion of London, even on American authors (but this is a common feeling even elsewhere than in Chicago). Chicago is also the home of one of the most vigorous of American novelists, Mr. Henry B. Fuller, the author of that curiously dilletante book, “The Chevalier of Pensieri Wani,” and also of that robust specimen of realism, “The Cliff Dwellers.” He is now about to publish a second study of Chicago society, bearing the very up-to-date title, “With the Procession.” This will be published in New York by Harper and Brothers, but three other works of fiction by Chicago authors are announced by the new and enterprising Chicago house of Stone and Kimball. These are, “A Little Sister to the Wilderness,” by Miss Lillian Bell; “A Sawdust Doll,” by Mrs. Reginald De Koven (the wife of the composer of “Maid Marian’’); and “Two Women and a Fool,” by Mr. H. C. Chatfield-Taylor. The sale of “Trilby’’ is said to be slackening a little now, but it has already reached 150,000 copies, at seven shillings, and it is likely to be stimulated again by the success of the ingenious dramatisation just brought out at a Boston theatre by Mr. A. M. Palmer, and to be performed in New York next season. HALLETT ROBINSON. NOTES AND NEWS. AM very glad to see in “Hallett Robinson’s ” New York Letter a tribute to the literary position of Chicago and its aspirations. A year and a half ago I incurred the kind of ridicule which attaches to a new and unexpected state- ment by saying something to the same effect. When one finds a city richly endowed with public libraries; the natural centre of a vast geo- graphical area; possessed of a wealthy university, in which English literature is well represented and adequately taught; where literature is held by the cultivated class in the highest respect; possessing a critical paper equal in ability to anything we have in this country ; and containing a company of men and women, mostly young, eagerly cultivating literature, and aspiring to the production of good and, if it may be. great work, one is justified in prophesying that out of this company there will presently emerge some one who will make himself known over the English-speaking world. I spoke to this effect in 1893, and now our New York correspondent speaks to the same effect. The following extract is from a new American volume of essays, called “Meditations in Motley,” by Walter Blackburn Harte (Arena Publishing Company, Boston, Mass.). - It is a most lamentable thing that, in spite of all the literary activity and the intellectual restlessness of our time, there are not probably more than half a dozen writers in the United States who follow literature, pure and simple, as a profession; and it is noteworthy that among these there are neither poets nor essayists. The tractate of the American Guild of Authors, noted in another column, may partly explain the reason why so few Americans are able to adopt literature frankly as a profession. Of course, it is greatly to be desired that writers of the better kind —one would say men and women of genius, but that the word is now almost forbidden—should be able to devote themselves altogether to the literary craft. In order to do this, however, they must be  ## p. 294 (#308) ############################################ 294 THE AUTHOR. able to live. In this country there are thousands who do live by literature, not popular novelists alone, but writers in every branch, not leaders only, but writers of the rank and file. There never was a betterrank and file—better drilled, betterequipped, braver, and more full of zeal—than our own. Let us see how these our people live. First of all, many of them are students in the history of litera- ture; many of them are good scholars; many have studied some foreign literature, and are authori- ties in French, German, Italian, Spanish, or some other literature; many are students in history, ancient and modern, English or foreign; many are students in science; some have mastered out of the way branches; some have made a special study of sport, games, art, music, the drama, &c. Most, in fact, have some special knowledge which may at any time be wanted. In the next place, there are, in this country, a dozen magazines open to a scholar—perhaps a well- known writer may contribute six or seven articles in the year to these magazines; there is next the better class of weekly—the Saturday Review, the Spectator, the Athenæum, the Speaker, the National Observer, the Realm, and others— a good writer ought to find no difficulty in getting on one of these papers; there are the two Quarterly Reviews, but they can find room for very few writers; there are the weekly maga- zines, such as Chambers’, Cassells’, &c., to which few writers would disdain to contribute. Again, there is the literary department of the great daily papers; that of the evening papers; there is dramatic criticism ; art criticism; musical criticism. Or, again, there are the leading articles of the dailies. It will thus be understood that to the man who knows something, and can write pleasantly, there are abundant opportunities of work. Then a man’s special knowledge, sooner or later, whatever it is, naturally and inevitably assumes book form. Another branch of literary work is that of editing and preparing books for publishers. We are apt to forget, in our concern about modern literature, that publishers have the whole of the past to deal with as they please. They are con- stantly bringing out new editions of past authors. These must have an introduction, notes, appen- dices, and index, all to be done by some man of letters. Again, which one would fain ignore but cannot, there is the reading for publishers. It is not work that many like to do, but it must be done by somebody. These are some of the conditions of the literary life in this country. It would seem, however, as if in America things were different. The American magazines, with one or two exceptions, are not in the least like our scholarly Nineteenth Century, Contemporary, and Fort- nightly. Such weekly reviews as the Spectator or the Saturday simply do not exist in America; they have no Quarterly Reviews; they have no papers corresponding to Chambers’ and the Cassells' productions; their newspapers do not seem to include a considerable literary element— one may be wrong, but this is how it seems to us. Then the American publisher is not, apparently, always bringing out new editions of dead writers; and, in short, one would like some of our American friends to tell us how an American man of letters (not being a popular novelist) does manage to live at all. In the narrow churchyard south of St. Mary Overies (now called St. Saviour's), Southwark —somewhere, it is not known where—there lie in one grave the remains of Philip Massinger and of Fletcher his friend. The name of the latter is always associated with that of Beau- mont, but Massinger undoubtedly did a good deal of work with and for him. The name of Massinger is entered in the burial register as a “stranger,” which means, of course, nothing more than a person belonging by birth to some other parish. It is now proposed to put up a stained glass window in the new nave of the church, in memory of Massinger. I do not think that this is a cause which needs pleading with the readers of this paper and the members of this Society. Will those who love to see honour paid to litera- ture send their offerings to this object to the Rev. W. Thompson, D.D., St. Saviour's Church, Southwark? The church now rebuilt still retains its Reformation name. Perhaps it may be per- mitted to hope that it may soon return to its historic name of St. Mary Overies. The following letter has reached me: In Halifax, last week, I happened to pick up a book of yours, “The Revolt of Man,” issued by the Halifax Corpo- ration Library. I thought it might be an interesting fact to you to know that this august body does you the honour of circulating your work in its Tauchnitz Edition : Some time since a remonstrance was published in the Author against the importation and circu- lation of Tauchnitz books. An attempt was made to minimise the importance of the damage done to authors by the free circulation of their books. Here we have an illustration of what may happen. The number of libraries in the country is rapidly increasing ; many of these have several branches. Of popular books they take many copies. Suppose they ali take Tauchnitz copies! Why not ? No attempt is made to stop them. Library com- mittees will speedily forget that to buy these editions is against the law ; they will only  ## p. 295 (#309) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 295 remember that the Tauchnitz Edition is cheaper. Thus will be lost to author and publisher many thousands of every popular book. What is the law on the subject P It has thus been given to me by a lawyer: “I do not think there is any offence in owning or in circulating a copy of a Tauchnitz edition of an English book. The offender must not sell it or hire it, in which case it would be an infringe- ment of copyright, and he would be liable to be proceeded against under the 17th section of 1842 Act, and 42nd and 152nd section of the Customs Act, 1876, “The joint effect of these sections appears to be that anyone importing, selling, or hiring any foreign printed copy of a copyright book know- ingly, or having in his possession any copy for sale or hire, shall, on conviction before two justices of the peace, forfeit 310 and double the value of every copy: £5 to go to the officer of Excise, and the remainder to the proprietor of the copyright; such book to be seized and destroyed. “Does the Halifax Free Library hold the copy for sale or hire P Under the Customs Act of 1876 the Customs can seize and destroy any books on the copyright list; but notice of copy- right in writing to the Commissioners of Customs is a condition precedent.” A complete translation of Balzac's novels, published at a low price, edited by a well-known scholar, is a literary experiment of very con- siderable interest. All who read French at all read the Comédie Humaine; but will those who cannot read French buy the translation ? The writer, to begin with, is Parisian through and through, with that note of the past inseparable from work fifty years old. Again, does Balzac possess the sensational qualities which now seem necessary to success? And, when we have agreed to let our own past masters stand forgotten on the shelves, shall we be eager to take up the French masters? For instance, Dickens seems fast losing his hold—only for a time, but still— for the present. Thackeray is only read by “the better sort’”; as for Charles Lever and Anthony Trollope, apparently they are gone; and as for Wilkie Collins and Charles Reade, they are read only in two or three books. Each generation, in fact, will have its own novelists belonging to itself; it grudges not classics belonging to the dead, but they must be few, one to this old novelist, one to that ; it will refuse to read the whole of the dead man’s work. Will the present generation so far depart from established custom as to admit en bloc the whole of the Comédie Humaine P. We shall see, and, as I said above, it is a literary experiment of very considerable interest. With Messrs. Dent and Co., who understand dainty books, for publishers; with Mr. George Saintsbury, who understands his Balzac, for an editor, and with Messrs. Constable to print the work, the series should have every chance. Some three or four years ago—perhaps more— there appeared a new translation of “Don Quixote,” by Mr. H. E. Watts. It was not reviewed by many papers, and by still fewer was it adequately reviewed. One or two critics, how- ever, had the intelligence to perceive that this was the finest translation as yet offered to the public, and the work of a fine Spanish scholar who possesssed other qualities for the translation of Cervantes besides scholarship—notably, know- ledge of the time and the social conditions of the time; humour and the quick perception of the humorous ; and, among other things, the common sense which keeps a translator and an annotator from being carried away by his subject, and the various theories, fads, and crotchets which gather round such a subject as the Knight. The book was published in three big quarto volumes at a price prohibitory. The purse of the ordinary book buyer—marrow but well meaning — could not attain to that price. So the matter rested, and it seemed as if, but for a few libraries, the work was closed to the public. Well: a new edition has now been undertaken (Messrs. A. and C. Black) at a reason- able and possible price; and we shall be able to possess at last the immortal work of Cervantes in a translation worthy and adequate. Is there room for another novel on the gentle- man highwayman P. The field one would think was entirely occupied by Ainsworth and Lytton. Nevertheless, Mr. C. T. C. James—no novice in the art of story telling—boldly pushes in with a new story on the old theme. The fact is that no field in fiction is occupied. He would be a bold man who would treat of Tunbridge Wells in 1750, with Thackeray as a rival; but the rivalry is not an impossible thing. Again, he would be a bold man who would face Scott in the 1745 business, but such audacity is not impossible. Mr. James, however, does not in reality present himself as a rival of the two elder novelists. He confines him- self to a single tavern in a London suburb and to its adventures with a single highwayman. He presents a vivid and interesting picture of life a hundred and fifty years ago. The book carries one along breathless from beginning to end. There is only one fault to find with it—a fault  ## p. 296 (#310) ############################################ 296 THE AUTHOR. that is not discovered till the book is done with and cold criticism begins. The highwayman is pardoned. Why? Because his mistress once gave a cup of purl to the king P. Not sufficient reason. The man is a thief and a robber. There is no escape from that ; and, as such, he would assuredly have been hanged, purl or no purl. In January last, a communication entitled “Editorial Amenities,” signed “C. H.,” ap- peared in the Author. There were three cases of complaint. As regards the last, the editor of the magazine in question has sent copies of the corre- spondence to this paper. It appears from the letters (1) that the article was accepted and paid for; (2) that the editor, on revising his accepted articles, found errors which, in his judgment, made the paper useless to him; (3) that he accordingly declined to print the paper, still exercising his judgment as editor; (4) that, as the paper was anonymous, the refusal did no harm to the author's reputation; (5) that the author, although he had been paid for the paper, was quite free to send it elsewhere ; (6) that it is impossible for an editor to carry on a controversy with any contributor as to the reasons of his decision; (7) that the editor has found no reason to change his opinion as to certain inaccuracies in the contribution ; and (8) that the author is quite free to retain his own opinion, and to believe that the paper is accurate. It is always a mortifying thing to have a MS. returned. But an editor is absolute ; he must, in the nature of the case, be absolute; and an editor cannot possibly be expected to carry on ex- planations and reasons for his decisions. Two months ago, in a notice on the death of Sir John Robert Seeley, I mentioned that he had been a member of the council of the Society. A good many correspondents pointed out that his name was not on the list. In short, I was wrong, because Seeley never was upon our council at all. His connection with the Society was that of Vice- President, an office which still exists, but has been allowed to drop out of prominence, most of the W.P.'s having long since joined the council. In the first year of the Society's existence, when it was absolutely necessary that it should receive the nominal support and approval of as many leaders as possible, with this view, the committee invited certain writers and scholars to signify their approval of the objects of the Society by becoming Vice-Presidents. In the month of April, 1885, I find in the minute-book of the committee the following acceptances of this invita- tion. It was a goodly list. Matthew Arnold Philip James Bailey Lord Brabourne Frank Cowley Burnand J. Anthony Froude Bishop of Chichester Prof. Huxley, F.R.S. The Librarian of Windsor Castle . Sir Henry Maine, K.C.S.I. Sir Theodore Martin James Payn John Ruskin, D.C.L. Prof. Seeley Prof. Skeat' Sir Richard Temple Prof. Tyndall, LL.D. Dean Waughan W. G. Wills. Some of the Vice-Presidents afterwards, as stated above, became members of the council; others remained, and are still, vice-presidents, though their names are no longer advertised. It is pleasing to record that Seeley did more than remain simply an honorary vice-president. In the year 1888, when the Society gave a dinner to American men and women of letters, Seeley lent the weight of his name as a steward. He regularly received, and, there is reason to believe, read the documents of the Society and spoke. The Royal Literary Fund last year relieved the necessities of forty-five applicants—twenty-seven being men and eighteen women. By the rules of the Fund, applicants must prove that they are authors by putting in their published works. How many men and women are there in this country who could thus prove themselves to be authors P. There are about 1350 members of the Society, all of whom have produced books. Now this number includes very few writers of educa- tional books, very few writers of technical books, and not many writers of theological books. Let us suppose that there are twice that number out- side the Society: this gives us a total of, say, 4000 authors. The total applicants for relief during the last year was forty-five—that is to say, I 125 per cent. This is a very satisfactory percentage. Authorship is certainly improving on its material side. The grants to the men average about £42 apiece; those to the women £54 apiece. If “Weary" will send me her name and address, I will endeavour to answer her letter. The subject is hardly suitable for these columns. At the moment of going to press we learn that Canada has ceased to collect the royalties accord- ing to the old agreement. It would be interesting to learn how much was collected last year, and who has received any share of it. WALTER BESANT,  ## p. 297 (#311) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 297 DECADENCE OF LITERATURE, Dº 'S theory is eminently true of literature. It is a case of the survival of the fittest. The weak may flourish for a time and choke the environs like the lianes in a tropical forest, but they perish with their season, and the stalwart trees survive and make them- selves evident in later generations. For the present there is an enormous growth of these ephemeral productions, and may I be for- given for suggesting that editors and publishers of magazines are a good deal to blame, not only for their growth but for the deterioration of what might have been a forest tree, or at best a worthy shrub P No sooner has a writer made “a hit ’’ than he or she is besieged with solicitations to contribute to this or that periodical, and it requires considerable self-control, maybe, or in- dolence, or superiority to pelf to resist and refuse till the production is ripe, or not to try to gratify more than one at the same time. To take an illustration from art, pot-boilers, instead of pic- tures, are the consequence. Nothing is more true than what Mr. Cresswell says in the last number, though rapid work is good, hurried work is never good, and the pub- lisher who displays an attractive catalogue of authors announced at the beginning of the year, almost compels some at least to hurried work. Also the distinctive characteristics of the periodicals are lost by thus obtaining the ser- vices of the authors who are willing to write for all and each. I believe some of the American magazines bind a writer to write for nothing else; and it is really a wise arrangement, since the old sense that it was honourable to work for one firm alone has died away. Another modern fashion ruinous to good literature is the laying contribu- tions on the bed of Procrustes. Readers are sup- posed to object to a tale passing the limits of a volume. They like to have it finished off, and be free to begin a fresh serial, and thus the story always shows symptoms of winding up in November, and we are sure the hero and heroine will be married or defunct in December. Well if they are allowed to finish their career with proper honours! How many stories have I read where the beginning was full of pleasant details, but the latter end was evidently squeezed together and cut down, so as to lose all proportion and become a spoilt per- formance. This is a new fashion. Take up an old Black- wood, see “Ten Thousand a Year” runs on number after number ; or an old Cornhill, where “Phineas Finn,” “The Knight of Gwynne,” and the admirable “Lettice Lisle,” have a never wearied audience; or, again, Household Words knew and prized Mrs. Gaskell too well to part with her till death cut off the end of “Wives and Daughters.” Totus, teres atque rotundus is a good rule, but if Milton could not carve a statue out of a cherry stone it is hard for lesser geniuses, after carving the head in one proportion, to have to get the limbs into the remainder of the stone. If a fiction is to be good for anything, it must have its needful development, and not be sacrificed to a December number. Some people have a real genius for the short story, Brett Hart’s “Luck of Roaring Camp’’ or “Mademoiselle Ixe” seem to me perfect speci- mens of the style. Americans excel in them, but then they have the advantage of an immense field of country and every variety of manners and of civilisation, whereas in our old country the changes are continually rung on ghosts and detectives, and the demand creates a very mediocre style of supply. A tale of character requires space (at least if it be not a mere sketch), and it would be well to follow Anthony Trollope's habit of either publishing the whole at once, or not letting a chapter appear till the whole was complete in his portfolio. Another mischievous habit is that of hasty reviewing. When I began the world, to solicit a favourable notice would have been thought unworthy. I may truly say that I never have done so, except when a book was for some special purpose needed to be put forward. Reviews used then to be often good criticisms, really useful. Some- times they stung hard, but generally they were really improving by the faults they found. They embodied and brought home the judgment of the public of cultivated minds, and never should I have thought of trying to enlist them in my favour, or ask for their verdict. When an editor myself, I was always prejudiced (fairly or unfairly) by being asked for a friendly notice, or by having a whole bundle of cuttings from papers sent me with a MS. ; and, worse than all, it has happened to me to receive with a new book a packet of extracts from it in type, for the convenience of the reviewer P To see a whole page of opinions of the press, mostly provincial, never gives me a good impression, though this may be due more to the publisher than the author, and it is treating the subject like tea, cocoa, or soap. The multitude of publications which are all poured forth at one time, and the insistence of publishers and authors for an early notice, absolutely prevents efficient treatment in criticism. Time and space alike fail, and whether a book be bad or good, or “ower gude for banning ower good for blessing,” it has to be  ## p. 298 (#312) ############################################ 298 THE AUTHOR. skimmed over and despatched in a few lines. This is not criticism. It is mere advertisement. No guide to the author hardly, except in the higher stamp of literary journals—a guide to the reader in the selection from the circulating library. Are these simply the murmurs of an old author, laudator temporis acti, or is there any means of raising the tone and aspirations of writers P C. M. YONGE. *-- ~ 2–º s= **s-s A SHEAF OF POETS, HEY have accumulated during two months until now there is quite a little pile. Is it not a sign or proof of a reviving taste in poetry that there should be so many “bids” for poetic fame? We may take it, without meaning to give any offence, that the poets all pay for the production of their work. Would they tell us how many copies they sell? For instance, thirty years ago a certain friend of mine published at his own expense a thin volume of verse. Exactly three copies were sold. How many have been sold of the volumes before me? The best course for the Author to adopt is to let each scribe speak for himself without favour. The order in which they speak means nothing: I. The “In Memoriam ” of Italy. A Century of Sonnets from the Poems of Victoria Colonna, Marchesa de Pescara. Translator anonymous. (London: Henry Gray, Leicester-square.) AMOR, TU SAI. Thou knowest, Love I never turned my feet From thy dear prison; that I ne'er untied Thy light yoke from my neck, nor ne'er denied Thy service which at first my soul found meet ; Time shall ne'er change my faith, of old complete; Thy bond, as once I bound it, still shall bide ; Nor, for the bitter fruit thy tree doth hide, Doth my heart find the seed less pure or sweet. Now hast thou seen how in a faithful heart Thy sharpest arrow hath no skill to wound, That Death against it hath no force or power; O let at last the tie which bound it part, (Tho' sweeter aye it was than freedom found) Yet lags and lingers yet my joyful hour. II. “Sita,” and other Poems. By Mrs. Aylmer Gowing. (London: Elliot Stock.) TENNYSON. oCTOBER 6, 1892. All glorious with the mystery sublime Thy eyes shall fathom soon, Night's bosom pillows thee, O son of Time ! In splendours of the moon. Cometh thy daybreak—there shall be no night In that far heaven, Luntrod By course of quenching suns or stars, whose light Shall be the face of God. True seer, from thy heart the lamp of faith Glowed clear through storm and shine, And clothed the fearful majesty of Death In robes of grace divine. And thine the hand of might, the tender touch That makes our pulse thine own By love's enchantments, for thou hast loved much, And grief’s excess hast known. Sweet singer, by thy voice of human love And sorrow, pure and strong, Teach us to find our God, while thou, above, Art singing a new song. III. “Thoughts in a Garden.” Stevenson. (London : Elliot Stock.) AUTUMN SONG. All day the fiercest winds have blown, The leaves upon the grass are strown, Save a few stragglers, sad and lone, That fringe the boughs; The fir-tree groans, as, on the height, He feels the tempest's frenzied flight, Yet from the earth his grasp of might No wrench allows. By A. C. The flowerets, erst so bright and brave, Now in the dust have found a grave; No loving hand their life could save From ruin drear; Only the blossoms named of gold, Defiant of the rain and cold, Still form a funeral-wreath to fold O'er Nature’s bier. There is an end to Summer’s pride, To autumn with his garners wide; Now winter comes, with rapid stride, His throne to take ; Long will his fetters bind the earth, He robs the year of half its worth, While scent of flowers and woodland mirth, Our lives forsake. IV. “Wignettes.” By Aubrey St. John Mild- may. (London : Elliot Stock.) TWELFTH-NIGHT. (Reprinted by permission from the “Spectator,” January 13th, 1894.) I should like to have your dimples, Your wonderment, your nonsense, Your grave hands, and your tripping feet, Your carelessness, your conscience; I should like to know the secrets You are talking with your brother Between the mazes of the dance, As your eyes meet one another. Little maid, all eyes, and such eyes Half-lightning and half-laughter, Sugar-things I should like to eat, Aud never hunger, after : Tell me, little maid, do you believe That if you looked and looked, And turned into a tipsy-cake, The best that could be cooked, Do you think that if I swallowed you And incontinently died, That the judge would call it murder Or only suicide P  ## p. 299 (#313) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 299 Because I’ve drunk your beauty in ;- But you don’t know what that means Any more than beams, which pony loves, Can know that they are beans. Good-night, dear, dainty tipsy-cake, I’m but a selfish jade, Just whinnying to himself about The dinner he has made. And I may not, may not keep you For my sweet-meat to enjoy, God has planned you for a help-meet For some happy, happy boy. W. “Pipings.” By John Arthur Coupland. (London: John Ferries.) DREAMS. A ghost-like vapour wraps the wood, And frozen is the stream, The birds upon bare branches brood, And nothing breaks their dream. They dream of Spring, of Summer sweet, Of green and leafy bowers. I also dream : in winding-sheet Behold the murdered hours. WI. “In Leisure Time.” By William S. Mavor. (London: Elliot Stock.) TO TERPSICHORE. If Choryphaeus leading the dancing choir With steps of stately ceremonial; Or leaping Faun and Bacchanal Around thine altar cannot tire Their nimble feet; If Pyrrhic dances yield Their martial music as the crashing shield And falchion meet ; Or, if we pleasure us As eye beholds Nymphs, robed in draperies diaphanous, Whose fleecy veils their sensuous limbs surround In serpent folds, Whose lissom feet but kiss the ground ; If such affect Thee, gladly we Thus pay our festal vows, Terpsichore VII. “Scintillae Carminis.” By Percival W. H. Almy. (London: Elliot Stock.) RATE : A PASTORAL. And the bells, the bells, the tumbling bells Shall reel and peal through the livelong day; And they’ll deck the church with blooming birch, And the cherry bloom and the may, the may ; “So kiss me, Kate, and we’ll be married o' Sunday.” And you shall have rings and golden things, And satin shoes as white as milk, And coloured bows and high clock hose, And a glittering gown of silk, of silk; “So kiss me, Kate, and we’ll be married o' Sunday.” And servants shall wait on my Lady Kate, Like a maiden queen of a high degree ; And garlands rare shall bind your hair, Dragged from the mouth of the bee, the bee ; * So kiss me, Kate, and we’ll be married o' Sunday.” VIII. The “Mummer.” By Harry Gaelyn. (London : Elliott Stock.) IN A CITY. Dim grimy way In the dull drear City, Where never a ray Of God’s sun, through the livelong day Pierces the pall of the murky sky, To tell of pity And hope, to those who live and die T)ay by day, In that grimy way. Yet there, By yon crazy stair, Long years ago, Love stayed his flight. There, In the dusky light Love shook his wings and all was bright For two true souls—and they Until this day Have found that grimy way A pathway of delight. IX. “The Prophecy of Westminster.” Harriet E. H. King. (London: W. B. Whitting- ham.) This volume of verse is in honour of Cardinal Manning. THE COMFORTER, COMFORTED O Thou whose throne was set in Westminster, Among the many god-like names whereby We hold thee in our hearts, this one doth lie Nearest each thought of thee—the Comforter. What bitter pains, what manifold disgrace Hiding itself from every other face, What broken hearts, what wounds of penitents, What secret cruelties, what ghastly rents, Open have lain beneath thy pitying eye, Fled to thy bosom as to sanctuary, And felt thy holy tenderness outpoured Upon the quivering life, to hope restored X. “Religio Clerici and other Poems.” By Alfred Starkey. (London: Elliot Stock.) The principal poem in this collection is purely religious. It is difficult to quote any passage which, detached, would fully represent the powers of the poet. Here, however, are the opening lines: Last year, what time the bells of summer months Had rung their sweetest chimes, I took my way Up through the long sea-walleys, dark and stern In bouldered turf and reappearing rock Struck through the shallow soil, like hoary bones Of some vast buried age. In the slant light I saw the bramble dews gleam changeful sparks Of pearl and ruby ; and oft I stayed to watch The autumn spiders spin their floating threads, And launch their ačry voyages; or paused While on some red-leaved bough the robin, left Sole chorister of all the tuneful quire Which filled in spring, the chancel of the year With soft and grateful song, now piped a faint And faltering dirge o'er bright days dead or dying, Mingling its matin notes with vesper falls Of melancholy minors, like a sigh From Nature’s sabbath heart.  ## p. 300 (#314) ############################################ 3OO THE AUTHOR. XI. The “ Divine Surrender.” By William Wullan. (London: Elliot Stock.) This is a “Mystery Play” treating of the Crucifixion. It is impossible to quote anything unless one were to take several pages. *- a -º BOOK TALK, OME time ago Mr. John Hollingshead issued a booklet of an autobiographical nature, and now he announces a complete autobiography in two volumes for the coming publishing season. His acquaintance with literary and theatrical celebrities has been, of course, very large. A very curious and significant fact is announced from America, that the library of the late Oliver Wendell Holmes has been valued at only £160. A new connection between the Press and the publishers is to be inaugurated this spring by the appearance of the “ Pall Mall Magazine Library,” which Messrs. Sampson Low and Co. will issue. “The Decline and Fall of Napoleon,” by Lord Wolseley; and “The Rise of Wellington,” by Lord Roberts, will be the first two volumes. The editors of the Magazine will contribute an introduction. The price of the series is to be 3s. 6d. The work upon which the late Sir John Seeley was engaged when he died was “The Growth of British Policy,” and it is being edited by Pro- fessor Prothero for the Cambridge University Press, in two volumes. It seems a pity that this could not have been included in the uniform edition of Sir John Seeley's works, of which Messrs. Macmillan will issue “The Expansion of England” on May 3, and “Ecce Homo,” “Natural Religion,” and “Lectures and Essays” at monthly intervals. Mr. George Allen, who began as a publisher of Ruskin, is extending his list in many direc- tions, and “Ruskin House” is more of a com- pliment than a description. His edition of Spenser’s “Faerie Queen,” edited by Mr. Wise, and illustrated by Mr. Walter Crane, has reached its fifth part, and he announces “The Gurneys of Earlham,” in three volumes, by Mr. Augustus J. C. Hare, profusely illustrated. The work is the memoirs and correspondence of the eleven children of John and Catherine Gurney, 1775- 1875. The most important work of travel in the autumn season will probably be Captain Young- husband's account of his famous journeys in India and the far East. The title has not yet been finally settled, as it is difficult to get one which describes the whole field, but it will pro- bably be “The Heart of a Continent; being the Narrative of Travel from 1886-1894 in Man- churia, Mongolia, Chinese Turkestan, the Pamirs, and the Hindu-Kush.” Mr. McCormick, who illustrated Mr. Conway’s “Himalayas,” will also be the illustrator of this work. Mr. Murray is the publisher. A short time before his death Professor Blackie collected together materials for his biography, and this will be published in the autumn by Messrs. Blackwood and Co. It is written by Miss Stoddart. In Messrs. Putnam’s Sons’ “ Heroes of the Nations” series, Mrs. Oliphant will write on “Joan of Arc; ” Mr. Oman, of All Souls, Oxford, on “Marlborough and England as a Military Power; ” and Professor Burr, of Cornell, on “Charlemagne as the Reorganiser of Europe.” Mr. Leslie Stephen’s “Ethical Discourses” will shortly be published by Messrs. Sonnenschein who also announce twelve interesting volumes of their new “Social England” series. Mr. Baldwin Brown will write on “The History of the Fine Arts in England; ” Mr. Cornish, Vice-Provost of Eton, on “Chivalry;” Professor Winogradoff on “The English Manor;” Mr. Henry Balfour on “The Evolution of Household Implements; ” Mr. Inderwick, Q.C., on “The King's Peace, a His- torical Sketch of the English Law Courts; ” Mr. S. O. Addy, on “The Evolution of the English House; ” Professor Cunningham on “The Influence of Alien Immigration on Social Life; ” Alice Law on “Guilds, and the Rise of the Mer- chant Class; ” and Mr. G. C. Chisholm, on “ The Influence of Geography and Travel on Social Life.” The Westminster Gazette has published, on the authority of Messrs. Chapman and Hall, the interesting fact that, since 1872, of the People's Edition of Carlyle’s “Sartor Resartus” 89,000 copies have been sold, and of “ Heroes and Hero Worship,” IoS,000. All who have read and delighted in Mr. Nisbet Bain’s translations of “ Hans Andersen’s Fairy Stories”—and who has not both read them and delighted in them P-will look forward greatly to his Life of Andersen, which will be published by Messrs. Lawrence and Bullen in the spring. The Ealing Free Library has transferred “The Manxman " to the reference department, where only adults can procure it ; the chairman of the committee, the Rev. J. S. Hilliard, describing it as “a most indecent book.” No announcement has yet been made on the subject, but it may be taken for granted that in  ## p. 301 (#315) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 3O I the autumn we shall have a striking account from the pen of Slatin Pasha on his eleven years' captivity in the Mahdi's camp. It will be remembered that Father Ohrwalder, who was rescued in a similar manner through the instru- mentality of Major Wingate, R.A., in 1892, published in that year a very interesting book. Mr. Blackmore has written a series of tales in verse, to be published under the title of “Fringalla,” by Mr. Elkin Matthews in the spring. The same publisher announces Professor Corbin’s Harvard prize essay on “The Elizabethan Hamlet,” with a prefatory note by Professor York Powell. The idea of the essay is that nowadays we have lost sight of a comic element in “Hamlet” which was present to Elizabethan audiences. A book awaited with eagerness by soldiers and historians is General Sir Daniel Lyson’s “The Crimean War from First to Last.” It is said to be full of facts and stories that have never been published before, and the author is credited with being one of the few officers who never left the camp of the First Division for a single day from the outbreak of hostilities to their conclusion. Sir Daniel is now eighty-one. A book by Baron Rothschild on his trip to Cape Town and on South Africa generally is nearly ready. No doubt it will appear in an appropriately gorgeous form. The publishers are Messrs. Longmans. The tenth edition of Erichsen’s magnum opus “The Science and Art of Surgery,” in two volumes, with a thousand engravings, is also announced by the same publishers. The Figaro has published a series of very interesting extracts from M. Clemenceau’s book entitled “La Mélée Sociale.” This appears to be a very pessimistic view of human activities. No doubt an English translation will soon be announced. Perhaps the indefatigable Mr. Sherard already has it in hand. The preliminary announcements of Mr. Henry Dyer’s volume on “The Evolution of Industry,” promise a very opportune and needed work. He regards his subject from both social and political standpoints, and discusses such timely topics as the position of women, Municipal control, State control, and, of course, industrial training. Messrs. Macmillan are the publishers. The new editor of the Daily Chronicle, in succession to Mr. A. E. Fletcher resigned, is Mr. H. W. Massingham, who has for a considerable period acted as assistant-editor and political director, as well as writing the brilliant daily sketch of House and Lobby. The new editor of the Morning Post, in succession to Mr. A. K. Moore, deceased, is Mr. Locker, son of Mr. Arthur Locker, for many years editor of the Graphic, and nephew of Frederick Locker- Lampson, the poet. The first edition of IOOO copies of Mr. Henry Norman’s book on “The Peoples and Politics of the Far East ’’ was sold out, the publisher announces, within the first week of publication, and a second edition is now ready. During the month Mr. Norman has been appointed assistant- editor of the Daily Chronicle, of which paper he has for some time had charge of the literary department. “The Cyclopædia of Names,” published by the Century Magazine, and by Mr. Fisher Unwin in this country—certainly one of the most useful books of reference that has ever seen the light— is to be issued in monthly half-guinea parts. Journalists, and people who have occasion to make researches, have for several years past greatly valued the “Index to Periodicals,” which has been issued yearly from the Review of Rezniews office. Mr. Stead has now commenced the issue of his “Index to Periodicals" monthly, at Id. The index shows the contents of the magazines and of the Review of Reviews for the coming month, and all the books issued during the previous month, including Parliamentary publications. A week or two will see a most important and interesting work, in the shape of the biography of the late Professor Freeman, by Dr. Stephens, the Dean of Winchester. Messrs. Macmillan and Co. will publish it in two volumes. It is said that “the letters will be found to contain a more striking testimony to the range and variety of their author's studies than is afforded by any of his printed works.” Every month now brings at least one new magazine, that of March being a sixpenny monthly called The Englishwoman, edited by Miss Ella Hepworth Dixon, and published by F. W. White and Co, A new sixpenny illustrated weekly, The Hour, has also made its appearance under the editor- ship of Mr. A. N. Williamson. “The World's Own Book; or, the Treasury of à Kempis,” by Percy Fitzgerald, is announced for early publication by Mr. Elliot Stock. The work incidentally gives an account of the chief editions of the imitation, with an analysis of its methods, and is illustrated by several facsimiles of pages from MSS. and early printed editions. The publication of Miss Elizabeth Hodges's book, “Some Ancient English Homes and their Associations: Personal, Archæological, and Historic,” T. Fisher Unwin, which was arranged for the first of the month, is, owing to the  ## p. 302 (#316) ############################################ 3O2 THE AUTHOR. ravages of influenza among the printers, post- poned until after Easter. The book, which is well illustrated, gives descriptive histories of some interesting but little known Warwickshire and Gloucestershire “Homes” and their various inmates, from Saxon times onward. Mr. Egerton Castle's new novel, called “The Light of Scarthey,” will appear serially in the Times (weekly edition) before coming out in one vol. form. It will begin on the 19th of April, and will run about six months. It will then be pub- lished by Messrs. Osgood, McIlvaine, and Co. “To-Day's Christ : A Study in Re-Incarna- tion,” by Dr. Joseph Parker, of the City Temple, is now ready. The publishers are James Nisbet and Co., 2 I, Berners-street, W. Mr. Reynolds Ball has been appointed travel editor of the Road, and will take charge of the new “Travel and Tour Department,” which begins in this month’s number. One of the most interesting features will be an exhaustive review of a recent popular travel work under the heading “The Book of Travel of the Month.” Mr. Douglas Sladen’s “On the Cars and Off” will be the subject of the April review. We are sorry to record the death of the lady who wrote under the nom de plume of “E. Chilton.” She wrote, in truth, very little, and probably many of our readers never heard of her. But she possessed a singularly pure and clear style, and a certain amount of humour, which made her work attractive. Perhaps she would have done very much better had she been spared. There seems to be no harm in mentioning that her real name was Mrs. Chilton Brock. A scholarly and instructive little book, called “Books Fatal to their Authors” (Elliott Stock), has been sent to me. In style and in matter the book reminds one of Disraeli’s books about literature and authors. Book lovers will make a note about it. The author, in a second edition, will do well to correct a misstatement. The editor of this paper has nowhere said that publishers now “incur no financial risk.” He has never said anything so foolish. What he has said, over and over again, is a very different thing: That in these days few publishers take risk, in the old sense of the word. They have found out the safer plan, viz., where there is risk to make the author take that risk. The richer houses sometimes publish books where returns are doubtful—there are often special reasons why even a certain loss is advisable; they sometimes start magazines; they sometimes lock up money in costly ventures; but the great majority, the smaller houses, seldom, if they can help it, run any risk at all in the publication of books. “Meditations in Motley,” by Walter Black- burne Harte, is a collection of essays by an American writer, published by the “Arena Com- pany, Boston.” It is a handy little volume, and contains many good things. Among others there is a revelation of the conditions of criticism in in America, which ought to reconcile us to our own country. “The Friend of Sir Philip Sidney’’ (London: |Elliot Stock,) is a selection from the works in verse and prose of Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke. The selection is made by Alexander B. Grosart. A mºst curious and interesting little volume. The “Divine Problem of Man,” by Mariquita, Wiscountess de Panama (London: The Roxburghe Press) is a religions book which may be com- mended to those who read works of religious speculation. “Silvia Craven” (London : Elliot Stock), by M. Gordon Holmes, is a six-shilling novel. It is rather long for these days of quick reading. The tone of the book is maintained throughout at a high level. “Some of our English Poets.” By the Rev. Canon Bell, D.D. (London : Elliot Stock.) The poets treated are Gray, Goldsmith, Cowper, Scott, Coleridge and Wordsworth. There is always something new to say about a great writer. Canon Bell has found enough to make a charming volume of pleasant criticism. “Cardinal Manning,” a character sketch, by Harriet Clemence Hamilton King. (Dondon: Whittingham and Co.) This little work is written in uncritical admiration of the late Cardinal. It consists largely of extracts from his sermons. Mr. Arthur Dillon, with Mr. William Page, is forming a syndicate in order to revive Shake- speare's comedy of “Twelfth Night, or What You Will,” to be played after the 16th, or early 17th manner. Mr. Dillon says, “Our principle is that every playwright shows to fairest advantage in that form of stage for which. he designed his plays. This is especially true of Shakespeare, who wrote with such technical knowledge of the stage of his day.” “The Silent Room,” by Mrs. Harcourt Roe, has been published by Messrs. Skeffington and Co. in Is. form. Annabel Gray has transferred her works, “The Ghosts of the Guard-room" and “A Spanish Singer,” to Messrs. C. Turner and Co., 30 and 32, Ludgate-hill, who will continue the series. “Llanako: a Welsh Idyll,” is the title of a new novel just issued by Messrs. Gay and Bird. The author is Mrs. Fred Reynolds.  ## p. 303 (#317) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 3O3 Mr. Frank Barrett's new story, “A Set of Rogues,” will appear serially this summer in a number of provincial weeklies. The arrange- ments are in the hands of the Authors' Syndicate. Mr. Richard Pryce's new story, “The Burden of a Woman,” will be published almost imme- diately by Messrs. A. D. Innes and Co. The arrangements have been concluded by the Authors' Syndicate. Mrs. Paul King, author of “Cousin Cinderella,” is about to produce a novel in three volumes, called “Lord Goltho, an Apostle of Whiteness.” The publishers are Messrs. Hutchinson and Co. Many of our older members will be pleased to hear that Mr. James Stanley Little was on the 23rd ult. married to Miss F. Maud Thérèse Lablache. There is always a certain diffidence in speaking of Pierre Plowman and other writings of that age. One ought to be able to read English of that period; it is English, only a little more archaic than Spenser. Yet, as a matter of fact, the reading is so troublesome, reference to notes or a glossary is so frequent, that, except in one's student days, Langland is practically never read at all. It is time to sweep away the convention that we all understand fourteenth-century English; and this, it is to be hoped, will be assisted by Miss Rate Warren’s “Translation Vision ” (Fisher Unwin, 1895). The Translation is close and literal, yet preserves the spirit of the original. A few notes are added; there is an appendix, and there is an introduction. Such a little book does more to make us understand the fourteenth century than half a dozen learned volumes with annotations and glossaries. We must have the learned volumes; but for them we could not become students in Old or Middle English. We hope that Miss Warren will con- tinue her task of making things plain and popular. * - - --" - w - CORRESPONDENCE, I.—“RUSTIC READING '': A REPLY. ET me assure my critic “C. M. Y.” that my article on this subject did not deal “with what was the case thirty or forty years ago,” an epoch with which I had no personal acquaintance. Every word of it was the result of my own observation and experience as a country clergyman, nor have I any reason to suppose that the condition of this parish in matters literary is in any way exceptional. ; “The writer,” says his critic, cannot really know John Bunyan's great classic if he thinks it of Langland’s. likely to terrify children into the way of virtue.” But it was to the alarming illustrations of certain editions, and not to the text, that I took exception, John Bunyan is not to be held responsible for the vagaries of his illustrators - Then I am told that I am not familiar with parish magazines. Alas ! this is far from being the case, and I can only repeat that hardly any of them contain writing worthy the name of literature. The one exception that I know is Mr. J. G., Adderley's Goodwill, but in this, unfortunately, there is a strong tinge of socialism. Lastly. “The nickname Hodge is one that greatly displeases both the peasant and all that are interested in him.” Dear me, what could I have been thinking of to use it in this gloriously democratic age I hope that Thomas Hodge, Esquire, Parish Councillor, will forgive my forget- fulness. THE WRITER OF THE PAPER. II.—EDITORs' RULEs. “R. L. T.” has mistaken my suggestion, and I fear if we authors combined to frame a set of rules, regulating the terms for the reception of our MSS., the only result would be a swift and speedy return of our productions by the indignant editors. My idea was that they should draw up a new act of uniformity, out of the kindness of their hearts, in order that the weary writers should know how long to wait for rejection or acceptance, and cheques. The vulgar tradesman does not give unlimited credit ; why then should the distinguished, or insignificant, author P S. B. III.--WoRD's For SoNGs. In Mr. R. H. Sherard's February “Letter from Paris,” he says: “Only the very best writers of words for songs in England can hope for as much as four, or at the outside five, guineas for their words, whilst the average price paid to the poet is, I believe, 5s.” Speaking from my own experience, the average price is two guineas for words worth setting, and I have never once been offered words at anything like as low as 5s., nor for the words of my songs have my publishers, who have uniformly and courteously given the price asked. The poet then, unlike composer and publisher, has no further risk. - Touching upon the half royalty system in France ; if a poet took half the royalties of a song in England, it would hardly be an equal divi- sion P The writer of the music has only that one form of publishing to profit by, whereas the poet only  ## p. 304 (#318) ############################################ 3O4. THE AUTHO/?. sells the musical copyright of his poem, and can publish it in book form without restriction. In cases where musical copyright is not wished to be disposed of, the poet frequently grants his very kind permission to set the same words many times, thereby popularising his work, or he can request special terms. With all appreciation of Mr. Sherard’s sugges- tions and with every respect for the unspeakable help of poetry, the labours and risks of music are so great that the benefit of the minor poet seems to me best insured in the position he occupies at present. MARY AUGUSTA SALMOND. IV.-MUSICAL PUBLISHING. In reading the valuable remarks upon this subject in the Author for March, I so thoroughly agree that “the iniquity of seven copies as six’’ should be challenged. Why should not thirteen copies count as twelve, as in the booksellers’ trade P If musical works are properly stored, this should amply allow for loss to publishers in soiled or spoilt copies. Regarding charges for the performing rights of composers in oratorios, cantatas, and operas, the remarks are just, but I would refer the writer to 45 & 46 Vict. c. 40, ss. I and 2, which is quoted on page 62 of that admirable little handbook, “The Law of Musical and Dramatic Copyright,” by Ed. Cutler, T. E. Smith, and F. E. Weatherley. In the case of songs it would seem impolitic if not imposible to charge. It must always be remembered how small a public music has compared with that which literature and the drama possess. In some songs, such as “The Lost Chord” and “The Better Land,” it would appear im- portant to have mentioned in royalty agreement if the publisher “shall be entitled to arrange and use the melody in any separate musical composition ” with or without any further payment P - It is for the greatest composers to begin to insist upon more equitable terms. Lesser writers would only have their work refused for that of others. M. S. W.—THE GENERAL MEETING. I was unfortunately unable to attend the general meeting on the 25th, otherwise, though only a very humble member, I should have felt it my duty to protest against Mr. Stuart- Glennie's strictures. I have belonged to the Society for nearly ten years, and whenever I have had occasion to resort to its services, have been invariably im- pressed by the admirable manner in which the business has been conducted. In fact, so far as my experience is concerned, its attributes may be summed up in these three words, “Capability, Celerity, Courtesy,” and there are, I am sure, very few members who would not render a similar testimony. WILLIAM TOYNBEE. WI.—PARALLELISM. On Nov. 16, 1892, I awoke from sleep with the idea of the following sonnet, and with the final line shaped almost exactly as it stands, present in my mind—whether as carried out of a dream or as forged in some mental process exactly synchronous with the recovery of consciousness I am quite unable to determine. The idea took possession of me, though at first I recoiled from the grotesquerie of the gnat, feeling that in the retention, at all events, of the word, the solemnity of the whole conception would be risked. That same morning I composed the sonnet (the first I ever wrote) in one draft, altering the last line to “The cry of a hurt bird doth reach me here "; but in a third copy restoring the ant, in the deliberate conviction that the grotesquerie was only skin-deep, and that the thoughtful reader would justify my decision. Besides, I felt a sort of scrupulousness in tampering with the gift of a dream. Two or three days ago I saw an advertisement of a new book or pamphlet by my friend Mr. Coulson Kernahan. The title is as follows: “God and the Ant: A Dream of the Last Day.” On the face of it, the motif of that, one would say, is almost identical with the motif of my Plagiarism, conscious or unconscious, is out of the question. - I fancy that the parallelism is remarkable enough to deserve record. Besides having seemingly been first in ink, I should like to be first in print. 'Atrokatóorraorus IIdivrov. Lo, the great day that sees God's purpose wrought ! Time in His lap doth lie, a woven skin, Sin is His awful aureole, and pain On His forefinger shines, a pearl sum-caught. Yea, the great day, the end of all God’s thought: The stars roll anthems, all the airy main Washes bright rapture, mingled with the strain Of human cycles to the vintage brought. Creation praises. Lo, God lifts His hand, Spreading mild lightning on from sphere to sphere : The tide of triumphs stops; the planets stand ; Yea, the worlds hearken, as high God speaks clear: “Broken is all the harmony I plann’d :— There is a gnat whose voice I do not hear.” FREDERICK LANGBRIDGE. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Author, Vol. 05 Issue 11 (April 1895) Subject The topic of the resource <em>The Author</em>, Vol. 05 Issue 11 (April 1895) Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015013732253" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015013732253</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Publication Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1895-04-01-The-Author-5-11 publications The Author https://historysoa.com/files/original/5/276/1895-05-01-The-Author-5-12.pdf bea2b3650ca7e26dcf90ad3fc01e278f PDF Text Text ���������������������������� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Author Subject The topic of the resource <em>The Author</em> Description An account of the resource A digitised run of the Society of Authors' monthly periodical, <em>The Author</em>, 1890<span>–</span>1914, made available together for the first time.<br /><br />Currently users can browse issues and <a href="https://historysoa.com/items/browse?search=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Index&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;tags=&amp;exhibit=&amp;date_search_term=&amp;submit_search=Search+For+Items&amp;sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CTitle">indices</a> (not available for all volumes). Full text search for all issues, and other additional search functionality, will be added in 2022. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1890–1914 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context The-Author-Issues Publication Date The date of an event (in YYYY, YYYY-MM or YYYY-MM-DD format) 1895-05-01 Volume 5 Issue 12 Pages Page range in volume 305–332 Ngram Date Version of the date in YYYYMMDD format for use by the Ngram plugin 18950501 Ngram Text Version of the text with no HTML formatting for use by the Ngram plugin C be El u t b or, (The Organ of the Incorporated Society of Authors. Monthly.) CON DUCTIED BY WALTER BES ANT. VoI. W.-No. 12.] MAY 1, 1895. [PRICE SIXPENCE. For the Opinions earpressed in papers that are signed or initialled the Authors alone are responsible. None of the papers or para- graphs must be taken as eaſpressing the collective opinions of the committee unless they are officially signed by G. Herbert Thring, Sec. *-*. --> * = - 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 show.ld be crossed Union Bank of London, Chancery-lane, or be sent by registered letter only. Communications and letters are invited by the Editor on all subjects connected with literature, but on no other sub- jects whatever. Articles which cannot be accepted are returned if stamps for the purpose accompany the MSS. *-* -º a- - - WARNINGS AND ADWICE. I. RAWING THE AGREEMENT.-It is not generally understood that the author, as the vendor, has the absolute right of drafting the agreement upon whatever terms the transaction is to be carried out. Authors are strongly advised to exercise that right. In every form of business, this among others, the right of drawing the agreement rests with him who sells, leases, or has the control of the property. 2. SERIAL RIGHTS.—In selling Serial Rights remember that you may be selling the Serial Right for all time; that is, the Right to continue the production in papers. If you object to this, insert a clause to that effect. 3. STAMP You R AGREEMENTs. – Readers are most URGENTLY warned not to neglect stamping their agreements immediately after signature. If this precaution is neglected for two weeks, a fine of £10 must be paid before the agree- ment can be used as a legal document. In almost every case brought to the secretary the agreement, or the letter which serves for one, is forwarded without the stamp. The author may be assured that the other party to the agree- ment seldom neglects this simple precaution. The Society, to save trouble, undertakes to get all the agreements of members stamped for them at no ea'pense to themselves eacept the cost of the stamp. - WOL. W. 4. ASCERTAIN WHAT A PROPOSED AGREEMENT GIVES To BOTH SIDES BEFORE SIGNING IT.-Remember that an arrangement as to a joint venture in any other kind of busi- ness whatever would be instantly refused should either party refuse to show the books or to let it be known what share he reserved for himself. 5. LITERARY AGENTS.—Be very careful. You cannot be too careful as to the person whom yow appoint as your agent. Remember that you place your property almost un- reservedly in his hands. Your only safety is in consulting the Society, or some friend who has had personal experience of the agent. Do not trust advertisements alone. 6. COST OF PRODUCTION.--Never sign any agreement of which the alleged cost of production forms an integral part, until you have proved the figures. 7. CHOICE OF PUBLISHERS.–Never enter into any cor- respondence with publishers, especially with those who ad- vertise for MSS., who are not recommended by experienced friends or by this Society. 8. FUTURE WORK.—Never, on any account whatever, bind yourself down for future work to anyone. 9. PERSONAL RISK.—Never accept any pecuniary risk or responsibility whatever without advice. IO. REJECTED MSS.—Never, when a MS. has been re- fused by respectable houses, pay others, whatever promises they may put forward, for the production of the work. II. AMERICAN RIGHTS.—Never sign away American rights. Keep them by special clause. Refuse to sign any agreement containing a clause which reserves them for the publisher, unless for a substantial consideration. 12. CESSION OF COPYRIGHT.-Never sign any paper, either agreement or receipt, which gives away copyright, without advice. I3. ADVERTISEMENTS. —- Keep some control over the advertisements, if they affect your returns, by a clause in the agreement. 14. NEVER forget that publishing is a business, like any other business, totally unconnected with philanthropy, charity, or pure love of literature. You have to do with business men. Be yourself a business man. Society's Offices :— 4, PORTUGAL STREET, LINCOLN's INN FIELDs. * -- ~ *-* HOW TO USE THE SOCIETY, I. VERY member has a right to ask for and to receive advice upon his agreements, his choice of a pub. lisher, or any dispute arising in the conduct of his business or the administration of his property. If the advice F F 2  ## p. 306 (#320) ############################################ 306 THE AUTHOR. 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 is in order to ascertain what has been the nature of your agree- ments, and the results to author and publisher respectively so far. The Secretary will always be glad to have any agreements, new or old, for inspection and note. The infor- mation thus obtained may prove invaluable. 4. If the examination of your previous business trans- actions by the Secretary proves unfavourable, you should take advice as to a change of publishers. 5. Before signing any agreement whatever, send the pro- posed document to the Society for examination. 6. The Society is acquainted with the methods, and—in the case of fraudulent houses—the tricks of every publish- ing firm in the country. 7. Remember always that in belonging to the Society you are fighting the battles of other writers, even if you are reaping no benefit to yourself, and that you are advancing the best interests of literature in promoting the indepen- dence of the writer. - 8. Send to the Editor of the Author notes of everything important to literature that you may hear or meet with. 9. The committee have now arranged for the reception of members’ agreements and their preservation in a fireproof safe. The agreements will, of course, be regarded as con- fidential documents to be read only by the Secretary, who will keep the key of the safe. The Society now offers:—(1) To read and advise upon agreements and publishers. (2) To stamp agreements in readiness for a possible action upon them. (3) To keep agreements. (4) To enforce payments due according to agreements. > º: THE AUTHORS’ SYNDICATE, TEMBERS are informed: I. That the Authors' Syndicate takes charge of the business of members of the Society. That it submits MSS. to publishers and editors, concludes agree- ments, examines, passes, and collects accounts, and, gene- rally, relieves members of the trouble of managing business details. - 2. That the terms upon which its services can be secured will be forwarded upon detailed application. 3. That the Authors' Syndicate works only for those members of the Society whose work possesses a market value. 4. That the Syndicate can only undertake any negotiations whatever on the distinct understanding that those negotia- tions are placed eaclusively in its hands, and that all communications relating thereto are referred to it. 5. That clients can only be seen by the Director by appointment, and that, when possible, at least two days' notice should be given. 6. That every attempt is made to deal with all communi- cations promptly. That stamps should, in all cases, be sent to defray postage. 7. That the Authors' Syndicate does not invite. MSS. without previous correspondence ; does not hold itself responsible for MSS. forwarded without notice; and that in all cases MSS. must be accompanied by stamps to defray postage. 8. That the Syndicate undertakes arrangements for lectures by some of the leading members of the Society; that it has a “Transfer Department’’ for the sale and purchase of journals and periodicals; and that a “Register of Wants and Wanted '' is open. Members are invited to communicate their requirements to the Manager. There is an Honorary Advisory Committee, whose services will be called upon in any case of dispute or difficulty. It is perhaps necessary to state that the members of the Advisory Committee have no pecuniary interest whatever in the Syndicate. NOTICES. HE Editor of the Awthor 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 P Communications for the Author should reach the Editor not later than the 21st of each month. All persons engaged in literary work of any kind, whether members of the Society or not, are invited to communicate to the Editor any points connected with their work which it would be advisable in the general interest to publish. Members and others who wish their MSS. read are requested not to send them to the Office without previously communicating with the Secretary. The utmost practicable despatch is aimed at, and MSS. are read in the order in which they are received. It must also be distinctly under- stood that the Society does not, under any circumstances, undertake the publication of MSS. The Authors’ Club is now open in its new premises, at 3, Whitehall-court, Charing Cross. Address the Secretary for information, rules of admission, &c. Will members take the trouble to ascertain whether they have paid their subscriptions for the year P If they will do this, and remit the amount, if still unpaid, or a banker's order, it will greatly assist the Secretary, and save him the trouble of sending out a reminder. º Members are most earnestly entreated to attend to the warning numbered (8). It is a most foolish and may be a most disastrous thing to enter into an agreement binding for a term of years. Let them ask themselves if they would give a solicitor the collection of their rents for five years to come, whatever his conduct, whether he was honest or dishonest? Of course they would not. Why then hesitate for a moment when they are asked to sign them- selves into literary bondage for three or five years P Those who possess the “Cost of Production ” are requested to note that the cost of binding has advanced 15 per cent. This means, for those who do not like the trouble  ## p. 307 (#321) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 3O7 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 £948. 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. *-*. --> sº- ºr -ºss LITERARY PROPERTY. I.—CANADIAN COPYRIGHT. Ottawa, April 14. HE collection by Customs officials of the 12% per cent. author's royalty on reprints of British copyright works brought into Canada will not cease until the present Parlia- ment is dissolved. The view is now held by departmental experts that, until England consents to a Canadian copyright law, the royalty must be collected, as an Imperial statute cannot be over- ridden by a mere Canadian enactment.—Times, April 15, 1895. In the House of Commons at Ottawa yesterday, the Hon. G. E. Foster, Minister of Finance, announced that at the request of the Imperial Government a Canadian representative would be sent to England to discuss the copyright question personally with the Imperial authorities for the purpose of coming to an understanding. In the meantime the proclamation of the Canadian Copyright Act of 1889 would be withheld.— Times, April 23, 1895. II.—THE CANADIAN CASE. “Certain erroneous statements,” it is stated, “having been circulated with regard to the Canadian Copyright Act of 1889, it has been deemed advisable by the Copyright Association of Canada to issue the following statement:” The Canadian Copyright Act of 1889 was unanimously passed by the Parliament of Canada, and assented to by the Governor- General. - The Act was to come into operation on pro- clamation of the Governor-General. The Governor-General has not yet proclaimed the Act. The Canadian Government contend that they have the right to legislate fully on copyright, it being one of the classes of subjects intrusted to º Parliament of Canada by the B.N.A. Act of 1867. The following are among the reasons why the Act should be proclaimed: A Copyright analogous to a Patent. A copyright is analogous to a patent. Canadian Copyright Act is analogous to the Canadian Patent Act. The Patent Act requires manufacture in Canada. The Imperial Government did not disallow the Patent Act. The Imperial Government would not propose that a United States patentee, on securing the British patent, should thereby secure the Canadian patent. Why should the Imperial Government assure the United States author, that on securing copyright in Great Britain, he thereby secures copyright in Canada? Canada exclusively legislates as to the terms on which patents may be secured in Canada. Canada should be permitted to exercise the same powers as to the terms on which copyrights may be secured in Canada. The Canadian Market must not be sold. The United States publisher when buying from a British author the copyright for the United States, stipulates that Canada shall be included. Canadians resent this sale of their market, and persist in their claim to adopt such legislation as will put a stop thereto. Canadian Reprints cannot flood other Markets. The fear that Canadian publishers would flood the British and United States markets with cheap editions, is utterly unfounded, as the Copyright Acts of those countries prohibit the importation and sale of unauthorised editions, and impose a heavy penalty for violation of the law. Canadian publishers, therefore, could not flood either market with cheap editions. It has happened that orders for books sent to London have been returned with “cannot supply.” marked thereon, thus forcing Canadians to buy those books from the United States publishers. On the other hand, the British publisher prints a cheap edition of a work by a United States author. This cheap edition is exported to Canada. An illustration on this point is furnished in the case of F. Marion Crawford's book, “The Ralstons.” This book was published in the United States at 2 dollars. It was published simultaneously in Great Britain at 12s. But the British publishers printed a cheap Colonial edition which sold in Canada for 75 cents. This cheap  ## p. 308 (#322) ############################################ 308 THE AUTHOR. edition was on sale in Canada within a day or two after the publication of the United States 2 dollar edition. Here, then, is a British publisher issuing a cheap paper edition for sale in Canada—when one of the main objections of the opponents of the Canadian Act, which is made to do duty on every occasion, is that the Canadian publisher will issue cheap paper editions which will flood the United States market in competition with the more expensive United States editions ! . It must be distinctly understood, however, that this cheap paper edition, which is sold in Canada, does not flood the United States market, for the very excellent reason, already stated, that the United States Copyright Act prohibits its importation or sale in the United States. Imports allowed from Britain. The Canadian Act permits the importation of British editions of works, whether copyrighted here or published under the royalty clause of the Act; but excludes foreign editions. No Piracy in Canadian Act. Should the author (be he British or American) neglect to secure copyright in Great Britain, any publisher may reprint the work there without paying the author. Should the author neglect to secure copyright in the United States, any publisher may reprint the work there without paying the author. Should the author neglect to secure copyright in Canada, no Canadian publisher could reprint the work in Canada without paying the author Io per cent. royalty. It is therefore clearly seen that while the British and United States Acts permit the piracy of authors’ works, the Canadian Act does not. The Royalty Clause. The introduction of the royalty clause in the Canadian Act was not original with the promoters thereof. The idea was suggested by the Foreign Reprints Act, passed by the Imperial Parliament, which allows a United States publisher, or other foreign publisher, who has printed a copyright book without permission, to supply the Canadian market on payment of a royalty of I2; per cent. collected on the wholesale price of the book, which royalty goes to the British copyright owner. It was but natural for the Canadian to desire to be placed on an equal footing with the foreign publisher so far as his own market was concerned. Therefore a royalty of Io per cent. on the retail price of the book was suggested. Furthermore, many difficulties have been encountered in collecting the royalty on imports, it being almost impossible to keep a complete and accurate list at every Custom House, and to check every invoice therefrom. The collection of the royalty on reprints, on the other hand, is provided for by the Canadian Law in a perfectly safe manner, as the Inland Revenue Department is to stamp the title page of each copy of every book issued, and before this is done the royalty must be paid to the Government to the credit of the author. As a matter of fact, then, the author will exchange his royalty of I2; per cent. on imports, which is uncertain of collection, for a royalty on reprints of Io per cent. on the retail price, which is certain of collection. Geographical Position. In considering this question, the geographical position of Canada, side by side with the United States, ought not to be overlooked. This fact makes Canada's position very different indeed from that of any other British colony. Advantages given to Authors. Compare the United States Copyright Act, now in operation, with the Canadian Copyright Act, and it will be seen that many advantages are given to authors by the latter. To secure copyright in the United States, the British author must print his book there from type set within the limits of the United States, or from plates made from type set within the limits of the United States. The Canadian Act provides for no such restriction, but allows both British and United States authors to set the type in Canada, or print from plates, as they may think best. In anticipation of the Canadian Act coming into force, the Canadian Government passed a special enactment allowing plates for books to be imported into Canada free of duty. This concession was made, thinking that it would be appreciated, but those opposing the Act seem determined to ignore the concession. Yet the concession is there, and it proves that Canada. grants British authors copyright in Canada, on far more liberal terms than they can secure copy- right in the United States; and that Canada. grants United States authors copyright in Canada on far easier terms than Canadians are granted copyright in the United States. Injustice to important Canadian Interests. Canada has not only lost the printing of works by foreign authors, but is fast losing the printing of works by Canadian authors, not because the books can be printed cheaper or better abroad, but because they have to be manufactured in the |United States in order to secure copyright there. When that is done, there is no necessity for issu- ing a Canadian edition, as the Canadian market can be supplied by the United States edition.  ## p. 309 (#323) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 3O9 Reading Public inconvenienced. Under the present law, the Canadian readin public are ignored, and the works of both British and United States authors must be imported into Canada, and, moreover, these editions are, in many cases, published at such prices as to put them beyond the reach of the great majority of Canadian readers. British authors are now able to secure copy- right in the United States, and United States authors are now able to secure copyright in Great Britain (which covers Canada). Therefore the copyright owners now refuse to print in Canada. They supply this market with editions printed either in the United States or Great Britain. This is considered a great injury to the printing, paper, and allied industries in Canada. It is, moreover, a source of trouble and annoyance to the people of Canada, as the British market is so far away that, after the supply on hand of a book is exhausted, some weeks must elapse before a new supply can be procured. Objections refuted. A circular, containing objections to the Canadian Act, has been recently issued in England. These objections should not prevail. The circular states that Canada has asked the British Government to sanction arrangements to take copyright in Canada away from all British authors except such as are Canadians. Such is not the case. Canada does not propose to take away copyright in Canada from British authors. The British author and the United States author may, under the Canadian Act, secure copyright in Canada on exactly the same terms as the Canadian author. It is objected that the Canadian Act will injure the value of the British edition, because the Canadian edition could be imported into the United Kingdom and the other colonies, and compete with it. But from the report of Lord Knutsford’s Copyright Commission of 1892, it appears that, at the instance of the British copy- right owners, the law of Great Britain was framed so that the importation of Canadian reprints of British works into Great Britain is prohibited. It is objected that the Canadian Act is at variance with the Free Trade principles of the United Kingdom. That may be. The Canadian Tariff Act is also avowedly at variance with the Free Trade principles of the United Kingdom— yet the British Government would not propose to interfere with it. It is objected that the Canadian Act will destroy the British author's present means of securing copyright in the United States of America. That is only an opinion. Are not the British publishers themselves alone responsible for the agitation against allowing British authors to hold copyright in the United States ? The action of the British Music Publishers’ Associa- tion in contesting what is known as the “manu- facturing ” clause in the United States Act, has done British authors incalculable harm in the United States; and if the British music pub- lishers will not accept that manufacturing clause (as British book publishers have very wisely done), British authors may yet find themselves deprived of the benefit of copyright in the United States. As to the Berne Convention, it should be under- stood that the Canadian Parliament never adopted or agreed to the Berne Convention. On the con- trary, the Canadian Parliament has twice asked that notice be given of Canada's desire that the Convention be denounced. Most of the other objections are based on the supposition that the author loses control over his work under the Canadian Act. Nothing could be further from the fact, since, by complying with the terms of the Act, authors and copyright owners retain entire control of their works and may suppress old editions, or issue new ones as desired. Canadians stand by the Act of 1867. Canadians insist on the full right of the Parlia- ment of Canada to pass and enact legislation on copyright as desired from time to time; the same as they enjoy on the other subjects intrusted to that Parliament under the B.N.A. Act of 1867. The right of the Parliament of Canada to enact and enforce its own copyright legislation has been indorsed by the unanimous vote of the Parliament and Senate of Canada; by the News- paper Press of Canada; by the Board of Trade of the City of Toronto, and other cities; by the Employing Printers of Canada; by the Typo- graphical Unions and Printing Pressmen's Unions; by the Trades and Labour Councils (comprising representatives from the various trades), by the Booksellers’ and Paper Makers’ Association, and by many others. The above reasons, amongst others, for the enforcement of the Copyright Act of 1889, were laid before Sir Mackenzie Bowell, the Premier of the Dominion of Canada, and Sir Charles Hibbert Tupper, the Minister of Justice, by an influential deputation of the Copyright Association of Canada, at Toronto, in February, 1895. Signed on behalf of the Copyright Association of Canada, J. Ross ROBERTSON, President. DAN. A. RosB, Vice-President. RICHARD T. LANCEFIELD, Hon. Secretary.  ## p. 310 (#324) ############################################ 3 IO THE AUTHOR. - III.--THE OTHER SIDE. Hitherto we have had only expressions of opinion from publishers, and politicians in the hunt for votes, and the vital point at issue has been completely ignored. It is not a question whether a wrong has been done to Canada by not allowing her to legislate as to copyright, nor whether United States publishers are to be allowed to flood the Canadian market with British authors’ works printed in the United States, but the crucial question is whether the authors, engravers, printers, sculptors, and photo- graphers of the country are to be deprived of the vast benefits of the Berne Convention at the bidding of a few clamorous publishers. When a cause is bad, false issues are always raised. It does not matter one iota to the public where the books are printed and bound, provided they are cheap and good, and it must be conceded that we can get a cheaper and better class of work from Europe and the United States. Last year I had the privilege of paying Canadian publishers about 1100 dollars for a limited issue of a work on the Patent law of Canada, some of which have been sold in European countries as well as in the United States, and my attention has been drawn to copyright matters, both as a lawyer and in my daily practice as a solicitor of patents, and my firm is even now procuring Canadian and European copyrights for a client for a work of universal interest ; so I claim to be better posted generally than the public, who are ignorant of the rights which are being thrown away to obtain this mongrel Act of 1889, by the passing of which our membership in the Berne Convention is severed, and our privileges destroyed. By simply obtaining a Canadian copyright, the protection of the courts, without further registration, is obtained throughout the United Kingdom and all its colonies and posses- sions, also in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Luxembourg, and other places. In the recent case of “ Harfstaengel v. Baines and Co. (1895), I. A. C., p. 20, “The Empire Theatre Living Picture Case,” the right of suit in British courts was conceded to a German copyrighter, although no registration had taken place under the British Copyright Act. The only condition precedent to obtaining copyright in the foregoing countries is that the formalities prescribed by law in the “country of origin” must be complied with. Ten years are allowed within which translation may be made, and authorised translations are protected the same as original works. By the British Act of 1842, copyright was obtainable covering all the colonies, &c., provided the work was first (or simultaneously) published in the United Kingdom, and it was immaterial whether it was printed in the United King- dom or whether it was written by a British subject or not. This has ever since been the policy of British statesmen, who aimed at the benefit of the masses and the encourage- ment of art and literature in the country; printers and publishers could not dictate the policy of the Government to suit themselves, as unfortunately has been the case both in the TInited States and Canada. Why should Canada at the bidding of publishers, printers, and a portion of a noisy press pursue a policy of isolation and make this country take a step backward of fifty years towards the Dark Ages to pander to a few who will never benefit much by the Act of 1889, if it ever should become law P. There have been International Copyright Acts in the United Kingdom—1844, 1852, 1875—with the principal countries of Europe; the Berne Convention was merely an enlargement and consolidation of these Acts. No literary man or artist who understands the matter and the privileges which are being thrown away has asked to have the foolish Act of 1889 become law; indeed it would be folly to suppose so. Canada and the United States are both far behind Europe in art, science, and literature; reputation and progress among the nations of the world do not count when the almighty dollar steps in. The United States, however, have separate international treaties with all the foreign countries named of the Berne Convention (except Spain and Luxembourg), and also with Denmark and Portugal, which are not members, while poor Canada with suicidal folly will by the passing of the Act of 1889 be completely isolated, and will not retain even the reciprocal advantages granted us by the Imperial Act of 1886. The Act of 1889 imposes impossible conditions on British authors, whose property is to be taken without their leave, and, besides that, is so badly drawn as to embody several glaring mistakes, so that lawyers will be able to drive the traditional coach and four through it in the usual manner. On a future occasion I may take this up. The official returns from the ad valorem duty of 12% per cent. on reprints of British works hitherto collected in the Camadian Customs since December, 1850, for British authors, and now happily ended, show what a farce the collection has been, and will arouse grave doubts whether much of the beggarly IO per cent, royalty provided for in the Agt of 1889 would find its way to the pockets of the British author.— Yours, &c., John G. RIDOUT. Toronto, April 4. Toronto Mail and Earpress, April 6.  ## p. 311 (#325) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 3 II IV.--THE “IIVING PICTUREs '’ LITIGATION. The following summary of this case was pub- lished (Friday, April 26th) by the Westminster Gazette : “What happened was this : the Empire Theatre, starting what has since become a very popular form of “show,” produced some living groups on the stage. These groups were arranged after some pictures by foreign artists, the copyright of which belonged to the fine art publisher, Herr Hanfstaengl. In due course of business, the Daily Graphic and the Westminster Budget published outline sketches, more or less rough, of the performances at the Empire. Herr Hanf- staeng1 thereupon proceeded at law for infringe- ment of copyright: 1. Against the Empire, in respect of the living groups; 2. Against the Empire, in respect of the painted backgrounds to the groups; 3. Against the Daily Graphic, in respect of its sketches of the performances at the Empire ; 4. Against the Westminster Budget, on the same ground. The fate of these proceedings was as follows: 1. Carried to the Court of Appeal, and dis- missed with costs; . Mr. Justice Stirling granted an injunction; the Court of Appeal overruled him, and were sustained by the House of Lords; 4. Mr. Justice Stirling, basing himself on the decision of the House of Lords, dismissed the case with costs; 2. This was the case decided on April 25th. Mr. Justice Stirling dismissed it so far as concerned most of the pictures, but decided that the back- grounds of two of them were an infringement of copyright. We need not trouble our readers with any more law than this—namely, that what the Copyright Acts forbid, as piracy, is “copies or colourable imitations of the painting [or photograph] or the design thereof.” What, therefore, the Courts have now decided in the group of cases in ques- tion is—(1) that living groups, posed after pictures, are not—apart from any question of painted backgrounds—infringements of copy- right; (2) nor are rough sketches of pictures such as are familiar to the public in the illus- trated papers.” W.—THE RETAIL PRICE. The following letter appeared in the Athenæum of April 8: Park-street, Bristol, April 1, 1895. It is, possibly, typical of the inertness of book retailers that the statement quoted in the Athenæum, March 23, as to 6s. novels “sold to the trade at 3s. 7#d.” is allowed to pass without comment. This is one of the misleading half- WOL. W. truths constantly appearing in the Awthor. Retailers would be glad to find someone who would supply them with the 6s. novels they want at 4s. There is evidently a good living going begging if the Author be correct. W. GEORGE’s SONS. As regards “misleading half-truths,” it is remarkable that those who speak about them never venture to correct them. The Author would like, above all things, to be correct. Why do not these booksellers state plainly what they have to pay ? How, then, was the sum of 38.7%d. arrived at as a fair average estimate of the general retail price of a 6s. book P. In this way. The general retail price of a 6s. book is nominally 4s. 2d. But 5 per cent. discount is allowed “for the account,” and thirteen are allowed as twelve. That works out at 3s. 7+}d. The fraction was reduced in favour of publishers from +} to #. It was thus intended to make some allowance for bad debts. The Society, in issuing these figures, was not considering the relations of booksellers to publishers, but of authors to publishers. Its first care, therefore, was not to overstate their own case. With this object it assumed that all books were bought at thirteen as twelve, which is very far from being the case, though, it must be remembered, in order to get at an average price, with some publishers the thirteen ordered are allowed to be of various books. If all the books were bought simply as single copies our royalty tables would have to be altered throughout, and authors’ royalties very much increased. We have, so far, received no complaints from pub- lishers as to the alleged understatement of the retail price. rº- + -º THE DEFERRED ROYALTY. HE proportion of proceeds that the author T should assign to the publisher can never be decided, once for all, on equitable prin- ciples, because no connection can be established between the author’s work and the publisher's. The former conceives and executes the book, bring- ing to his work all his knowledge, learning, skill, and ability. This is one kind of work. The pub- lisher performs the mechanical part: he sends the MS. to the printer, and he gives it the help of his own machinery in introducing the book to the world. This is another kind of work. The two kinds are incommensurable. Therefore some kind of recognised principle, adopted and agreed upon by all, is the nearest approach that we can expect to the settlement of the question. Thus, it has always been supposed, till lately, that a half profit system, in the case of any ordinary book, was as fair a method as could be devised. In the rare case of a very successful G. G.  ## p. 312 (#326) ############################################ 3I 2 THE AUTHOIR. work, in one certain to be in great and extra- ordinary demand, this plan would be manifestly unjust. But the half, profit system has been discredited by those publishers who falsify their accounts; for £IOO writing £I IO or £I2O : and charging for advertisements for which they have not paid. “I like the half profit system,” said Douglas Jerrold, “for there is certain to be no division with the publisher.” Discredited as it has been, it still remains in practice, especially with those persons who continue—there are not many left—to falsify their accounts. There remains, however, in the minds of authors a feeling that more than one-half of the profits ought not to be taken by the publisher; and they fondly believe that any offer made to them is based upon that principle. Nor does the publisher ever openly demand more than one-half; in certain cases he asks for no more than one-third. We have already seen in these columns what is meant by a royalty of Io, I 5, 20, or 25 per cent. Our calculations were based upon a trade price which we assumed to be general, though it was really placed somewhat too low. We shall perhaps be able to revise this table of royalties. Meantime it must be observed that it is extremely difficult for an author to get a royalty which actually corresponds to a half profit return, a fact which would by itself suggest that in many cases the accounts were falsified, and the “half profits” returned were only a fourth, or even less. We have now to consider a system which has come in of late years, and must be exposed. It is that of the deferred royalty. Under the old half profit system the publisher said, “I will stand in with you—my risk of money against your risk of time.” Under the royalty system the publisher says, “If there is any risk I take it”—of course, in most cases, there is none, or, as a man of business, he would not take it—“ and from the outset, which increases the risk, I load the book with so much royalty.” A deferred royalty at first sight seems perfectly fair. What could be fairer than that profits should be reckoned after the cost of production has been defrayed P As usual, however, the cost of production is very carefully withheld, and the mere mention of such a thing is violently resented. And, again, the publisher who flourishes his deferred royalty is extremely shy of stating what the proposal means to himself. When will authors have the courage to say: “Make me an offer showing in exact details what you propose for yourself out of my property, and what you will give me P’’ or, failing this, why do they not always bring their agreements to the Society for explanation before they sign them P Here, for instance, are a few cases of actual proposals of a deferred royalty : 1. This was the case of a very distinguished man of letters. He was asked to write a book for a certain series. Terms: Royalty of so much per cent. — a very moderate percentage — to begin after two editions of a thousand copies each had been sold. In other words, the enterprising firm calmly proposed to take for themselves the whole proceeds of two editions before they gave the author anything ! 2. This was the case of an educational book. The author was offered a little cheque down with a royalty of so much—not much—to begin after many thousands (!!) of copies had been sold. Making a very rough calculation, it looked as if the generous and noble-hearted firm was proposing to make a profit of about six or seven times what it gave the author, before the moderate royalty began. This kind of business seems to be more common in educational books than in general literature. There is no reason why there should be any difference. Some educational books are costly to produce, but a book that is once established is a mine of gold. There is, doubtless, real risk attached to the publication of some educational books, though the name of the writers of books produced by reputable firms should be a guarantee of their value. In such cases, the old half profit system was designed to meet the difficulty. Let the author, when considering any proposed agreement, simply demand an estimate in writing of the cost of production and the comparative shares of profit. If he has any doubt about the document, let him refer it to the Society; of course, it must be a detailed estimate, showing the number of sheets, the size of the page, the character of the type, the style of binding, the price of stereos, and so forth. If the firm refuse that estimate let him go elsewhere The deferred royalty proposal has a much better chance of catching the ignorant and credulous author when a small cheque down is proposed than with nothing. The author thinks that he is certain to get something. This, with the fact that his book is going to appear, reconciles him. It was a publisher with a real knowledge of human nature who first invented the little cheque on account. The offer might be miserable and grasping, but there was at least something down, and the writer's vanity was flattered by the pro- duction of his book. - 3. The next is the case of a three-volume novel. The author was to receive a royalty— quite a large and handsome royalty—after the sale of 350 copies. He was at first greatly uplifted with admiration of the princely firm  ## p. 313 (#327) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 3 I 3 which had made him this magnificent offer—an admiration which suddenly vanished when he found out that no more than 350 copies had been printed and that the type had then been distri- buted. So that the generous publisher never meant him to have anything at all out of his book, and knew very well beforehand how many would be taken by the libraries. 4. The last is a case quoted in “Methods of Publishing,” in which the royalty was to begin “after the expenses are defrayed.” Nothing at all was said about any audit of accounts, and so the author was expected to take the publisher's word as to what the expenses were. The royalty system, since the Society exposed its early iniquities, has been greatly improved. Royalties are given now which would have been indignantly refused a few years ago, when ignorance of the figures enabled grasping dealers to deal with royalties as they pleased. But the deferred royalty still offers grand opportunities for grasping and greed. Now, it cannot be said that any of the cases above quoted, or any cases similar to them, are, strictly speaking, fraudulent, unless in the last case, where an opening was left for falsifying the accounts. How, then, can these cases be described P. If a man places himself in the hands of another, whom he believes to be honourable and upright; if the former, further, believes that in the manage- ment of his property he will receive a fair proportion, say half the proceeds, and if that man so trusted gets the other to sign an agree- ment by which two-thirds, or three-fourths, or five-sixths of the profits go secretly into his own pocket; if he does this, knowing ſhe other to be ignorant of the figures, how shall we describe that man P. He is, at least, one who trades on the ignorance of others, one who systematically “bests” his partners. If the royalty is to begin after the expenses are defrayed, these expenses must be laid down at the outset, and an audit of the books granted as a matter of course. This would not absolutely stop cheating, if that were attempted; but it would make it more difficult, because it would involve the assistance of accomplices. Then, as soon as the actual expenses of a whole edition are defrayed, the royalty should be 50 per cent. on the actual trade price of the book until that edition is exhausted. To repeat, it has never been argued or held that a publisher should for his share in the work be entitled to ask for more than one-half. Yet see, by the cases given above, what a monstrous share he may secretly seize by such an agreement as any one of those quoted above. WOL. W. LETTER FROM PARIS. UR young friend George Hugo, the grand- son of the poet, will in future be known as Comte George Hugo. He succeeds to the family title by the death of Comte Leopold Hugo, who was the eldest son of Victor Hugo's elder brother, Abel Hugo, the eldest son of the gallant general, Joseph Hugo, of whom M. de Ménéval, Napoleon's private secretary, writes that he was a young officer full of fire and activity, who rendered yeoman’s service to the Emperor and King Joseph in Spain, and wrote Some most interesting memoirs on the war in Spain, which were published with a preface by his eldest son, Abel. Leopold Hugo cannot be described as a literary man. He was rather a savant, with a speciality for geography, and was in high repute at the Academy of Sciences. Just before he died he asked that his little cousin, Charles Daudet, the son of Leon Daudet and Jeanne Hugo, should be brought to him. He will be much regretted by all who knew him. George Hugo, or rather Comte George Hugo, and his little son Jean are now the only representa- tives of the male branch of this distinguished family. George Hugo, by the way, is coming to London on May 6, in the company of the Daudets. Apropos of this visit, I may mention that M. de Goncourt told me on Thursday last that he did not intend to accompany his º to London. “I don’t like ovations,” he Sal Ol. Speaking of de Goncourt, one is glad to hear that next month Charpentier will publish the eighth volume of the “Journal des Goncourt,” of the strong interest of which to all those who are interested in contemporary French life, literary, social, and artistic, I have already spoken. I hear that the author has submitted the proofs to various persons of whom he has spoken in this volume, so as to avoid any such complaints about indiscretion as were made in reference to previous volumes of the same diary. Apropos of the “Journal des Goncourt,” which I may perhaps explain may be translated either as the “Goncourt's Newspaper’ or as the “Gon- court's Diary,” a barrister told me that once when defending a prisoner down in the South of France he made copious quotations from these books, with visible effect on the jury. His client was acquitted, and after the trial the foreman of the jury came to see him and asked him in the name of various members of the jury to inform them where the “Goncourt's Newspaper " was published, whether it was a daily or a weekly paper, and what were the terms for subscription. The name of the barrister who told me this is G G 2  ## p. 314 (#328) ############################################ 3I4 THE AUTHOR. Raymond Daly, himself a writer of no mean order. A volume of his short stories, to be entitled “The Gold and the Grey,” are being translated by Mr. Stewart Merrill, the American poet, and will be published in London next autumn. Admirers of Gustave Flaubert have long desired to possess an adequate life of the greatest master of prose that France has seen in this " century. One is therefore pleased to read that in a few days from now we shall possess such a book, written by M. Albert Collignon, & man well suited for the task. M. Albert Collignon was for many years editor of La Vie Littéraire, and is the author of numerous works of fiction and biography. Almost simultaneously with the Flaubert book he will publish a work on Diderot. But the Flaubert book will interest you and me the more, I think. A new French slang dictionary is in prepara- tion and will be welcomed by those who love to stray on the by-paths of philology. It is being put together by M. Dellesalle. It will be in two parts, French-Slang and Slang-French, just like any other dictionary of two languages. It should be useful to writers of realistic novels, and will save them the trouble of studying French slang in the unpleasant regions where it flourishes. I have another little anecdote about William Wordsworth which may interest those who are interested in this poet. A lady tells me that when she was a little girl—it is the same little girl who sent the epic and the half-crown to the destitute poet—she used to stay at Rydal Mount, and that William Wordsworth used to make her read aloud to him, not for his diversion, indeed, but in order to train her voice. “He used to con- stantly interrupt me to correct my enunciation whenever I raised my voice unduly, either in read- ing or speaking, and would quote Shakespeare's “sweet low voice, an excellent thing in woman’ till I conceived a strong dislike for Cordelia, which was only removed by Ellen Terry's splen- did acting of the part.” It was rather hard on a little girl, home for the holidays, to be exercised in this way—a way worthy rather of the Blimber establishment; but Wordsworth had particular views on many subjects. It is, however, quite certain that his views on hospitality were sadly traduced by Miss Martineau, who related that the poet had told her that he received so many visitors at Rydal Mount that he could not afford to entertain them all, and that he had instructed his wife to supply tea and bread and butter only to strangers, and to charge cost price for anything else in the way of refreshment. Why did Miss Martineau say this, I wonder P. It was, of course, an utter falsehood. According to M. Jules Huret, the victor in the Huret-Mendés duel, there is in preparation a “History of the Second French Empire,” with notes by the Empress Eugenie. This should be an interesting work. I often have regretted that Baron Haussmann never wrote a history of those Imperial days, and I remember suggesting to him. that he should do so. But he said that his memoirs ought to suffice, and that he would not betray the confidence which his master had put in him, even after his death, by betraying State secrets of which, by his position and owing to his friendship with Napoleon III., he had become cognisant. No man knew better what had gone on behind the scenes during that lurid period of French history than Baron Haussmann. ROBERT H. SHERARD. 123, Boulevard Magenta, Paris. * - - -* *- - -s. NEW YORK LETTER, New York, April 13. ERHAPS the most important literary news P of the past few weeks is the announcement just made that certain of the leading professors of history in the chief American Universities, in conjunction with other historical students, have determined to establish an American Historical Review. At present there is no periodical in the pages of which the his- torical investigator really feels at home, for the little monthly Magazine of American History tries to be “popular,” and is given over largely to the amateur and to the notes and queries collector. A meeting was held in New York last Saturday, attended by representatives of most of the colleges where history receives special attention, and an editorial board was elected consisting of Professor Adams (of Yale), Professor W. M. Sloane (the writer of the serial biography of Napoleon now appearing in the Century), Mr. J. B. McMaster (the author of the “History of the American People,” the fourth volume of which the Appletons have just published), Pro- fessor H. Morse Stephens (of Cornell), and Professor A. B. Hart (of Harvard). It is con- sidered probable that Professor Hart will be the managing editor, and that Longmans, Green, and Co. will be the publishers of the new periodical. It will be a quarterly not unlike the English Historical Review, also published by Longmans, Green, and Co. The first number of this American Historical Review will not appear before the autumn, but thereafter its appearance is assured for at least three years, a substantial  ## p. 315 (#329) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 3 I5 guarantee fund having been raised to make this a certainty. Probably few readers in England, except those who have had special occasion to consider the subject, have any conception of the very extra- ordinary work which the American Universities are now doing in history, and more particularly in the allied departments of political science, sociology, and economics. This is one of the points to which Mr. Bryce called attention in his speech introducing Lowell at the first dinner, the Society of Authors gave. At Columbia College alone in the School of Political Science there are three full professors of political economy, besides a professor of sociology, a professor of adminis- trative law, a professor of comparative juris- prudence, a professor of international law, a professor of constitutional law, and half a dozen professors and lecturers on history. At Harvard and at Yale, at Johns Hopkins, and at Chicago, there are faculties inferior only in numbers to that at Columbia. And nearly all these institutions issue periodicals, generally quarterlies. By a thoughtful arrangement the Harvard Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Columbia Political Science Quarterly, and the Yale Review are issued each a month later than the other, so that the three taken together appear every month in the year. All three of them give a certain amount of space to history, and will probably continue to do so. The Suwanee Review, edited by Professor Trents of the University of the South, is frankly devoted to literature and to history. Half a dozen years ago there was a New Princeton Review, edited by Professor Sloane, but dissensions arose among the owners, and it was finally absorbed by the Columbia Political Science Quarterly. In it. Pro- fessor Sloane tried to combine the solid merits of the old-fashioned quarterly reviews with the more alluring vivacity of the brisker monthly reviews. The venerable North American Review, to which Bryant contributed “Thanatopis,” and, which Lowell edited for years, was bought by a rich and foolish young man named Rice a dozen years ago. Under the advice of Mr. Laurence Olyphant, Rice made it a monthly, modelling it upon the Nine- teenth Century of Mr. Knowles, but going much farther in search of sensationalism—so far, indeed, that the present North American Review has been characterised as “a monthly edition of the New York Herald.” Its management is now in the hands of Mr. David Munro, a shrewd Scotch- man, and of Mr. William H. Rideing, an English- man with a very large acquaintance with the writers of England. Perhaps this is the reason why the North American Review gives up a large proportion of its space to articles by European writers on European topics. Its chief rival, the Forum, also a monthly, is edited by Mr. Walter H. Page; it is more digni- fied, less sensational, and far more American in its list of contributors and in its choice of subjects. A third monthly review called the Arena, is published in Boston; it is edited by Mr. B. O. Flower; it is rather the organ of the faddists of all sorts, the cranks and the freaks, than a vehicle for serious discussion of serious topics. The scholarly Atlantic Monthly, now edited by Mr. H. E. Scudder, is still the periodical that most steadily maintains a lofty standard. The Atlantic is half a magazine and half a review. It admits fiction and poetry, and it discusses politics now and again; but it devotes a very large proportion of its space to literature. Its book reviewing is generally done by experts, but it is mostly anonymous, and therefore lacks authority. Perhaps the best book reviewing in America is to be found in the pages of periodicals like the Political Science Quarterly and like the Educational Review of Professor Nicholas Murray Butler, in which every book worth consideration is sent to an expert, who vouches for his opinion with his name and address. In the United States, as in Great Britain, there is a tendency of the unsigned book review to be wanting in the weight—to be more careless, not to say more flippant, than the article can afford to be which the writer guarantees with his own name. The most exhilarating and stimulating criti- cism of belles lettres we have had here in America. for several years was that contributed monthly to Harper’s when Mr. Howells had charge of the “Editor's Study.” Whether one agreed with Mr. Howells's opinions or not—in fact, more especially when one did not agree with them—they were unfailing stimulants to thought. They tended to make every reader examine again the founda- tions of his own opinions. Mr. Howells has been missed from the Editor's Study of Harper's Monthly for several years now ; but he has just 'begun to contribute almost every week to Harper's Weekly a signed article on a new book, a group of new plays, or an exhibition of new pictures. His article this week is on the absurd “Degeneracy” of Dr. Nordan, in the course of which he not only exposes the pretensions of the German author, but he declared again what seem to him to be the real and abiding merits of Tolstoi, Ibsen, and Zola. “Stops of Various Quills” is the title of the volume of poems by Mr. Howells which Harper and Brothers will publish shortly. A novelette of his, which has just been concluded in the Cosmopolitan, will also be published by the Harpers during the spring. And another  ## p. 316 (#330) ############################################ 316 THE AUTHOR. novel, “The Story of a Play,” will begin in Scribner's Magazine later in the year, to run through half a dozen numbers. Mr. Howells has also recently edited the recollections of his father, whose early wanderings through Ohio are fresh and characteristic and interesting. Mr. Stedman and Professor Woodberry con- tinue to work steadily on their complete edition of the works of Edgar Allan Poe. Four volumes containing the prose tales are now published, the first of which opened with a brief, compact, authoritative biography by Professor Woodberry, and followed by a critical introduction to the stories by Mr. Stedman; while to the last of the four Professor Woodberry appended various bibliographical and explanatory notes. For the first time in any edition of Poe his text is here adequately revised, and his slovenly quotations are amended and traced to their sources. There are portraits of Poe in every volume, one of which has never before been engraved. There are illustrations by Mr. Albert E. Sterner. The making of the book, the taste of the typography, the harmony of the page and of the type and of the paper, reflect great credit on the publishers, a young and enterprising Chicago firm, Messrs. Stone and Kimball. The fifth volume, contain- ing “The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym " and the “Journal of Julius Rodman,” will probably be ready next month. The other five volumes completing the edition are to be expected before the end of the year. Mr. Stedman has had an attack of the grippe which has delayed the appearance of his long-promised “Victorian Anthology,” intended to accompany his discussion of the “Victorian Poets.” Mr. Bryce, at that first dinner of the Society of Authors, said that the two things he had recently noticed in American literature were, first, the great variety of political and economic writing; and, second, the abundance of short stories having a strong local flavour, redolent of the soil. This local short story continues to be very popular in our magazines, until now there is hardly any part of the United States which someone has not taken as a field for fiction. Among the recent volumes of these tales are Mrs. Margaret C. Graham’s “Stories of the Foot Hills '’ of California and Miss Murfree’s “Phantoms of the Footbridge,” in which “Charles Egbert Craddock” sets up before us again the strange and uncouth mountaineers of Tennessee. Also to be noted are Mrs. S. M. H. Gardner’s “Quaker Idyls;” Mr. William Henry Shelton’s “Man with a Memory '' (chiefly war stories); Mrs. Mary Tappan Wright’s “A Truce’” (chiefly New England tales); while Mr. Louis Pendleton's story of “The Sons of Ham ” is a discussion of the duty of the nation toward the enfranchised negro clothed in the garb of fiction. At the Publishers' Night of the Authors’ Club —the first formal entertainment given by the club since it moved into its new and permanent home in Carnegie Hall—Mr. Charles J. Long- man was among the guests. Mr. Longman has been in America for a month or more, having had a fortnight of sunshine in Florida, and having spent two or three days in Washington among the relics of ancient man in the Smithsonian Institute. The importance of the American branch of Longmans, Green, and Co. is increasing year by year. The number of books by American authors published by this oldest of London houses is also steadily growing, Indeed, as the Long- mans and the Macmillans have both found, it is impossible for any British publishing house to hold a position of consequence in the United States without having on its list a great many books of American authorship. Mr. Longman expects to sail for England a week from to-day. Mr. John Lane was also among the guests of the Authors—and so was Mr. Richard Le Gallienne, who returns home to-day. A story told at this reception of the Authors' Club is said not to be new—but it is perhaps true. A very unfunny article was sent by an ambitious amateur to an American comic paper, and at the foot of it the aspiring author has written in pencil, “What will you give for this P” “Ten yards start” was what the unfeeling editor wrote under- neath when he returned the MS. FI. R. - *- ~ 2-sº * NOTES AND NEWS. HE Canadian Copyright business still con- tinues to trouble the world. We publish in another part of this paper the Canadian case drawn out by themselves. It amounts, appa- rently, to this ; that while every civilised country in the world has acknowledged literary property to be as real and as worthy of being guarded as any other kind of property, Canada alone desires to secede from this honourable convention, and to appropriate and “convey ’’ literary property to her own supposed advantage—that is, the advan- tage of a few printers for whose sake this great iniquity is to be perpetrated. It has been found impossible to keep American books out of Canada, or Canadian books out of America. It is ridiculous to keep repeating that the laws forbid the importation of such books. Who regards the law P Who enforces it?  ## p. 317 (#331) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 31 7 Canada used to be overrun by American cheap piracies. Distant colonies, such as Jamaica and the Cape, used to be overrun by American cheap piracies, notwithstanding the law. With a frontier unprotected, unguarded, thousands of miles long, there can be no protection for such a law. For all intents and purposes the books published in America might have been before the Copyright Act published in Canada. And so it will be again. As for the old royalty of 12% per cent., from which the author never got anything, that is to be exchanged for one of Io per cent, the receipts from which are equally dubious. We are told that no book is to be issued without a stamp. And who is to enforce this provision over the broad extent of Canada? Are we to expect the whole Canadian people individually to insist upon this stamp P Moreover, to offer a successful author Io per cent, when he receives I5, 20, and sometimes 25 per cent. is impudent. As, however, no one will now get anything, it matters nothing what they offer. Only it would have looked better to make the illusory proposal a little more attractive. The Canadians “resent the sale of their market.” What does this mean? It means that the American publishers buy of the author the Canadian rights; in the same way they buy the American rights. This gives them undisputed right to sell in Canada. Now, it is perfectly open to Canadian publishers, if there are any, to set up an office in New York. English authors will be Quite as ready to deal with them as with American publishers. It will be but a question of fair dealing—not a 10 per cent. royalty—and enterprise. English publishers have done this. Longmans have a house in New York; there is a Cassell and Co. in New York. Why cannot the Canadians do the same On the proposed Canadian Copyright Act, a small collection of opinions from three authors and two publishers appeared in the Contemporary Review of April. The opinions are very clear, and very clearly put. The Act is a blow against the recognition of literary property which has been obtained from all civilised nations. It proposes practically to take the works of English and American authors; to reprint them as the Canadian booksellers—they have no publishers— please; to cut them up and mutilate them as they please. These facts are plainly and forcibly brought out, and the opinions ought to be put together in a pamphlet with the rest of the protests against this iniquitous proposal. That the Act is not defended by the better class of Canadians is shown oy a protest of a Canadian lawyer here reproduced (see p. 3 Io), which first appeared in a Toronto paper. The last has not been said on this subject, nor has the Act yet become law. Meantime it is shameful that a country like Canada should for a moment enter- tain a proposal to revert to the old time of international piracy. . Here is a noble chance for novelists, or aspirants, who can construct a story of mystery. The Chicago Record offers to authors the following prizes for novels of incident, dramatic situations, and mystery. Bear in mind these conditions, O ye candidates Incident — always more incident — dramatic situations, surprises, and Tableaua, in every chapter : the mystery of a great and wonderful secret, to be discovered on the last page, to be kept up throughout. That is the first condition. The next is that the story must have been written by the candidate who sends it; sworn evidence of that must be sent with the story. Thirdly, the story must be, in length, from 140,000 to 160,000 words—viz., the average length of a serial to run six months in a weekly paper, viz., about 5000 or 6000 words for an instalment. Fourthly, the subjects must not be those of certain popular novels of the day. As to the prizes, they range from £2OOO down to £100. And the Chicago Record reserves the right of using such stories as do not win a prize for its own columns at 5 dollars, or £I, per column. Unsuccessful stories will be returned. Very well, the whole thing may be bogus; but I do not think that it is bogus, because so much publicity has been given to such an offer. If I were a young novelist I would have a try. Think of a mystery—murder, money, jewels, a claimant, a forgery. Fix upon as strong a motif as you can —don't be afraid of making it too strong; and then go ahead. The MSS. have to reach Chicago before Oct. I of this year. You have therefore less than five months to spend over the work. Chapman’s “Magazine of Fiction,” vol. I, No. 1, is lying before me. A magazine entirely devoted to fiction would seem a perilous undertaking, especially at a time when in every other number of every other magazine there appears an article on the Decay of Fiction. At the same time, however, in every advertising column there is a long list of books in their fiftieth, their hundredth edition, showing that the small num- ber of English families which can buy books are buying that class of book. The editor, Mr. Oswald Crawfurd, has probably gauged the demand before making the venture. Meantime  ## p. 318 (#332) ############################################ 3.18 THE AUTHOR. there is one new feature. The magazine is to contain dramatic dialogues; stories in dialogue; and even plays. We all know how much more pleasantly dialogue can be made in skilful hands to tell the story than long and tedious narrative. It is one of the later developments in the art of fiction that it is becoming more and more dramatic in form—not in set “tableaux,” after the old fashion, but in the substitution of dialogue for description. The new number contains eight papers—by Bret Harte, Anthony Hope, Stanley Weyman, George Brett, James Payn, Frankfort Moore, Violet Hunt, and John Davidson. A propos of Free Libraries and Tauchnitz books, the following suggestion seems worthy of con- sideration. Perhaps some Bradford citizen may take it up. I have to thank a correspondent, “F. N. W.,” for it. In nearly every case the borrowers of books from Free Libraries are compelled to pay one penny per annum for the renewal of their tickets. TXoes not this constitute a hiring within the letter of the law P I have submitted the case to three legal gentlemen, and all admit that it is an exceedingly nice point. At any rate, it seems to me to be worthy of consideration. I have before me the rules of the new Hampstead Public Libraries. I do not find in them anything about the payment of a penny. There are fines for the detention of books, but not for the renewal of a ticket. Perhaps there is no penny demanded at Bradford. Is not, how- ever, the circulation of a Tauchnitz book by a public library the infringement of the law P Is it not the same thing as the open distribution of smuggled goods P One is curious to watch the effect of the Free Libraries on the Circulating Libraries. For my own part, I do not expect any perceptible effect. The general shrinkage of incomes, if it goes on, will more and more diminish the number of sub- scribers, but not the Free Libraries, which will be used by the class below those who pay three guineas a year to Smith or Mudie. And since this class cannot possibly afford to buy books, not harm at all, but good, will be done by the exten- sion of the Free Libraries. Surely it is a good thing for an author to feel that his book will have the chance at least of being read by millions instead of by thousands. Surely those who desire to reach and to influence these millions will rejoice in thinking that their books are now within reach of so vast an audience; and surely it will not be a bad thing in the immediate future for a publisher to feel that he can place the whole of one edition at once among the libraries of the country. Authors are an irritable race, especially and proverbially those who write verse. The fol- lowing note explains the repetition of this maxim: My little volume I sent you, which was considered suffi- cient passport for enrolment in your honourable Society, has failed to be recognised in the Awthor in any way whatever, although all my friends (men of letters, too) have called Some of the poems perfect cameos, unique, and so on. I see, therefore, that my merits as an author by authors do not warrant my burdening the Society with my name. In other words, a member of the Society has withdrawn because he did not receive a notice of his book in these columns. The Author is not a review; it does not profess to publish criticisms on books. It does, however, announce and men- tion new books and new editions. Until lately it published a list of all the new books; for the sake of getting space this list has been now abandoned. With regard to young poets, it is found that the fairest way with these is to let them speak for themselves. And the little volume referred to has either not reached me—it is still, probably, on the shelves of the secretary’s office—or I have mislaid it, for which, as the author takes it so much to heart, I am sorry. If he had communi- cated with me I would have had a search made for the book, and should have given him the same chance as the others—viz., allowed him to speak for himself. This restriction as to criticism does not prevent the writer of “Book Talk” from mentioning, selecting, or praising any book which he thinks may deserve it. The following must be taken for what it is worth on some results of the proposed “Net’” system: Some remarks made to me yesterday by a country book- seller upon the “Net” system in the price of books appear to me to touch upon a probable source of injury to authors through the “Net” system which, so far as I have seen, has been unnoted in the Awthor. He said: “I do not know to whom the extra profits go—certainly not to the booksellers; and, to prove that the profits do not go to us, I may tell you that for the future, unless we are paid ready money for books that are sold net, we are going to charge our customers twopence in the shilling upon the net price. We cannot afford to give credit unless we do this. Should our customers hesitate about paying twopence in the shilling upon the net price in the event of the book being put to their credit, we shall decline to order the book.” I will try to obtain by the next number some results of the “Net” system as applied to royal- ties. So far as the figures have been furnished me, they are simply surprising. If the system prevails, which seems unlikely, if only for the reason that the British public, which grows poorer every year, is not going to pay 6s., or even 5s.,  ## p. 319 (#333) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 3 IQ instead of 4s. 6d., we shall have to revise the whole of our royalty tables. A letter appears to-day (April 26) in the Daily Chronicle which looks like the commencement of an outpouring against literary agents. A certain kind of publisher is never tired of attacking the wickedness of the literary agent, who makes his former practices impossible. This writer, who signs himself “An Onlooker,” accuses the literary agents of “emasculating ” literature by making Contracts for authors in advance, and “half a decade” or five years in advance. He sees in imagination, or has been told to see, a miserable author, pen in hand, hurriedly grinding away day and night, throwing off his sheets, producing far too rapidly for his powers, “bribed” by his agent. There is really nothing in the world on which greater rubbish, more ignorant rubbish, more mischievous rubbish is constantly written and believed than the production of literature, espe- cially fiction. To begin with, it is not the agent but the publisher who makes the contract ; it is a very rare thing for a publisher to trust an author's staying powers so long in advance as five years. It is the case that editors of good maga- zines secure the services of writers a year or two years in advance; it is also the case that pub- lishers secure the book rights of the same works in advance. Then comes the question whether, by engaging himself beforehand, an author neces- sarily hurries himself? Of course he does not. He may be so foolish as to undertake too much ; but most novelists bring out one novel only a year, and perhaps two or three short stories. Why should they not place these novels in advance? I should like to learn the names of any authors who have been “bribed ” into hurried and incom- plete work, or are under contracts beyond their powers to fulfil honourably. The agent does not — cannot — increase the production; he only relieves the writer of what is the most irksome, the most irritating, the most anxious part of his work—the commercial side of it. WALTER BESANT. *—- - -* NATURE AS INTERPRETED IN THE POEMS OF GEORGE MEREDITH, |TF the lover of Wordsworth were to seek among later English poets for his successor as the High Priest of Nature, he would be not a little surprised to find that his most ardent disciple is, not the late Laureate; not Matthew Arnold, who was loudest in his praise; but Mr. George Meredith whose genius appears at first glance so unlike that of Wordsworth as to leave but few points of resemblance. Notwithstanding this diversity, even the most cursory reader of Mr. Meredith’s poetry must be struck by the fact that in it the lesson which Wordsworth made it his life’s highest aim to inculcate has found its simplest as well as fullest expression. The familiar stanza in the second part of “Expostulation and Reply ’’ in which Words- worth declared that - One impulse from a vernal wood May teach you more of man, Of moral evil and of good, Than all the sages can, must surely have lingered in Mr. Meredith’s memory when he wrote the concluding lines of his poem on “South-West Wind in the Wood- land ’’ in which he tells us that he who hearkens to the voice of Nature and yields his spirit to her benignant influence with a complete trust in her powers and purposes will obtain More knowledge of her secret, more Delight in her beneficence, Than hours of musing, or the lore That lives with men could ever give. That this was more than a mere passing phase of thought in Mr. Meredith’s mind no reader of his poems can doubt. The volume in which the lines quoted occur is the earliest collection of his poems; that published by Parker in 1851, and though the poet in it did not lay so much stress on the importance to man of a close communion with Nature, as he does in later volumes, there is nevertheless more than one significant reference to the love of Earth for her children, and her beneficent influence in restoring the moral as well as physical health of those who have for- saken her for a season. In “London by Lamplight,” a later poem in the same book, the writer expresses his belief in the sanative forces of Nature and faith in her power to regenerate the dwellers in crowded cities could they but be restored to her arms. He who loves Nature will, he declares, never be forlorn ; and a vision of her loveliness is more than a recompense for days of weariness and toil, In more than one poem he tells us that he who once gains Nature as his friend will never lose her; that the joys of her bestowal are never ending. In “Modern Love, &c.,” a book published eleven years later, the poet dwells with even greater emphasis upon a theme which may truly be said to constitute the most important portion of his message to his fellowman. In this volume the “Ode to the Spirit of the Earth in the Autumn” is devoted to the proclamation of an evangel, which though it has found many  ## p. 320 (#334) ############################################ 32O THE AUTHOR. expositors has not, since preached by Words- worth, been urged on man’s acceptance with a force and persistence equal to Mr. Meredith’s. The truth and beauty of earth who is “our only visible friend,” her love and care for her offspring, who renounce and denounce her, her serenity, her sanity, her healthfulness, her free- dom from sorrow, are dwelt on with an ecstacy of expression for which the only parallel is to be found in the utterances of the earlier poet. Even death, hitherto the great bugbear of humanity, ceases to be thus regarded by the lover of earth, O, green bounteous earth ! Bacchante Mother stern to those Who live not in thy heart of mirth; Death ! Shall I shrink from loving thee P Into the breast that gives the rose, Shall I with shuddering fall P Earth knows no desolation, She smells regeneration In the moist breath of decay. She knows not loss : She feels her need, Who the winged seed With the leaf doth toss. - And to this serenity, this majestic calm, man may aspire if he truly loves and feels confidence in Mother Earth, She can lead us, only she, TJnto God’s footstool, whither she reaches; Loved, enjoyed, her gifts must be ; Reverenced the truths she teaches, Ere a man may hope that he Ever can attain the glee Of things without a destiny | The fervour and depth of Mr. Meredith’s utterances on this theme are plainly shown by the fact that after an interval of over twenty years, during which the poet was immersed in prose, he devoted a complete book to “Poems and Lyrics of the Joy of Earth,” in which we find the same expressions of joyous confidence in Nature. Man, we are told, is a compact of blood, and brain, and spirit, and should he, in his folly, attempt to favour anyone of these at the expense of the others a dire result may be expected. The purely sensual nature is equally in danger with the purely intellectual or the rigidly ascetic. Earth from whom we derive the health which is the source of all lasting happiness demands that blood, and brain, and spirit maintain a happy union, and, for love of her, we unquestionably obey her behests with ultimate and certain good to ourselves. Earth your haven, Earth your helm, You command a double realm Labouring here to pay your debt, Till your little sun be set, Leaving her the future task Loving her too well to ask. From her we can learn every lesson if we but hearken to her, and bear with us a wise receptive- ness. By thus doing we gain “a larger self,” and a sweeter fellowship with all animate things 6. In SU162S. In a poem entitled “Earth and Man” their relationship is even more clearly defined than in any earlier work from the same hand, and the folly of man's attempt to read “the riddle of the painful earth,” instead of resignedly and calmly accepting a mother's love, is shown in no mis- takable terms. The poem resembles, in treat- ment, a familiar passage in “Empedocles on Etna,” inasmuch as it shows that man, while he curses earth, is one with the power against which his curses are levelled, a power which labours for man’s good whether he curse or bless, If he aloft for aid Imploring storms, her essence is the spur, His cry to Heaven is a cry to her He would evade. #: $ # e #: :#: And her desires are those For happiness, for lastingness, for light. 'Tis she who kindles in his haunting night The hoped dawn-rose. As if the poet had, with this book, exhausted this fruitful theme, we have no hint of it in “Poems and Ballads of Tragic Life,” published in 1887, the contents of which deal with phases of human life and passion, but the subject was happily far from exhausted, and accordingly, in the following year a volume entitled “A Reading of Earth’’ was published. This book, which is the last volume of poetry he has written, must for the present be considered to contain Mr. Meredith’s final expressions on “man and nature, and on human life.” In it he sets himself not so much to demonstrate man's relationship to nature as to interpret her many moods, and to state the benefits accruing to man from a con- templation of each and all of them. In “Rough Weather ” a comparison is drawn between a life of ignoble ease and warmth, and one of hardship and wrestling with adverse forces, and the gifts of Nature are proved to be designed for him who has courage to endure. Nature Judged of shrinking nerves, appears A mother whom no cry can melt ; But read her past desires and fears, The letters on her breast are spelt. Would we learn of earth her lesson P. Then we must be prepared to accept symbols instead of words; yet we have but to ask to learn— Harsh wisdom gives Earth, no more ; In one the spur and the curb : An answer to thoughts or deeds, To the Legends an alien look; To the Questions a figure of Clay.  ## p. 321 (#335) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 32 I Yet we have but to see and hear, Crave we her medical herb. And to love her is to gain this For love we Earth, then serve we all ; Her mystic secret then is ours, the secret of unruffled calm and enduring patience mingled with a steadfast faith in the welfare of the human race. Nature has been variously interpreted by the poets since Wordsworth's day, but by none with such keen vision and set purpose as by Mr. Meredith. His interpretation while it differs in some points from Wordsworth's, more closely resembles it than does that of any of his contem- poraries. In Lord Tennyson’s poems, save in “In Memoriam ” in which she is described as antagonistic to and careless of life, Nature assumes the appearance of a vast field in which human figures move, and to which it forms a suitable background. In Mr. Browning's we get a degree nearer; here her sunshine and her storms exhibit her sympathy with the woes and joys of man. Mr. Swinburne's interpretation—if such it can be called—resembles Mr. Browning's, while Rossetti's exhibits an affinity to the Laureate's, with the addition that the poet evidently sees with a painter's eye; and Mr. Wm. Morris also selects his landscapes and groups his figures with a view to artistic effect. Matthew Arnold’s alone ap- proaches Mr. Meredith’s conception, and that very rarely; once, in the passage of “Empedocles” already referred to, and again in a short poem entitled “A Wish,” in which he speaks of the Earth as a friend Which never was the friend of one, Nor promised love it could not give, But lit for all its generous sun, - And lived itself, and made us live. It is rumoured that Mr. Meredith intends for the future to devote himself exclusively to poetry. Such an announcement cannot but be gratifying to all lovers of poetry, for Mr. Meredith, while he has followed the steps of Wordsworth in his interpretation of Nature, has also realised his predecessor's conception of the poet inasmuch as he is a teacher, a great teacher. As a con- tribution to the literature of optimism his poems occupy an important position. They have the same health-giving powers as Nature herself, and are as inspiriting as the seasons. *-* - *- - - HE WOULD BIE AN AUTHOR, DO not for a moment suppose that my experiences have been in the least extraor- dinary. Perhaps it is unwise of me to attempt to write them down: and yet they may have some interest for hopeful aspirants to literary honours, even if they should be of no service to such. First let me state the conditions under which I began to scribble. Before attaining my ninth birthday I left school to begin work at a mine, the School Board being then in its infancy. From that early age until I was over twenty-one a pen was scarcely ever in my fingers, although, like Mr. Toots in “Dombey and Son,” I could perhaps have managed to “chalk a bit.” Hitherto the whole of my time had been spent in work and play, with a little random reading in my leisure, a very little indeed. Perhaps I had some discri- mination between what was good and what was not of the little reading I did, but so far from my mind was the thought of authorship that I do not remember even to have written a letter. Being an impulsive and impressionable youth, I wasted most of my leisure in courting, wooing one delicate girl to such good purpose that by the time I had attained my majority I had been married nearly three years, and was over head and ears in debt, having known what it was to be out of work and to have the doctor calling for weeks together. These facts are given simply to show how thoroughly unfitted and unprepared I was for any attempt at authorship, even if I had then pos- sessed the desire for it, which, let me admit, I did not. About this time, however, the idea struck me that it would be a pleasant pastime to copy out such short pieces of prose or verse as took my fancy, wherefore I purchased a sixpenny exercise- book and occasionally put my hand to the task of improving my writing, but betrayed no great earnestness in the matter. Having never been a visitor at public-houses, my evenings were mostly spent at home; yet, with the exception of two or three old standard books and the serial stories of the local newspaper, I still read very little. One day a friend lent me a volume of Burns' poems, which proved a delightful revela- tion, and gave me an appetite for more. Later I read Cowper, Thomson, Wordsworth, Byron, Moore, &c., each of whom in turn delighted me, and thenceforth I became a student of literature in general, with a slowly increasing enthusiasm for books and writers. Now, when the new magazines come to the reading-room I look them over with a feverish eagerness that is almost painful. About seven years ago, being still in low cir- cumstances, I began occasionally to puzzle out a few verses, with now and again a very short sketch in prose. Instead of consigning these first attempts to the flames, I sent them to an editor who sometimes publicly criticised the work  ## p. 322 (#336) ############################################ 322 THE AUTHOR. of would-be authors, wherefore I had the glorious satisfaction of seeing some of them in print. After a number of failures and a little unremune- rated success, one lucky piece at last merited, or gained at any rate, the distinction of being paid for. The circumstances under which this first payment reached me make an almost tragic story, which there is no space to tell in this paper. - This brings me to about five years ago. The period between that date and the present is the time of my most important experiences. Finding that I was now able to write short sketches and verses which might merit the consideration of editors, I began to inclose stamped addressed envelopes with my MSS., a judicious practice not hitherto adopted. My handwriting was still that of an unpolished scribbler; the punctuation may have been fairly good, but the spelling—. This latter feature of my composition is even yet very imperfect; it is doubtful if I shall ever learn to spell correctly. The theory of grammar is one to which I could never give any continued attention. A careful estimate of my work, done during leisure evenings these five years, gives the follow- ing result: About 450 pieces have been written, short stories, short articles, and verses, chiefly the latter. As near as I am able to compute, the work may be divided into 190 prose pieces and 26o of verse. Of the whole 450, the accepted pieces, all of which have been paid for, number 360; verses 250, stories and articles I IO; thus leaving eighty prose pieces and ten of verse declined. The verses average about four stanzas in length, and the payment has varied from 5s. to half-a- guinea. The length of the stories and articles varies from two to six pages of foolscap, and the payment from Ios. to two guineas. The successful pieces have not all been accepted the first time they were submitted, not a few having been returned, rewritten, and sent again. Several contributions have come back after they had been cut up and given out to the printers Only some four or five pieces have been entirely lost. The rejected work has mostly been returned within a fortnight or three weeks, but occasionally pieces have stayed away longer, a few having come home after they had been away over a year. Most of the accepted work has been paid for about the date of publication, but I have found the most regularly paying publishers subject to slight variation, while others pay for work a week or two after it appears. Some publishers send a copy of the journal containing one's contribution, but others don’t ; wherefore, seeing that I have not been a regular subscriber to every paper written to, a number of stories have been accepted which I have never had the pleasure of seeing in print. Besides the verses, articles, and short stories, I have to count two attempts at serial story writing, neither of which have been persevered with, both having been dropped before the tenth chapter was begun. From these a few chapters were accept when offered as short stories. A third attempt promises to be more successful, as it is now about half written, and has something more than a mere chance of being accepted. Verse writing has been a very pleasant recreation. My method is to write them on a slate, so that it is easy to erase a word or a line and substitute a better. I find it hard work to write prose, and am very slow at it, seldom pro- ducing more than three pages of foolscap in four hours. During the last few years I have often been disheartened, but have quickly regained hope, and have persevered in the face of discourage- ment and difficulty; yet I am fully pursuaded that the same time and energy given to any other kind of work might have made me a fortune. It seems to me that in order to become a " successful author one should have a great enthusiasm for literary work, a good education, exceptional experiences, unlimited patience, un- ceasing perseverance, a rare imagination, and a reliable bank account to fall back upon during the “declined with thanks’ period. Of course, if one has been reared in the literary atmosphere, and editors are among one's friends, it is easier to get a start. My lot was not cast in this atmosphere, and I am afraid I do not possess anyone of these qualifications. So far I look upon myself as a failure, but have put down these facts for what they might be worth to any aspirant who finds himself at a similar dis- advantage. Perhaps I may be able to gain a livelihood by this kind of work in time, with health and good fortune to assist me. Seeing that I was over twenty-eight years of age when my first story was accepted, and am now only thirty-three, also taking into consideration the fact that I gave little or no study to literature until a few years ago, it is evident I am still a child in the literary school. Probably this paper will be regarded as unwarrantably egotistical, which doubtless it is, wherefore, although my experiences are not half told, I must bring it to a close.  ## p. 323 (#337) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 323 AUTHORSHIP AND JOURNALISM IN RUSSIA. HE literary profession the wide world over is one long tale of disappointment, drud- gery, deprivation, and destitution. The few exceptions to the rule only go to prove its generalness. Authorship in the Tsar's realms is about at its lowest ebb. The daily feuilleton in the news- papers has almost completely done away with works of a lasting character. Instead of authors trying to elevate the reading public, they have descended to their level. They only seek to amuse them and pander to their tastes without any attempt at instruction. The details of the latest domestic scandal are woven into a dialogue, utterly devoid of plot or moral, and presented for the readers' delectation. The few composi- tions exhibiting any signs of originality in con- struction of plot or portrayal of character are invariably of foreign origin, and find their way into the Russian press in translation. In this latter branch of the art British authors are in great vogue, and several familiar names are to be met with in contemporary magazines. A short while ago the statistics of a provincial library showed that the authors, taken in their respec- tive order of popularity, most in demand were Tolstoi, Lermontoff, Turgenieff, Gogol, Pees- wensky, Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Mayne Reid, Walter Scott, Dickens, and Lord Byron. I did not see a single contemporary English author, but this was not to be wondered at, as the trans- lations of their works appear in magazines and newspapers, and seldom, if ever, come out in book form. The literature of to-day, in more senses than one, is of the most ephemeral nature. The puerile, pernicious productions which at present find acceptance testify to the decline and gradual decay of the author's craft. Racy writers on topical subjects flourish abundantly, but masters of pure diction, finished style, aiming at instruc- tion and elevation, will be sought for in vain. The halo of mystery which encircles the harem, the brutishness which distinguishes the Orient, the 'breath of scandal which taints a noble name—all these have their slaves. It is only the contempla- tion of the workings of the passions of the lowest possible order that stirs a ripple of interest on the placid surface of the great sea of surfeited pleasure which characterises the present genera- tion. Some affirm that Tolstoi was little known before his realistic book “ Kreutzer Sonata ?” turned the general public's attention to him. And who now of all living Russian writers can claim to rank among first-rate authors P. They could be counted on the digits of one hand. The only one that enjoys a world-wide renown is Tolstoi. And he is as if he were no more. He came of that Russian strain which had Pushkin and Lermon- toff for its representatives. They studied natu- ralism, and died in practising it. Both writers met their death in a duel, in consequence of an unholy love. In his youth Tolstoi was also not free of the divine passion, and out of his youthful experiences he evolved a tale which was true to the life, and for which the world thanked him. But now he is returning to the fallacies of a by- gone age. He is vainly trying to revive the myths of a long-flown past; to rehabilitate the Garden of Eden; to hasten the Milennium—all equal impossibilities. The hoary head befits the philosophical mind, but his “Babellic” structure constructed to a fantastic Utopian design will never exist on its chimerical groundwork. The store of sound reason and clear judgment which he has rejected will yet become the corner-stone of a more substantial and enduring edifice erected on the principles of labour and progress. One trait in his character we cannot help admiring is his sincerity. He is sincere in everything he does, as long as his belief in its virtue lasts. But, then, belief is so very flexible. He may change it to-morrow. At the risk of being discursive, I will relate the following as illustrative of the commercial value of a name: When the Count was on the Caucasus serving in the army, he sent some of his first effusions to a Moscow editor, who replied that he would accept them, but could not pay for them. Now Tolstoi is offered fabulous prices for his works, but he replies that he accepts no pay. What would then have been treasured beyond all measure is now despised as mere worthless dross. Vanity of vanities, all is vanity, saith Solomon — espe- cially riches, for they take wings and fly away with the morn. “Two things have I required of Thee,” saith Agur, the prophet, “deny me them not before I die. Remove me far from vanity and lies; give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me.” The ordinary scribe has often to exist and nourish a wife and family on the poorest pittance —pay which a daily labourer would scorn. In pro- portion to the vast population, it is a surprisingly small percentage of the people that ever take a paper into their hands. The “Negramotnia,” or those unable to read or write, are in an over- whelming majority in rural districts, and in the towns themselves the number is simply appalling. Sometimes the number of those in villages boast- ing only a rudimentary education descends to as low a figure as I per cent., and even lower, so it  ## p. 324 (#338) ############################################ 324 THE AUTHOR. is no matter for amazement, when we consider the ignorance of the populace, that the writer's labours in Russia are so little valued. True, his lot has been slightly bettered by the liberal grant of the Tsar, but it is only like a drop in the oeean, and can only prove of real benefit to the indigent writer if the Imperial example is fol- lowed by private subscriptions to the fund from wealthy patrons of the literary art. Of course we must recollect that the teeming millions of the Russian empire are as yet in the elementary stages of civilisation, but the Govern- ment is using its best endeavours to educate the masses, and its efforts must eventually be crowned with success, and then a brighter day will dawn for those engaged in literature. WILLIAM ADDIson. Odessa, 27 March I I. *-- ~ * e= * * BOOK TALK. HE Dover Chronicle says Mr. Joseph Hatton is sojourning at St. Margaret's Bay and making excursions about the coast between Deal and Dover with a view to certain incidents in a new novel that is to begin its serial career during the autumn in a London weekly. “The Banishment of Jessop Blythe.” is Mr. Hatton's latest book, and he chose to adopt the method of three volumes in one, in which shape the novel is in active demand at the libraries and booksellers’. In May or June Mr. Hatton will publish a shilling novelette entitled “Tom Chester's Sweetheart" (Hutchinsons). It will be an extended treatment of the author's story entitled “The Editor” that appeared in the Ludgate Monthly. “The Banishment of Jessop Blythe’’ is published in America by Messrs. Lippincott. The large edition of “The Money Lender Unmasked,” by Mr. Thomas Farrow, was entirely exhausted within one month from the date of publication. A second edition has been prepared and is now ready. This work appears to be one of the successes of the season, and, in view of the attention of Parliament having been drawn to the subject, promises to be of much service as a standard work of reference should a Royal Com- mission be granted. In the new edition Mr. Farrow has still further strengthened the “Intro- ductory” portion. Mr. C. L. Marson's book, “The Psalms at Work,” will shortly appear in a second edition (Elliot Stock). A revised edition of “The Blessed Dead in Paradise,” by J. E. Walker, with an introduction by Canon Bell, will also be published immediately by the same firm. Mrs. Alec Tweedie’s first book, “A Girl’s Ride in Iceland,” will be published in a third edition in May by Mr. Horace Cox. It will be brought out at Is., but will be much revised, making it up to date. Several Icelandic stories will be added, and many new illustrations. Mrs. Tweedie's last book, “Wilton, Q.C., or Life in a Bighland Shooting Box,” is in a second edition, the first having sold out a month from publica- tion. “John Bickerdyke” will shortly issue a volume of reminiscences, short stories, and essays on the scientific side of angling. The volume will be entitled “Days of My Life on Waters Fresh and Salt, and Other Papers,” and will be illustrated by an intaglio frontispiece and a number of full- page illustrations made from photographs taken Ha the author. The publishers are Longman and Co. The same author also has in the press a volume on modern sea fishing. This book, which is expected about July, will form one of the Badminton Series (Longman and Co.). It is being illustrated by Mr. C. Napier Hemy and Mr. R. E. Pritchett, and will contain contributions on Antipodean and other foreign fish, tarpon, and whaling by Mr. William Senior (“Red Spinner”), Mr. Alfred C. Harmsworth, and Sir H. Gore Booth, About the end of May Mr. E. Norrys Connell will issue a new novel called “The House of the Strange Woman.” Mr. Connell is already favourably known as the author of “In the Green Park.” This book should have been out earlier, but the firm of printers who were origi- nally charged with its production took exception to certain chapters on conscientious grounds. The volume is to be the pioneer of a new series of four-shilling novels which, at Mr. Connell’s sug- gestion, Messrs. Henry and Co. purpose issuing in an unique form. The “Parnassos,” the Philological Society of Athens, have elected—époqêvos—unanimously— as honorary member Mrs. Elizabeth M. Edmonds, author of “Amygdala’’ and of many works on modern Greece and modern Greeks. Professor Warr’s book for the “Dawn of Euro- pean Literature” series (S.P.C.K.) on the Greek epic will appear next month. Captain Lionel Trotter, author of “India under Victoria,” “Warren Hastings,” &c., is engaged upon a “Life of General John Nicholson,” who, after a brilliant career in the Punjaub, fell in the prime of manhood while leading his storming  ## p. 325 (#339) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 325 column along the ramparts of Delhi, in Septem- ber, 1857. Several of Nicholson's old friends have promised their aid in this work. The Delegates of the Clarendon Press are about to issue Vol. XIII. of Professor Buchheim’s “German Classics,” consisting of Schiller's pathetic tragedy, “Maria Stuart.” The text will be provided with a complete commentary, and preceded by an historical and a critical introduction. The distinguishing features of this edition will consist in the fact that the drama will be annotated strictly in accordance with the English, French, and Latin sources consulted by Schiller, and that several of his sources have been traced for the first time by the Editor. Mr. Robert H. Sherard’s new novel, “Jacob Niemand,” will be published as a six-shilling volume in June by Messrs. Ward and Downey, Mr. Sherard has recently written, and disposed of for publication in serial form, a story entitled “The Mocking Bird.” His authorised biography of Mme. Sarah Bernhardt is not yet finished, and cannot be ready till the autumn. “Greece and Her Hopes and Troubles,” by “Hilarion” (Glasgow: James Maclehose and Sons), is a short and plain statement of what Greece is, what she has done, and what she hopes to accom- plish. It contrasts the Greece of the present day with the time of bondage to the Turk. The object of the author is to set down the exact truths concerning the country and the people without exaggeration or suppression. The cession of the Ionian Islands, for instance, is regarded from the Hellenic point of view as one of the most generous acts ever recorded of any nation. The Rev. James Bowmes has just published a volume of verse (Sonnenschein) called “Randolph Lord De Vere, and other Poems.” extract gives one of the shorter poems: Ye merry breezes fresh that come and go, And mark your course by songs from waving corn, And laughter from the rivers as they flow, Ye cannot move a heart all worldly worn Thou sun that spreadest with thy radiant light The forest, vale, and heathered mountain side, And causest them to look contented, bright, Thou can’st not soothe a heart that time has tried Ye stars that dwell within the sapphire sky, And view with tender eyes the earth below, With all your love and all your sympathy, Ye cannot cheer a heart bowed down with woe Then, breezes, airy spirits, roam around ! Shine, sun, until thine everlasting gloom Gaze, stars, from out the blue expanse profound ! All will behold some day my silent tomb “The Two Dunmores: a Sporting Love Story of To-day,” is apparently a first work by “Blake Lamond.” It is published by Remington and The following . Co. The author should avoid the habit of giving too much detail. In order to convey a vivid picture not all the background should be painted. The impression is best produced by selection and suggestion. “Ernest England : a Drama for the Closet,” is by J. A. Tucker, late editor of the Daily News, Calcutta (Leadenhall Press). The work is a mixture of prose and poetry. It is a perfectly serious work, of great length, and treats of many subjects. Why, alas ! will men write such terribly long dramas P Three hundred and fifty pages | Who, even in a long review, could do justice to this lengthy prose-poem P “Tales from the Western Moors,” by Geoffrey Mortimer, a new name. The book contains nearly twenty tales, some of them more than about twelve pages long. The writer knows his country, and the dialect and manners of the people, well. The publishers are Gibbings and Co., Bloomsbury. “French Gems ” is quite a little book (Elliot Stock)—a booklet of eighty pages—containing on the left hand a sentence, a reflection, a text, a poem, in French ; and on the right hand “Reflec- tions,” in English verse. The author of the “Reflections,” “J. G.,” hopes to assist the mission to French-speaking foreigners in Great Britain in connection with the French Reformed Church, Bayswater, under the care of the Rev. J. M. H. Du Pontet de la Harpe. “A Future Roman Empire’ is a pamphlet rather than a book, by Mr. George Edward Tanner (Elliot Stock). It is a sequel to a work by the same writer, called “Unpopular Politics.” The writer contemplates the possibility of the revival of a second great Roman Empire, of which he gives a map. He is, apparently, determined that the second empire shall be exactly the same as the first. He includes all the countries round the Mediterranean to the British Isles, but excludes Germany and Russia, and Asia beyond the Euphrates. Most of us will probably emi- grate when that empire arrives. Mr. George Moore has finished the scheme of his new novel, and will now set to work upon it. It deals with the career of a prima donna who feals uneasy about the life she is leading, and at length submits herself to a priest for advice. His counsel is that she should go into a convent, and this agrees with her own inclinations. So she becomes a nun; and around the secrecy of life in a convent the story is woven. Mr. Moore antici- pates that the writing of the book will occupy him for two years. His completed work, called “Celi- bates,” will be issued within the next few days.  ## p. 326 (#340) ############################################ 326 THE AUTHOR. the autumn by Messrs. Methuen. Mr. John Hollingshead's Reminiscences will be published early this month by Messrs. Sampson Low, in two volumes. The title is “My Life- time,” and a portrait of the author is given. Messrs. Chapman and Hall have in prepara- tion a novel entitled “Elizabeth's Pretenders,” by Mr. Hamilton Aidé; also “Pages from the Day Book of Dethia Hardacre,” by Mrs. Fuller Mait- land. Mr. Douglas Freshfield, the president of the Alpine Club, has written a book on Mountaineer- ing, which will be published by Mr. Edward Arnold. It will consist of a record of the explo- ration of Central Caucasus by members of the club throughout the last twenty-five years, and of the author's own experiences particularly, he hav- ing spent two summers there lately. The book will be in two large volumes, illustrated, and with maps. Another new work of travel is “Three Months in the Forests of France,” by Miss Mar- garet Stokes,” the author of “Six Months in the Apennines.” The book is a description of a pil- grimage in search of the Irish saints of France. Messrs. Bell and Sons are the publishers. The series of letters written by Robert Louis Stevenson, during his life in Samoa, to his friend Mr. Sidney Colvin, are to be published early in These are said to be the most interesting of any of Stevenson's correspondence during the period of his remote exile, and contain a record from month to month of his work and opinions. A portrait of the novelist will be the frontispiece to the book, which will appear simultaneously in America. Mr. Lilley's recent lectures at the Royal Insti- bution are to appear in book form under the title “Four Humorists of the Nineteenth Century.” Dickens represents the democrat in humour. Thackeray the philosopher, George Eliot the poet, and Carlyle the prophet. To his many other successes, Mr. Stead will attempt to add that of a novel writer. His first novel will be called “A Modern Maid in Modern Babylon,” and will relate the adventures of a young girl who came to London some years ago. It will be published some time this year. The Marquis of Lorne has written a “Gover- nor’s Guide to Windsor Castle,” which Messrs. Cassell have published. This will doubtless set a fashion in such things, and it is interesting reading, which can be appreciated either at the Castle or at home. - Mr. Justin McCarthy expects to have the last two volumes of his “History of the Georges,” ready at the beginning of next year. The latter part of Mr. J. H. McCarthy’s work on the French Revolution is to appear in the autumn. Another series of fiction has made a start, namely “The Times Novels.” This, of course, consists of stories that have appeared in the Weekly edition of the Times. The series, which is published by Messrs. Osgood, opens with “A Daughter of the Soil,” by Mrs. Francis. Mr. Egerton Castle’s “Light of Scarthey’” will be the next to appear. The next reprint in the beautiful Kelmscott Press series will be “Sir Percyvelle of Galles.” It appears shortly, but Mr. Morris has already sold the greater part of the issue, which consists of 35o paper copies, and eight on vellum. A new work by Mr. Frank Vincent, in which he gives a survey of the entire continent of Africa. from his recent journeyings there, will be published shortly by Mr. Heinemann. It will be called “The Actual Africa; or, the Coming Continent,” and will have IOO full page illustrations. Mr. Henry James will also at an early date issue “Terminations,” a new volume of stories (Heinemann.) Messrs. Nichols are about to issue Victor Hugo's works in English. There are from twenty to thirty volumes in the series, fully illustrated, and they will appear at intervals of a month. No English translation of Hugo exists so complete as this. A series of handbooks on the Cathedrals of England is about to be commenced by Messrs. Dent. Everything of interest concerning the buildings, the traditions, and historical associations surrounding them, will be told by writers who are thoroughly conversant with the matter. “Canter- bury,” by the Hon. and Rev. W. H. Fremantle, Dean of Ripon (a former Canon of Canterbury), will appear first. “Ely,” by Dean Stubbs; and “Tewkesbury,” by Dr. Spence, will follow. Another book for children comes soon from Mrs. Molesworth, entitled “Sheila's Mystery.” It will be published by Messrs. Macmillan. This writer has now produced about seventy books. Mr. Clement Scott's book on Irving First Nights, from “The Bells” to “King Arthur,” is. expected to be ready by the end of the month. Mr. G. W. Smalley, who will soon cease to be the Dondon correspondent of the New York Tribune and becomes the New York correspondent of the Times, is bringing out a new book entitled “Studies of Men,” which Messrs. Macmillan will publish this month. It consists of a large number of Mr. Smalley’s character sketches of eminent men, which are mostly reprints in a revised form from  ## p. 327 (#341) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 327 the Tribune. Among the subjects are the German Emperor, Lord Rosebery, Sir William Harcourt, Cardinal Newman, Professor Tyndall, Mr. Balfour, Prince Bismark, Mr. Parnell, and about forty others. Before he leaves London the distinguished journalist is to be entertained at dinner by a Select company of his American and English confrères. The announcement of a “Ruskin Reader ’’ from Mr. George Allen's press serves to remind us that this publishing house is named after Ruskin, a fact which might pardonably be forgotten, since Mr. Allen is extending his business so far beyond Ruskinian literature alone. The new reader is to be out in a few days. It has been compiled from “Modern Painters,” “The Seven Lamps of Architecture,” and “The Stones of Venice,” and is intended for young students. From Ruskin House will also come “The History of Huon of Bordeaux,” by Mr. Robert Steel, illustrated by Mr. Fred Mason; and “Biographical Essays"— of Dean Stanley, Dean Alford, Mrs. Duncan Stewart, and others—by Mr. Augustus J. Hare, in addition to the latter's Life of the Gurney Family already announced. Mr. E. Denison Ross has completed the trans- lation of “The Tarikk-i-Rashidi,” a rare Persian work, which has hitherto existed only in manu- script, and the volume will be issued by Messrs. Sampson Low shortly. It forms a history of the Central Asian section of the Moghuls, who separated themselves early in the fourteenth century from the main stem of the Chaghatai dynasty. Their princes became masters of Moghulistan and of all Eastern Turkistan, and continued powerful for more than 250 years. The author of the work is Mirza Mohammad Haidar, cousin of the Emperor Baber of Hindustan, the grandfather of the famous Akbar. Mr. Ney Elias, H.M.'s Consul-General for Khovason, has superintended the translation and written an introduction and explanatory notes. Mr. H. E. Watts’s “Life of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra,” which will be uniform with his new edition of “Don Quixote,” is to be published by Messrs. A. and C. Black on July 1. The book of the month has been the “Tetters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge,” published by Mr. Heinemann. The letters are mostly new, and include those written to Mrs. Coleridge, Words- worth, Southey, Charles Lamb, John Murray, and Thomas Poole, giving much invaluable light upon the poet's career. They extend from 1785 to 1833, but are yet not a complete collection. The editor, Mr. Ernest Hartley Coleridge, grand- son of the poet, says that “a complete collection must await the ‘coming of the milder day,” a renewed long suffering on the part of his old enemy the ‘literary public.’” Great eagerness was manifested in getting a translation of Tolstoy's new novel, “Master and Man * into sale. Six days after receiving the MS. Messrs. Chapman and Hall had a large edition in the market. Mr. Walter Scott follows more leisurely with a translation. What would have been the first to reach this country, however, was stopped and suppressed, for some reason, on the Russian frontier. A “Life of the late Lord Randolph Churchill” will be published very shortly. Mr. T. H. S. Escott is the biographer, and he has been assisted in compiling the work by Lord Dufferin, Lord Reay, Sir Henry Drummond Wolff, and Sir John Gorst. Messrs. Hutchinson are the publishers. The City Treasurer of Birmingham, Mr. W. R. Hughes, who wrote “A Week's Trip in Dickens's Land,” has placed his valuable collection of Dickens' editions and memorabilia at the service of Mr. Thomas Wright for the “Life of Dickens.” which the latter is preparing. A good deal of new matter has, it is said, been established by Mr. Wright, chiefly concerning the novelist's childhood. The work will not be ready before the end of the year, at the earliest. In Mr. David Nutt’s “Tudor Translation ” series the next issue will be North’s “Plutarch,” with an introduction by Mr. George Wyndham. It will appear in six volumes, between now and December. Forthcoming publications in the series include “Holland's Suetonius,” “Fenton's Bandello,” “Shelton's Don Quixote,” and “Holand's Livy.” Messrs Bell have in course of preparation a new series of Royal Naval Handbooks, which will be edited by Commander C. U. Robinson, author of “The British Fleet.” Admiral Sir Vesey Hamil- ton writes on Naval Administration and Organisa- tion, Professor Laughton on Naval Strategy, Captain C. Campbell on the Internal Economy of a Warship, and Captain H. G. Garbett on Naval Gunnery. The Entry and Training of Officers and Men is by Lieut. J. Allen, Torpedoes by Lieut. J. Armstrong, Steam in the Navy by Fleet-Engineer R. C. Oldknow, and Naval Architecture by Mr. J. J. Welch. Mr. Israel Gollancz is working at an edition of Henry VI., besides having in preparation books on the “Hamlet Saga,” “Tancred and Gismunda,” and the Anglo-Saxon poems in the Exeter book. The “Temple Shakespeare,” which is edited by Mr. Gollancz, has had an enormous sale, Messrs. Dent putting it at considerably over 200,000.  ## p. 328 (#342) ############################################ 328 THE AUTHOR. The past month has witnessed the appearance of the New Budget, an illustrated weekly, which took the place, without the loss of a week, of the Pall Mall Budget, the latter having been with- drawn, somewhat unaccountably, from the field on the last Saturday of March. The editor of the deceased magazine, and the majority of its staff, have come over to the new venture, which is being conducted with spirit largely on the same lines. Mr. Harry Furniss, having accepted control of the art section, his own journal Lika Joko likewise closes its career. Another new sixpenny weekly is The Hour, which is edited by Mr. C. H. Wil- liamson. It is of course illustrated, and it makes a feature of prize competitions and insurance schemes. Vanity Fair changed hands last month, but the new proprietor is not announced, except that he is “a gentleman of taste and credit.” Mr. Charles Dixon's book on “The Migration of British Birds” will be ready at Messrs. Chap- man and Hall's immediately. In it the author advances what is believed to be an entirely new law governing the geographical dispersal of species, and illustrates its application in the case of British birds. Several volumes of verse will be published by Mr. Lane immediately. These include Mr. Le Gallienne's new book, entitled “Robert Louis Stevenson, an Elegy; and Other Poems, mostly Personal ; ” and Mr. Francis Thomson's, which is called “Songs Wing to Wing; ” “Vespertilia and other Poems,” by Mrs. Rosamond Marriott Watson (for which Mr. Anning Bell has designed a special title-page); and “Poems of the Day and Year,” by Mr. Frederick Tennyson. A novel called “Consummation,” by Victoria Cross, is also announced to appear soon from the Bodley Head, and will be the first of a new four-and- sixpenny series. A correspondent assures the Chronicle that the circulation of one million copies was not secured, as it had stated, by a single novel by the American writer, Albert Ross (Lynn Boyd Porter), but by a series of six novels. He points out that of “Ben Hur,” another American book, 4OO,OOO copies were sold ; while “Mr. Barnes of New York,” first written by Mr. A. C. Gunter as a play, and then adapted in despair to novel form, caught on to the extent of 250,000. But the million record appears still to be a-begging, The sale of King Solomon’s Mines,” which is being reprinted, will thus be brought up to IOO,OOO in this country and the colonies, and Max O’Rell's “John Bull and Co.,” is in its 20th thousand. “The Bonnie Brier Bush,” by Ian Maclaren, approaches 40,000, and a “Yellow Aster” 28,000. One result of General Booth’s recent Trans- atlantic tour will be a work on “Darkest America.” He will not have it ready for a considerable time, however. Two new volumes will shortly appear in the “Chief Ancient Philo- sophies” series of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. They are “Platonism,” by the Rev. T. B. Strong, of Christ Church, Oxford; and “Neo-Platonism,” by the Rev. Dr. Charles Bigg. “The Greek Epic,” by Professor Warr, of Ring's College, which will also be issued imme- diately, is an addition to the “Dawn of European Literature” series. Mr Fisher Unwin publishes a biography of the late W. F. A. Gaussen, of Pembroke College, Cambridge, the translator of Potapenko's Works. The book is called “Memorials of a Short Life,” the Rev. Canon Browne of St. Paul’s edits it, and writes an introduction, the remainder consisting of personal letters. In the “National Churches" series, pub- lished by Wells Gardner, the next volume will be “The History of the Church in America,” by Dr. Leighton Coleman, Bishop of Delaware. It will be issued simultaneously in England and America in a few days. “The Musical Educator” is the title of a work which Messrs. Jack, of Edinburgh, will issue in five illustrated volumes. Amongst the contribu- tors are Mr. James Sneddon, Mr. J. C. Grieve, Mr. William Townsend, Mr. F. Lauback, and Mr. William Daly. Dr. John Greig is the editor. Esmé Stuart's new novel “Married to Order ’’ will be issued immediately in the two-volume library form. Esmé Stuart is the author of “Joan Wellacot,” “A Woman of Forty,” “ Kestell of Greystone,” &c. The publisher is Horace Cox, Windsor House, Bream's-buildings. “A Fisherman’s Fancies,” by F. B. Doveton, published by Elliot Stock, is a book of collections of short sketches which will no doubt appeal to those of the public who desire to pass away a pleasant half-hour. The sketches that touch on fishing, and which no doubt give the name to the book, are excellent reading for those who are fond of that sport. Mr. Justin Charles MacCartie, author of “Making his Pile,” has just produced a new story called “The Darleys of Dingo Dingo,” which deals with Australian country life of the present day. It is published by Messrs. Gay and Bird. It has been announced in the Academy and other papers that Mr. F. H. Perry Coste, B.Sc., &c., is the author of “Towards Utopia,” and “On the Organisation of Science,” which have been issued under the nom de guerre of a “Free  ## p. 329 (#343) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 329 Lance.” Towards Utopia,” which, in spite of its Utopian title, disclaims any very “Utopian’” dreams, is mainly occupied with an attempt to trace broadly the various economic and moral factors through which a natural evolution of society to a semi-Utopian state may be brought about. The American rights in “Towards Utopia’’ were acquired by Messrs. Appleton as soon as the book appeared; and immediately afterwards the author received and refused an offer for a German transla- tion. The output of new books in the United States last year was in the following order:—First, fiction, then political and social science, then theology, religion, biography, history, travels, and poetry. There were 2821 books by American writers printed in the United States, IOS6 books were imported, and 577 books by English and other foreign authors were produced on the other side. The greatest number of importations was in theology and religion, and reached 262 volumes In 1893 a large number of volumes, already in hand, had to be published, though the times were unfavourable, and in 1894 the publishers, already fearful of hard times, were more careful about entering into new engagements.-PWestminster Gazette. Another case of a public library circulating pirated books has been discovered by the West- minster Gazeffe. We have before us Ruskin’s “Time and Tide,” bearing the following inscription on the title page: “New York : John Wiley and Sons, 15, Astor-place, 1888.” For many months past this “pirate ’’ has been freely issued at the Tate Lending Library, Brixton. We learn from the Chief Librarian that it was a presentation copy, and while he would certainly not dream of purchasing a “pirate,” he saw no reason to refuse one as a gift. It is a nice case for the conscience. He would be a very conscientious person who would refuse to keep on his shelves a gift book because it belonged to a pirated edition. But surely a public library is in a different position; such a book certainly ought not to be kept on the shelves and lent out to readers. *– ~ --" &= - - CORRESPONDENCE, I.—EDITORS’ RULES. FEAR, we are but wasting time, paper, and ink in this controversy if we are to wait until the editors, out of the kindness of their hearts, bind themselves to pay within a certain time for MSS. Probably the end of this world will arrive before they do so. No, there are two paragraphs in your last copy of the Author which contain, I think, the key to the difficulty. Page 281 (under “Warnings and Advice”): “It is not generally understood that the author, as the vendor, has the absolute right of drafting the agreement upon whatever terms the transac- tion is to be carried out.” This is surely as true of the magazine article as of the book. Page 304 (under “Musical Publishing”) : “It is for the greatest (writers) composers to begin to insist upon more equitable terms.” To those whose papers are too well known, and too valuable, to be refused because “equitable terms ” are necessary to secure them we, the smaller fry, must look for help in this matter. Let them insist on a certain set of rules (as the rule) and editors will soon cease to take their own time to settle accounts, and learn the valuable lesson that “Short accounts make long friends.” R. L. I. II.—PARALLELISM. Mr. Langbridge's sort of “ Kubla Khan’’ experience is one which, I fancy, a good many people can parallel, though whether one should be scrupulous “in tampering with the gift of a dream ” is a matter which I leave the Psychical Researchists to decide. It may not be unin- teresting to your readers to give the experiences of others who have dreamed poems or books or speeches and have just caught hold of the last line or last sentence as they awoke. Twice I have, on coming up to the surface of consciousness, finished, once a poem and once a sermon, out loud. The poem ended with the sonorous line And stemmed the torrent with a pervious prone; the sermon with Churches are the martello towers of religion. I have not “tampered with these dream-gifts,” and leave others to discover their literary or philosophic value ! April 9. G. S. LAYARD, Lorraine Cottage, Great Malvern. III.-GoD AND THE ANT. May I ask Frederick Langbridge if he has ever published the sonnet he gives on p. 304 of the Author? If not, both he and Coulson Ker- nahan are “parallelists,” for I have seen exactly the same thought somewhere, though I cannot place it, and in extremely similar words to those which Mr. Langbridge uses. Or am I a “parallelist” also P ALAN OSCAR.  ## p. 330 (#344) ############################################ 33O THE AUTHOR. IV.--THE RIGHT, OR THE WRONG, To MUTIILATE A PAPER. It would be interesting to all writers who contribute papers to magazines to know certainly whether in so doing they render themselves liable to have their paper mutilated to suit editorial difficulties concerning space. It seems to me that, although an editor has the absolute right of refusing any paper, once he accepts it he binds himself to reproduce it as it stands, unless by special agreement with the author. Personally I have always held this ground, and am happy to say that in the course of fifteen years of very extensive work for many magazines I have only on two occasions had any cause for Complaint. I regret to have to say that one of these has oc- curred in the present year. Early in 1893 I offered an article to one of the illustrated magazines to which I have frequently contributed, and by which it was accepted, but publication delayed, About December, 1893, I prepared a very care- fully written account of the details of an event of which I was anxious to preserve a permanent record. As I had secured a good illustration, I offered it to the same magazine, which, as usual, welcomed it. Publication, however, was delayed, and only the following autumn were proofs sent to me. I corrected these most carefully, bringing the subject up to date. In December another copy of these proofs, not corrected, was sent to me, and I again corrected them, the editor expressing his regret at the prolonged delay in publication. The paper was announced as being in the February number, and various persons interested ordered copies, to find a dull, matter-of-fact article compressed into three pages, without illustration, upwards of twenty paragraphs having been cut out from ten distinct places, the result naturally being as bald as the letter of a hurried newspaper correspondent. Supposing that the editor must have been suffering from influenza, and that some stranger was responsible for this discourtesy, I wrote asking for an explanation, and, receiving none, I wrote again more strongly, requesting the return of the paper and illustrations sent in 1893. To which the editor replies: “He is glad to be able to repudiate entirely the charge of dis- courtesy—a charge which would with more justice be brought against a contributor who demands an apology for the absolutely necessary abridg- ment which every editor is fully entitled to make in any article sent to him for publication.” Is he P. That is just the question. Does every contributor to a magazine lay himself open to find his most careful work mutilated in this barbarous manner, and then presented to the public with his (or her) signature at the end of it P I hope not. But when an editor who has printed perhaps a dozen of my papers verbatim suddenly deals thus with one—and, strangely enough, the only one of the whole lot which was really of consequence—where does security lie? On my requesting the return of the article accepted two years ago, it was sent with some minor illustrations. I wrote back stating that two large paintings had not been sent. To this the editor replies that they had been photo- graphed and returned to me by parcel post about the end of December, and that he is not respon- sible for accidental loss. That is to say, they were despatched in the busiest week of the year without any notice or any subsequent inquiry as to their receipt not having been acknowledged. This seems to me another point which ought to be clearly defined. When illustrations or MSS. are returned by parcel post, ought not an intimation to that effect to be sent by ordinary post? A general business agree- ment on these points would be satisfactory. C. W.—MINOR POETs. Your correspondent of April, “Mary Augusta Salmond,” is probably unaware that when a minor poet publishes a volume of verses, he does so almost invariably at his own risk. In any case, the chances of profit accruing to himself from such a source are infinitesimal. Again, there are few, if any, periodicals that will pay for a poem in lyrical form. For these reasons, it is rarely indeed that the writer of the words of a song, however popular it may become, makes anything beyond his fee for the musical copyright. Therefore, whilst heartily agreeing with Mrs. Salmond on other points, I must, in the interest of brother minor poets, point out that, though the price paid for the copyright may be considered a fairly adequate return for a mere drawing-room or schoolroom song, in the case of a ballad or more important work being taken up by a public singer it is not so, and some arrangement should in justice be made by which the poet would have a share, however small, in the performing rights of his work, as well as the composer, singer, and publisher. The words are manifestly the raison d'être of the composi- tion. HELEN MARION BURNSIDE. VI.-A CoINCIDENCE. May I ask for a few lines of your space? In the Times of March 29 last I read: “The monologue is less an English than a French off-  ## p. 331 (#345) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 33 I shoot of the drama, but it would soon cease to be so were many such pretty sketches or dramatic episodes written as that produced last night by Mr. Henry Hamilton under the title of ‘For- tune’s Fool.” An unhappy lover in his lonely chambers bewails the fate that has snatched away from him the woman of his dreams. * Life has no more charm for Philip Challoner, and, after evoking all his sweetest souvenirs by reading her letters, and, seated at the piano, singing her favourite song, he swallows a dose of poison. The postman knocks, and the doomed man takes from the letter-box two letters, one informing him that he is heir to a fortune, the other from the lady herself, declaring her inability to live without him, and her resolution to marry him at all hazards. As he dies, a dis- creet knock at the door announces the lady’s arrival, whereupon the curtain falls.” The omis- sions indicated are not material, and, with one exception, the above account very closely renders the course of the monologue acted by Mr. Lewis Waller. The exception—I attended at the Hay- market Theatre on April 5—lay in the fact that, not two letters, so far as I myself could gather, but only one, the second of the two noted above, was delivered by the postman, and received by the lover—too late. A short story entitled “Arsenic” appeared in Beecham's Christmas Annual (Messrs. F. J. Lambert and Co., Temple-chambers and Bouverie- street) for 1889. The contributors to the number included Joseph Hatton, James Greenwood, Fergus Hume, Florence Marryat, and Manville Fenn, and I was informed that at the price—viz., one penny—more than 400,000 copies had been sold. “Arsenic ’’ purports to be the narrative of a man who, committing suicide by means of that poison, writes of his ruin and his hopelessness, and watches for the gradual symptoms as long as he can hold the pen. In this way he is made to tell the story; and between the lines the reader should discern a tale of feminine infidelity which the writer, the deserted husband, does not suspect. He evokes his sweetest souvenirs. These, how- ever, are not associated with a wealthy person whom he loves apparently in vain, but with his little dead child, upon the slenderness of whose resemblance to her mother he seems to dwell with gratification—all such gratification as may be left to him in his last hour. He becomes delirious; he dies. The next morning the postman knocks at his door with a registered letter. The post- man's comment, “It’s the unexpected, voyez-vous, that happens,” forms the last word. “Arsenic ’’ was contributed to the number in question by myself; and it bore my name. The differences of treatment in the two cases are obvious, but it has been pointed out to me that a republication of the story, with some others, might expose me to an unfounded charge of plagiarism. My sole object, therefore, now, is to beg, Sir, for an opportunity of stating in your columns that the appearance of my little story “Arsenic’’ did not follow, but preceded, and by about five years, the production of Mr. Hamilton’s monologue “Fortune's Fool.” H. F. WooD. 3, Rue de Miromesnil, Paris, April 17. [The resemblance is worth noting. It is also worth noting that Mr. Wood does not suggest any kind of plagiarism. Such a situation—the unfortunate suicide just when everything was coming right—is one likely to suggest itself to any imaginative writer.—ED.] VII.-‘‘JANE | ?” In the last of Mr. R. Sherard’s interesting letters from Paris, he says that the finding in “Moll Flanders ” a passage similar to one in “Jane Eyre' has led him to think less as a work of art of the latter powerful and most common of stories, and, though he does not say this, it has certainly led him to think less of, Charlotte Bronté as a woman. For “when asked,” he writes, “how she came to think of so striking a scene (the hearing by Jane of blind Rochester's far-away cry for her), she wsed to drape herself in some mystery ğı and reply, ‘ I wrote it because it is true,” leaving one to imagine that this was a thing of her own experience”—surely, if Mr. Sherard’s ex- planation be the right one, a mean and unworthy subterfuge, and one altogether at variance with the character we know of honest, single-minded Charlotte. 3. That the dire need of some loved one in distress —the cry across the gulf of separation of one human soul to another in sympathy—may make itself heard in some plane of emotional conscious- ness normally latent is a truth too vital to have confined itself to the recognition of Defoe alone. For my own part, that little note of Mr. Sherard's confirms a conviction I have always had—viz., that the love of Jane for Rochester is the story of some unrecorded love in Charlotte Brontë's own life. - I have never read the passage in question without having been strongly impressed with the sense that that cry for “Jane ! Jane ! Jane!” had at some time or another entered, iron-like, into the writer’s own soul. The intense and passionate tenderness por- trayed—the love tearing itself up by its bleeding human roots in order that its ideal shall not suffer—is too vivid to have taken origin wholly in  ## p. 332 (#346) ############################################ 332 THE AUTHOR. fancy. The writer interprets a passion she knows—a thing as different from mere delinea- tion of a passion she knows about as genius is from talent. In “Jane Eyre’ Charlotte Brontë has interpreted, perhaps more truly and touch- ingly than any other. writer, a woman's love— intense, sincere, high-minded, yet all the while tenderly human. I greatly doubt that Defoe had anything to teach her. ARABELLA KENEALY. VIII.-AMERICAN DELAYs. I began to write a novel a year last October. By the following March it was in a publisher's hands, and by the end of May my agreement with an English firm was signed. In the mean- time a friend in the States arranged with an American firm to copyright the story there. The American contract was signed by me in September last. The book is not yet out, and my English publishers write that they cannot get the Americans to fix any positive date. It will be said I should have insisted upon a certain time in my agreements. To this I reply that I am not a “known” author, and, considering myself fortunate in having received fair offers from two well-established publishers, I was satisfied to trust them, especially as the making of any such decided arrangement would have entailed much delay in signing contracts, and endless correspon- dence. Moreover, the book is one whose value depends greatly on an early appearance—a fact, I thought, obvious to any press reader, and which my London publishers recognised. They wanted to get it out last season, and advertised it in their autumn announcements. Here, then, is a “frightful example” for English writers and publishers. My novel would have been published six months ago, or earlier, had it not been for the American copyright. Are we to have the same trouble with Canada? By the way, has the Authors' Syndicate agents in the States ? And, if not, would it not be possible to establish a branch there? We newly- hatched ones are so ignorant NEW COMER. IX. —OUR ExTRAVAGANT DINNER. Mild private protests availing nothing, here, with your permission, a public one. Is the annual dinner intended for all the members of the Society, or only the more wealthy P. If all, then why guinea tickets P Cannot we have the pleasure of meeting one another once a year without an unnecessary, in many cases prohibitive, tax P Public dinners are always indifferent, and a satis- fying meal can be obtained for a quarter of this tax. I was well (as the place goes) and sufficiently fed the other day for just that sum. The occasion also a club dinner, and at the same restaurant. We are not gluttons, but come to the dinner less to devour our half-guinea's worth than to meet one another and hear the speeches and uphold the Society. Why, again, must those who do not drink wine pay for it—even those who are wine bibbers not choosing their wine, but having that which is given them P The cost of the dinner is equal to the cost of one year's subscription to the Society; the satis- faction transient, and the benefits nil. I feel so disgusted with this extravagance I contemplate resigning. Those who have the management of the dinner should consider all the members, and not merely their own particular tastes and means. I believe this grumble will be echoed by many members of the Society, particularly those living outside London, who to come to the dinner incur the additional cost of about a sovereign for bed, breakfast, and railway fare. This sort of thing is all very well for wealthy publishers, but not for those like A Dw ELLER IN RURAL GRUB STREET. P.S. Grumble No. 2.--Why should we waste Our money in advertising the dinner and the list of big and medium guns who are going to be present at it P Every member receives the notice privately, and we do not invite the public to come in their thousands, so the money seems absolutely thrown away. The publication of such a list of names is, I venture to assert, in questionable taste. A. D. IN R. G. S. [Perhaps an answer to the “grumble’” may be found in the following considerations: (1) The “tax * is not demanded of members; no one need pay it who does not choose. (2) Public dinners are expected to have a certain amount of show. (3) The dinner is a public occasion at which the Society shows to the world something of its im- portance. (4) The wine question and the charge of wine to those who do not drink it is one of practical management. The issue of cheaper tickets without wine has been tried, and proved unworkable for various reasons. (5) The adver- tisement of the stewards is the best advertisement we can have of the Society itself. To these con- siderations it may be added that frequent sugges- tions have been made to hold a conversazione or a series of lectures or readings, at which the Society may gather without payment. It is to be hoped that some practical suggestions may be brought before the committee. Perhaps the evening might take the form of a private dinner among ourselves at very moderate cost, without advertisement or publicity.—ED.] Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Author, Vol. 05 Issue 12 (May 1895) Subject The topic of the resource <em>The Author</em>, Vol. 05 Issue 12 (May 1895) Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015013732253" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015013732253</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Publication Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1895-05-01-The-Author-5-12 publications The Author