Mr. Daldy has been making another wail about American copyright. He wrote to the Times and suggested that this was a favourable moment to make another appeal to the Americans. Well, with a Copyright Commission still sitting, with a Copyright Bill still on the stocks, with no certainty whether the Lords mean to proceed with the Bill, t seems as if a more inopportune moment could hardly be chosen. But it advertises Mr. Daldy, which is, of course, the main point. Mr. Daldy goes on to state that the manufacturing clause debars four-fifths of the books published in this country. It is to be hoped that no American will read this statement, for if anything in the world could reconcile him to the present arrangement it is the reflection that if it were abolished the whole of the books published in this countrythink of it-the whole!-would be poured into the States! As it is, it is not possible to agree with Mr. Daldy that one-fifth of all our books secure American copyright: more likely-onetenth. Does Mr. Daldy imagine that there is no literature in America? Does he believe that the Americans crave for everything that we publish? If so, he must have arrived at a very remarkable depth of ignorance. Moreover, the present clause does not debar any book that the American wants. It is a simple condition that the book should be printed in America. The only hardship is the additional cost of setting up, which in a book on demand is not of much importance. But suppose the clause abolished, and in its place the same clause that we have here, of simultaneous publication-what would happen? Books that the Americans want-and none other-would be sent over either in stereo plates or in sheets. Just as at present, it would be necessary to find a publisher and to submit the work in advance. In fact, nothing would be saved except the cost of setting-up, and against that would be placed the stereo plates. And Mr. Daldy's "fourfifths" would remain, as at present, deprived of their valuable copyright by an unappreciative public. It is a pity that we have not reciprocity; but the clause, after all, is a very small thing, and only troublesome in the case of books about which there is doubt whether they shall be taken or not.

Have my readers forgotten the proposed memorial to Felicia Hemans? It is only a small amount that is wanted: about £135 is already promised, and I learn that the committee are auxious to close the fund. Those, therefore, who have promised but not yet paid are invited to do so without delay; and those who have not sent anything should do so at once to Mr. A. Theodore Brown, treasurer of the fund, Exchange

VOL. IX.

court, Liverpool. It is suggested that the memɔrial shall take the form of an annual prize for a lyrical poem, the prize-winner to be a student in Liverpool College.

For my own part I like not prize poems: no really fine poem was ever obtained in this way. I should have preferred an annual examination in English literature open to all comers under a certain age.

Should librarians buy review books? The question was raised recently at a meeting of the Library Assistants' Association. The discussion was begun by Mr. Dyer, who attacked the practice of librarians in purchasing review copies of books, defaced with various stamps embossed or impressed, and also with pencil marks, &c., considering that ratepayers might well ask him how money came to be expended on books marked "with the Publisher's compliments." He considered it an injustice to the author that public money should be spent on books that are given away, not sold, and that booksellers should not be allowed to sell these books any more than Baron Tauchnitz's publications. Mr. Wood strongly supported the purchase of review copies, as the stamps did not. matter. Did not libraries themselves deface books? and did an extra defacement matter? What a librarian wanted was cheap books, and review copies were cheap, and new, and good; therefore these should be bought. Mr. Thorne and Mr. Vellenoweth defended the exclusion of these cheap but defaced books, the latter asking how readers could be forbidden to make pencil marks, &c., in books already so marked, as review copies often were.

The opinion of the meeting seemed to be in favour of buying review books because they are cheap, while the members present refused to listen to the principle involved. Now, there are 700 free libraries in this country, and the number of copies sent out for review is not more than fifty as a rule. If, out of the fifty, thirty are offered for sale, that leaves 670 libraries which must buy direct. It is not therefore a burning question or an intolerable burden. Yet one would like the matter settled. Ought libraries, as a matter of principle, to buy those review copies? They get them very cheap; they may be sometimes marked a little, and it cannot be said that the sale is underhand. Many reviewers have the book in addition to the cheque. When the latter is small the book is thrown in as some compensation, and it is understood that it will be sold.

WALTER BESANT.

Χ

THE PUBLISHER, THE BOOKSELLER, AND

TH

THE LIBRARIAN.

HIS is the title of an unconventional article in the "Christmas Catalogue," published from the office of the Newsagent and Bookseller's Review. The writer in the first place discusses the cheapening of literature, and prophesies that "the 6s. novel will soon have to give place to 28., and the author, who is now paid huge and disproportionate sums of money for his MS., will have to be content with a more modest sum and a smaller royalty. The publisher, then, who can look ahead, and who is bold enough to enter the arena, will have no cause to regret it, for although the task may be heavy, he will most assuredly win fame and fortune." Then follows a lament that the libraries have not of late years been helping the publisher to the extent that is naturally expected, for if the author's name happens to be a new one, he is passed by. The section of the article devoted to publishers concludes as follows:

The publishing world should be considered more in the light of a charitable combination, for if the publisher did not risk his money to introduce new authors, a very precious few would ever see themselves clothed in fresh ink, newspaper, and gorgeous binding.

The article then passes to the bookseller, the writer admitting that the publisher cannot exist without him; remarking his ignorance as to the books he sells, compared with the bookseller of the "old times," and deploring the small pay of the bookseller's assistant. A new departure" at the biggest circulating library in London is noted, and this, says the writer, is a matter in which the publisher should step in and put his foot down. This is it :

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As soon as books can be withdrawn from circulation (and they are often withdrawn much too soon) they are re-bound, cleaned, and sold for half the published price! This, then, clearly is not helping the poor bookseller. There will be lots of people who will wait for these copies, and thereby save a matter of 18. 6d. on a book, to the loss of the bookseller.

Again, as to the position of the new author, and giving him a better chance, it is suggested "that the two large Metropolitan libraries relegate a couple or more of competent literary critics to a room set apart for the examination of new books-advance copies being sent them by the publishers for that purpose-and upon the report of these critics, the new writer would be judged according to his merits."

As for the librarian, to him is imputed want of enterprise. "The London librarian is one of the most important men in English literary circles, but it is extremely doubtful if he has ever risen to, or taken advantage of, his opportunities. The libraries of London are dead," &c.

I

"MERLIN AND THE GLEAM.”

HAVE waited for the Life of Tennyson to throw some light on a small Tennyson puzzle-why the poet chose to represent Merlin, the bard and wizard of the Arthur legends, as following "The Gleam." Now the book has come, and upon this point I am as unsatisfied as ever.

The preface gives a delightfully interesting study of the poem, and some explanation of Tennyson's feeling for the wizard. "From his boyhood he had felt the magic of Merlin-that spirit of poetry-which bade him know his power and follow throughout his work a pure and high ideal which helped him through doubt.

son

66

But Nimue had already been treated by Tennyin "Merlin and Vivien," and with no more respect than was shown in Malory's chapter upon How Merlin was assotted, and doted on one of the ladies of the lake, and how he was shut in a rock under a stone, and there died." Take the ending of this poem :——

For Merlin, overtalk'd and overworn,
Had yielded, told her all the charm, and slept.
Then, in one moment, she put forth the charm
Of woven paces and of waving hands,
And in the hollow oak he lay as dead,
And lost to life and use and name and fame.
Then crying, "I have made his glory mine,"
And shrieking out "O fool! the harlot leapt
Adown the forest, and the thicket closed
Behind her, and the forest echo'd "fool."

Can this wicked little will-of-the-wisp represent the spirit of poetry? The close of "Merlin and the Gleam" quite forbids one to believe it. I can no longer,

But die rejoicing,

For through the magic

Of Him the Mighty,

Who taught me in childhood,

There on the border

Of boundless ocean,

And all but in Heaven

Hovers the Gleam.

It is hard to think this lovely moral has grown from the Nimue of Malory's tale!

I shall be bold enough, at any rate, to make another suggestion. Newman, when asked about the angel faces in "Lead kindly Light," frankly

confessed that he had forgotten what he meant by them. Tennyson himself for the moment may have mistaken the origin of his Gleam. We know he was a student of Dante. The "sorrow's crown of sorrows passage is only one of many delicate enrichments from that source; and, in Canto XIII. of the " Purgatorio," we find this allusion Sapia describes how, "waxing out of bounds" in gladness after a victory, she lifted up her brow,

And, like the merlin cheated by a gleam,
Cried, "It is over. Heav'n! I fear thee not."
Cary's Translation.

A note explains the reference:

"Canto XIII., v. 114.-The story of the Merlin is that, having been induced by a gleam of fine weather to escape from his master, he was soon oppressed by the rigour of the season."

My theory involves a little confusion between Merlin the bird and Merlin the man. A bird following light, a singer reaching after the highest poetic inspiration-the two ideas would be easily merged in one another. Bird or poet might fail of full achievement-strike out too soon for light and freedom, and find death instead of summer. But I shall contend, at least, that it was some transmutation of this bird story in Tennyson's mind which suggested the 1889 poem, and that the wicked little amateur sorceress, whatever her coincidence of name, had really nothing to do with it. MARY COLBORNE-VEEL.

New Zealand, 1898.

NAXOS.

When lonely on the once-delightful shore
Stood Ariadne, and the stern wind blew
Steadily seaward, till at last she knew
Theseus could come no more :

Behold! A God, a God rush'd to her side!

-Think you she cared? I know which way she turn'd Fair eyes, and longing heart, and lips that burn'd;

I know which name she cried!

For now the god-like lot draws near to me;

Yea, Love-of-one denied, comes Love-for-all. -But, where art thou? Canst thou not hear me call, O lost, lost Love! to thee?

history of the movement-the entire breakdown of the old buildings, the want of space, the difficulty in finding books, and the lack of a proper reading room. These difficulties have now been removed and these wants supplied in a simple well-lighted airy building. The expense has been met by £2000 subscribed among the 2472 members, and a loan of £5000. Mr. Stephen described the increase of the library since 1841, saying that at last there was no way out of the difficulty but to build or to burst, and, of course, they had to set about building. The result was that they had a very great increase of accommodation, and their librarian in future would be in the position of a general presiding over an encampment where every regiment had its proper place, and where he knew where to call on everyone of his troops. Mr. Stephen said that when he looked at the great clubs which surrounded them, and in which he was afraid the kitchen was a much more important part of the apparatus than the library, some of his complacency in the new building departed, and remembering that it was the only institution of the kind in London which undertook to give an essential means for the enjoythought after all that it was a mere cottage comment of good literature in their own houses, he pared with what it ought to be.

T

I

CORRESPONDENCE.

-BOOK-BUYERS AND BOOKSELLERS. HE note in the December Author referring to the possible buyers of books is interesting. I have often wondered who are the bookbuyers, besides the managers of circulating libraries and literary men. People with incomes of £500 a year, and more than that, tell me that they cannot afford to buy books. In thousands of big, well-furnished houses one little case, holding fifty or sixty books, at the outside estimate, is considered a fair library. Books are the last things that many wealthy persons dream of buying. Sometimes they have a two-guinea library ticket. Very often they beg or borrow books from impecunious friends. It is necessary for a man with £1000 a year to economise. These people will even ask a half-starved author to lend theu a copy of his last book, published at 3s. 6d., and to be bought at 3d. in the Is. discount.

66

An enormous number of those who neither toil nor spin can never find time to read," and another multitude "hate reading," and despise the writers of books as useless, idle fellows, who ought to be trying to make money on the Stock Exchange instead of amusing themselves with

pen and paper. I have been asked sometimes by pursy people to recommend a book. They inquire if I know anyone who will lend it to them. So far as my experience goes, I am convinced that the keenest readers and the most liberal book-buyers are authors. A philosophical writer known to me, whose income is less than £200 a year, has thousands of books, many of them costly. Another scholarly author, who never earned more than £2 per week, has contrived to fill a study with volumes. Half of his earnings are spent

upon books.

The other day a well-to-do lady promised to buy a book in which I was interested. It was in the press, and the publishers had proposed to issue it at 1s. Subsequently, they changed their minds, and priced the book at 2s. 6d. The well-to-do lady also changed her mind about buying the book. She could not afford more than Is. believe it would pay publishers to print cheap

books.

I

Lately, one of the new publishers refused the manuscript of a novel because it was too short for the ordinary volume form of fiction. If the book would not sell at 2s. 6d., might it not sell at 18. 6d., and perhaps sell much better at the lower price?

A word upon booksellers.

"The trade" is in a bad way, and this is partly due to the fact that so many persons are niggardly in their expenditure upon books. But some booksellers are not "pushing"; they cannot expect to succeed. When the reprint of "The Dolly Dialogues" was selling in thousands, and lying upon every railway bookstall, I went into a big book shop at Ply. mouth and asked for the book. The shopkeeper said, "I don't keep dialogues." I explained that it was not a theatrical book. "Well, I haven't got it, and I've never heard of it," returned the bookseller, without offering to order it. On another occasion I tried to buy J. A. Symonds' "Study of Walt Whitman," at four large central shops in London. "No, we haven't it," said the assistants. There was no suggestion of obtaining a copy. I should have imagined that a 78. 6d. book was worth selling.

I sympathise with booksellers in their struggle to pay rents and make a living. Many of them can scarcely live, in spite of energy and enterprise; but others come to grief through listlessness and neglecting to display and recommend new books. I was much gratified some time ago by the kindness of two leading members of the trade, who both offered to stock my books when I, as a complete stranger, asked them if they would do so.

I think that booksellers would welcome cheaper books, especially works of fiction. Constantly

people tell me that they would buy a new novel if it only cost 2s. 6d. They refrain from buying a novel at 4s. 6d., and wait until they can find someone to lend it to them or until the book is in the local free library. I believe that authors, publishers, and booksellers lose in the long run through fixing the price of a novel too high. The book is bought by the few, and it may be read by many; but the majority of readers will be borrowers, and some of them unabashed and unblushing wealthy borrowers.

Bryn Aber,

GEOFFREY MORTIMER Llangollen, North Wales.

When an editor keeps a MS. months and months, wearing out the writer's patience, and causing him, in many instances, real distress of mind, does it not point to a defective sense of honour in that editor? The author is in his power, has no redress if his copy becomes lost or dog-eared, is obliged to bear meekly neglect or insult, so that, it seems to me, the abuse of his confidence is very like the non-payment of a debt of honour. There is obviously no action we who write can take, but simply sit still and wait for a reformation of charactor in such doers unto others as they would not others should do unto them! Not long ago I wrote to an editor asking when my story, accepted last May, would be likely to appear. He did not reply to a letter and two post-cards, so I wrote for the fourth time with some irritation. This was the impertinent answer : I think it a kindness to tell you that peremptory letters to editors can have but one result." Another story accepted last May was returned in August, and it was only through the services of Mr. Thring that it is accepted again now. When it will appear, Heaven knows! If one dares to beard editorial majesty there can be but one of two results-malicious delay or return of the MS. Truly we may pray for reform of manners.

With regard to the ill-bred person who scribbles his presumptuous and often illiterate "corrections" all over another man's literary property (I have experienced this, and share Mr. Wallace's disgust-see last month's Author), he is, of course, so hopelessly void of inborn courtesy or good taste that nothing could touch him but being obliged to pay for re-typing. Surely we can legally claim this if we take the the trouble; or am I mistaken ?

II.

M. L. P.

Most authors, whether of prose or verse, have, I presume, their little "differences" with editors.

I have, moreover, occasionally to put up with no little injustice. My own experiences in this line have been so numerous that I am tempted to give a few of them in The Author. I must premise by saying that I am one of the most courteous of men myself, and never willingly give offence to any one. More than that, I am ever ready to forgive an affront when sorrow is expressed by the giver of it, and not seldom making the first overtures even here; and yet in spite of all this I have at the present moment the following-what shall we call them ?-say "misunderstandings," to put it mildly.

Imprimis. One of our best known critics and authors once wrote me in reply to a present of a volume of my verse a most kind and appreciative letter and highly praised my poetry, ranking me among the sweetest of Devon singers now alive. Since then, though I wrote him a most warm and grateful note in reply, I have never had a line from him, and moreover he has just curtly declined for his magazine one of the best poems (in my opinion) I ever wrote! I have written him more than once without any response. Why?

Another well-known literary man and poet in the north, who also highly admired, so he said, my poetry, suddenly ceased to write to me or to answer my letters, without any conceivable reason. Nothing could have been more courteous than my letter to him. Why?

No. 3 is a west country editor with whom I had a difference, and though I amply apologised to him for a hasty letter, up to this day he has never accepted my apology!

No. 4 is a literary friend now living in London, who introduced himself to me years ago, has stayed with me, and now never answers my letters, without any reason. If they are busy, so am I, only I am old-fashioned and foolish enough to forget and forgive and to reply to letters.

Dec. 13.

III.

F. B. D.

In your last issue you devote some paragraphs to the recent decision of Judge Emden at the Lambeth County Court, and you say that this case "bears to some extent on the position of an editor to whom MSS. are sent."

I should like to point out that this decision is favourable to authors, and ought to be supported in every way. Judge Emden laid down that here the "bailment " was gratuitous; that is, the "bailee," or person to whom the MS. was entrusted, had no interest in the matter, and therefore could not be made responsible unless shown to have been guilty of gross negligence.

From this argument it logically follows that, had the "bailee" had an interest in the "bail

ment" of the MS., he would have been liable, and the onus would have been shifted on to him to prove that he had exercised reasonable care in preserving it.

It appears to me that, in most cases where MSS. are sent to an editor or a publisher, the bailment" is not gratuitous, for the latter has an interest in the " bailment," as it is thereby he is enabled to make selections on which his business largely depends. If I am a manufacturer, and send goods to a dealer on approval, he cannot lose them and say he is only a gratuitous bailee," and that you must prove he has been grossly negligent before you can claim recompense for the loss of your property. Why, then, should an editor or publisher claim this position?

It is true editors sometimes in their advertisements repudiate liability for lost MSS., but it is. by no means certain they can thus evade a "common law" liability.

Howard v. Harris is somewhat against this contention. That was a case similar to the one decided by Judge Emden, but there the playwright had sent the MS. straight to the manager of the theatre. The decision of the County Court judge, however, seems to me to have been given on more intelligible grounds than that of the higher court.

As the matter is of great importance to authors where a wanton loss of MSS. has occurred, I think it might be advisable to test the matter further.

MAJOR GREENWOOD, LL.B.,
Barrister-at-Law.

III. THE SOCIETY AS PUBLISHERS.

I notice in the November number that a writer signing himself "A Member of the Society" raises a question or suggestion upon the important matter of publishing; and there is also a note on the same by our esteemed "W. B." The first-named wishes the Society to undertake the very much talked-of publishing of books, which the latter thinks would not be done, suggesting, as a medium course, that we might, so to speak, grow a publisher of our own for the purpose.

So far as I can say and I know a good deal about authorship, printing, publishing, &c.-I would think that sin e both writers (not to speak of thousands of others) are agreed upon the desirability of the project, "W. B." himself might venture to place the matter before the Society at an early meeting; and since he is of opinion that the man procured to publish for authors at 10 per cent. profit should not be allowed to undertake other business, what better way is there than for the Society to procure such a