In the lamented death of Lord Pembroke the Society has lost one of its strongest friends. Lord Pembroke was a member of our council; he attended the meetings of council-which are few; he was present at several of our public meetings; he took the chair for us at one of our dinners; and he always showed the greatest interest in our work and aims.

In a recent "interview," which appeared in the Daily Chronicle, Mr. Hall Caine gave public utterance, for the first time, to a suggestion which has been in the minds of many, and is now being talked of freely. "The authors," he said, "who have the hearts of the public would"-under certain circumstances-" have to do as Ruskin did-create new publishers-or else attempt the perhaps not impossible task of doing without publishers altogether, and going direct to the booksellers." This is what is whispered or spoken outright. What is to prevent, if authors choose, the opening of an office, with a manager paid on commission, and not allowed to publish on his own account? The thing is perfectly plain and perfectly simple. For my own part I hopethough my hope is not, I confess, so strong as formerly that the old machinery will continue, but adjusted to altered conditions. All that we demand as a preliminary to any serious attempt to settle the question is the recognition of four points which no honest man can, for very shame, refuse. viz.:

1. No secret profits-i.e., no falsifying of

accounts.

2. No charge unless of money actually paid-as no charge for advertisements except those paid for all discounts to be entered in the books, &c.

3. Open accounts-i.e., an author to see the account books which concern himself.

4. A clear understanding of what the agreement leaves to either party in the event of

success.

I have submitted these points to many business men. Their opinion has uniformly been the same. If anyone in the City, they say, should dare to object to any such conditions between himself and his partner or fellow venturer in any enterprise, he would be shown the door instantly.

If, therefore, we find that a certain publisher is constantly vomiting charges of this and of that against the Society or any of its committee; if he further learns that this publisher is one of those who still falsify their accounts, keep the books dark, and persevere in the bad old ways of treating the author as their humble dependent, it is surely our plain and obvious duty at least to

avoid that person; not to give him our books; and not to admit him to our society. Do we not owe so much-it is not much-to the cause of literature, as well as our own self-respect? This is one of the points which we ought to cultivate— the absolute social boycotting of the dishonest and the tricky publisher.

Here is a case, not of dishonesty, nor of trickiness, but one which exposes the way in which certain publishers have come to regard their own rights over a book. The man in question was interviewed by a certain paper, and he wept over the wickedness and the greediness of the unspeakable author. The case of wicked greed was this. He produced a book by a highly popular, though, perhaps, unspeakable, author. This author took a royalty of eighteenpence out of a nominal six shillings. How did the case stand? The figures are not to be denied. They are as follows:

The average price of the book to the trade is 3s. 6d.

The cost, with advertising, is less than a shilling-say 11d.

The author receives 1s. 6d. for every copy sold. The publisher receives 18. Id.

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This man said that he must first subtract the "establishment expenses "and, these all deducted, he was left only sixpence. The expenses therefore amount to about as much-say £1250 for the one book, which had a sale of about 50,000 copies, and is still going on. Really, when one looks at the modest exterior of this publisher's establishment, one is surprised that one book can cost so much merely to manage, without counting the production. Therefore, the publisher having had no risk whatever-having simply used the machinery of a small office, and ordered the advertisements-gets £1250 for himself by his own showing. And he goes on to say that things are coming to such a pass-i.e., when a publisher can make no more than £1250 for himself out of one book-that "the successful author will find no publisher willing to undertake his books at the price he demands." What? Not for twelve hundred and fifty pounds? Really! Here is self sacrifice! But is not this demanding almost too much of a credulous public?

As for "establishment expenses," the question will have to be argued out. For my own part, I should begin by arguing that the bookseller's and the author's "establishment expenses" must be allowed as well as the publisher's. The former, clearly, has rent and assistants and taxes to pay; and he has also the very considerable risk of

unsold stock. The latter the author-has at least the reut of his study, which is his office; his shorthand clerk; his agent; his typewriting; the books he must buy; the journeys he must take. For instance, I once wrote a little book on Captain Cook. It was one of Macmillan's series, for which I received a hundred guineas. The price was, I dare say, quite as much as the book was worth, commercially. I do not complain at all about the price. I was very glad to write the book for other reasons apart from the small cheque. Now, this book took me down to Yorkshire twice; and once to a certain cathedral city to see a certain clergyman, who had information of a kind previously unpublished, and very useful for the book. I had to pay for the copying of a previously unpublished log. I had to get a good deal of typewriting done. All these were blishment expenses," and they amounted, I reckoned up, to about £45. But it never entered my head to charge these expenses, although they swallowed up nearly half the little cheque. If, however, the practice of charging for establishment expenses" is allowed to one of the three persons named, I shall argue that it must be allowed to all.

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"esta

It seems likely that we shall have a good deal of talk upon these subjects before long, perhaps with some results. The booksellers, whose case is really hard, seem waking up. One of them, Mr. Burleigh, wrote to the Times saying, with great bitterness, that authors and publishers between them are killing the bookseller. Sir William Conway pointed out in an able letter that authors, at least, are innocent of any such action or intention. As a matter of fact, the alleged squeezing by agents, which has by no means as yet even reached the old half-profit system, is a thing of the last half dozen years, and no change whatever, as Mr. Burleigh must know very well, has been made of late in the relations of bookseller and publisher. The booksellers, in fact, if they only knew it, are the real masters of the situation. They should combine, but not to run up the prices of books. They should combine, leaving to each perfect freedom as to the price at which he would sell his books. And if Mr. Burleigh will call upon me I will show him certain other objects for which booksellers could combine with very excellent results to themselves. But if he calls he must not begin by calling authors bad names: first, because I won't allow it; next, because we don't deserve these bad names; and lastly, because calling names doesn't advance matters.

At the Authors' Club on the 27th ult. Rider Haggard was the guest of the evening. If there

was wanted a proof that literary men are not, as a rule, devoured with jealousy and hatred towards each other, it was provided in the reception which he met with at that dinner.

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A friend of many readers of this paper is dead. George Bentley died last week at the age of sixtyseven. He had long been suffering from asthma, which drove him every winter to take refuge at Tenby. Courtly, genial, kindly, he was the model of the old-fashioned publisher of the most honourable kind. Nor was he without literary ability, as was shown by the occasional papers which he contributed to his own magazine, Temple Bar, of which he was for nearly thirty years the editor, These essays he collected into a little volume, which he published some years ago, with what success I know not. His magazine continues, I believe, to enjoy a wide and increasing circulation; and it has always been remarkable for its excellent novels, written chiefly by ladies, and for its biographical sketches. At this moment, that of going to press, it is impossible to do justice to the memory of George Bentley. In our next number I hope that one who knew him intimately will communicate to the Author a longer notice of this kindliest of publishers.

I hear also at the same moment that James

Dykes Campbell, the author of the "Life of Coleridge," is dead. It was his one book, but it is the life of Coleridge. No other memoir of the philosopher-poet will be written, unless it is one based upon Campbell's. The author was for many years a partner in the house of Ireland, Fraser, and Co., in Mauritius; he was always, from boyhood. attracted towards literary pursuits; and when I first first made his acquaintance, now thirty-two years ago, was already deeply interested in everything that concerned Coleridge and his friends. He was fortunate in being able to retire from business soon after forty with a moderate fortune, which enabled him to live as he pleased, and to take up in earnest the literary life without being shackled by the necessity of providing the daily bread. To this enviable independence we owe Life of Coleridge a book which contains the research, the travels, and the patient labour of years. He died at a comparatively early age, but his life was happy, fortunate, and successful. To have written that one book, which will remain long after the perishable work of more popular writers, to be inseparably associated with the name of Coleridge, is an achievement which by itself makes a successful career.

the

WALTER BESANT.

ANNUAL DINNER OF THE INCORPORATED

SOCIETY OF AUTHORS.

R. MOBERLY BELL last even

Ming (May 23) at the Holborn Restaurant,

over the annual dinner of this Society, at which about 180 ladies and gentlemen were present, including the American Ambassador, Sir F. and Lady Jeune, Mr. A. W. à Beckett, Mrs. Oscar Beringer, the Rev. Canon Bell, D.D., Mr. Mackenzie Bell, Mr. C. F. Clifford Borrer, Mr. J. Theodore Bent, Mrs. Brightwen, Mr. Walter Besant, Miss Marie Belloc, Mrs. Moberly Bell, Professor C. A. Buchheim, Mr. F. H. Balfour, Mrs. H. C. Black, Dr. Sutherland Black, Mr. Poulteney Bigelow, Miss Mathilde Blind, Mr. Henry Blackburn, Lieutenant-Colonel Campbell, Sir W. T. Charley, Q.C., Mr. Edward Clodd, Mr. W. Martin Conway, Mrs. Conway, Mr. Moncure D. Conway, Miss E. R. Chapman, Mr. A. Chatto, Mr. and Mrs. Horace Cox, Miss Beatrice Chambers, Mr. and Mrs. Hall Caine, Mr. Ralph Hall Caine, Major Seton Churchill, the Earl of Desart, Mrs. Gerard Ford, Miss L. Friswell, Sir William Fra-er, Mr. Harry Furniss, Mr. Edmund Gosse, Mrs. Aylmer Gowing, Dr. R. Garnett, Mr. Upcott Gill, Mme. Sarah Grand, Mr. Anthony Hope Hawkins, Dr. G. Harley, F.R.S., Mr. Holman Hunt, Mr. Isaac Henderson, Prebendary Harry Jones, Mr. C. F. Keary, Miss Florence Marryatt, Lord Monkswell, Mrs. Mil.ie, Mr. S. B. G. M'Kinney, the Rev. C. H. MiddletonWake, Mr. Justin C. MacCartie, Mr. and Mrs. Henry Norman, Miss E. Pitcairn, Mr. W. H. Pollock, the President of the Royal College of Surgeons, the President of the Institute of Journalists, Lord Reay, Mr. W. Fraser Rae, Mr. John Rae, Mr. J. Morgan Richards, Mr. J. Ashby Sterry, Mr. A. M. M. Stedman, Mr. M. H. Spielmann, the Rev. Clementi-Smith, Mr. Douglas Sladen, Mrs. Burnett Smith, Dr. Burnett Smith, Miss Shaw, Mr. and Mrs. H. M. Stanley, Miss L. Shaw, Mr. and Mrs. G. W. Sheldon, Mr. Clement K. Shorter, Sir Henry Thompson, Mrs. Alec Tweedie, Mr. Andrew W. Tuer, Mr. G. Herbert Thring, Mrs. Thring, Miss Grace Toplis, Miss Tobin, Miss G. Traver, Mr. H. Townsend (New York Herald), Mr. Thomas Townend, Mr. William Tirebuck, Mr. P. Villars (Figaro), Mrs. Neville Walford, Mr. C. T. Hagberg Wright, Mr. Walter, Mr. Sydney F. Walker, Mr. Theodore Watts, and Mr. Wesselitsky.

The following is a report of the speeches::The CHAIRMAN.-Your Excellency, my Lords, Ladies, and Gentlemen: I ask you to drink to that toast which needs no words--" The Queen."

The CHAIRMAN.-Your Excellency, my Lords, Ladies, and Gentlemen: Before I propose the toast of the evening, I think it incumbent on me to offer some explanation of my apparent presumption in venturing to address from this chair a Society of Authors. I am painfully conscious that I stand, as it were, in the footprints of men whose shoe latchets I am unworthy to unloose; that I address authors whose names are "household words," and that to most of you to whom I am utterly unknown, except by name, if by that, I must seem to have rashly and unnecessarily placed myself amongst that vast majority of mankind who "rush in where angels fear to tread." Yet I am not here to ask absolution, to plead guilty, nor even to urge extenuating circumright to ask admission as a simple member of the stances, for if on my own merits I have barely Society of Authors-for I hold that the term "author" is not too lightly to be applied to every scribbler (hear, hear) if I have still less the right to speak with the authority which befits your chairman, yet I ask you to see in this chair to-night not my own insignificant personality, but rather the representative, if an inadequate one, of that great author who, though anonymous, may yet in some respects claim to be the greatest author of all time, the Press. (Hear, hear.) I am deeply sensible that the Society of Authors, in asking me to take the chair to-night, have been anxious to pay a graceful and generous compliment not to myself, not to any section of the Press, but to the Press as a whole, to the Press in the widest acceptation of the term, to that power, great for good and evil-I trust greater for good than for evil--which owes its existence to a large extent to the co-operation of authors, and to which authors themselves sometimes owe a little. (Hear, hear.) I speak of the Press as an author because I like to think of every portion in it as forming a part of one individual whole, animated by one common object, choosing, it must be, different ways of arriving at that object, quarrelling, it may be, within our body corporate, but yet, if differing in our means, never differing in our end, and that end I take to be to voice without fear or favour, without bias or prejudice, above all without personal motive— (hear, hear) that which we honestly believe to be the public intelligence and the public conscience. I call the Press a great author because to ninety-nine hundredths of readers authors are known not by their individuality, but by their works, and I think that even in this distinguished assembly of authors it will hardly be denied that the Press, if not the greatest, is, at all events of all authors, the most prolific and the most voluminous. (Hear, hear, and laughter.) The

most popular amongst you count your readers by thousands-we count ours by tens and hundreds of thousands. The most industrious amongst you can only write-well, ten or a dozen volumes in the course of a year. (Laughter.) We publish that every day. (Laughter.) The most versatile amongst you cannot claim to be a profound authority on more than three or four subjects. The author I represent is omniscient. (Laughter.) He speaks with profound authority on every subject and at the very shortest notice. We write tragedy in our police courts, we write comedy in our Parliamentary reports, and fiction in our advertisements (laughter); but the Press, though it uses the first personal plural, is never egotistic, and our business to-night is with the Society of Authors. There are two societies of authors. To the greater it is given to but few in a generation, or even in a century to belong; but the long list of immortals, which begins, perhaps, with Homer and will not finish, with the names of your two presidents, the late Lord Tennyson and Mr. George Meredith. If few can attain all can aspire, and you and the world will be better for the aspiration, and I think it fitting in proposing the toast of what must be an ephemeral society of authors not to altogether omit mention of that great immortal Society, of whose works it was said more than four hundred years ago they are the masters who instruct us without rods or ferrules, without harsh words or anger, without money or clothes. If you approach them they are not asleep. If investigating you interrogate them they conceal nothing, if you mistake them they never grumble, if you are foolish they never laugh at you. The other society of authors is our noble selves. If we cannot illuminate all time we shed a very brilliant light upon the present generation. We are a most virtuous society, the most virtuous that ever existed. I make that assertion on the unimpeachable authority of a committee of the society itself, for we have been informed in the public press that no member of this society is greedy-(laughter)-inordinately greedy. That remark was not made in reference to this banquet. It referred to the greed of pecuniary profit. I do not know that it is a serious charge to bring against anyone that he should be greedy of the full remuneration which he can honestly claim for his work (hear, hear), but, however that may be, we are devoid of even that, and therefore I am sure I am justified in saying that we are a peculiarly virtuous Society, that we have a strong sense of virtue -whether we have an equal sense of humour, that, as one of our Society hath said, is quite another story (laughter)-but we have great

6.

claims upon your goodwill. We have led a respectable, useful, and not utterly obscure existence, for more than eleven years. Originally started, I believe, for the protection of the unfledged authors from the wiles of those animals

feræ naturæ-who prowl in the field of literature in the guise of the Profession we all honour and respect, the publisher, you now number twelve hundred members, all authors more or less distinguished, more than half of whom have sought the assistance of the committee: and we have another claim-we are co-operative and self supporting. We do not send round the hat. (Laughter.) We ask nothing of our visitors, except to dine with us, and that which is, perhaps, I admit, already a severe tax, to listen to our speeches, but even that is not compulsory. (Laughter.) I have spoken of your past and present. Allow me a few words as to your future. As a member of your Society, as one whom you have peculiarly honoured to-night, I naturally wish you a long and prosperous career, but I fear that my hopes are stronger than my faith. I am credibly informed that many of you neglect the latest gospel of labour. Some of you work more than eight hours a day, many of you have other professions, and are therefore outsiders; others, I am told, are so devoted to literature that they work without exacting a living wage, and then, worst of all, you do not each of you insist upon exactly the same paymentpounds, shillings, and pence, per word, or per page, or per week. (Laughter). Well, if these horrible charges are true, it is my duty to tell you that you are blacklegs, and that you must expect in a very short time that either the House of Commons or the London County Council, or one of those numerous institutions which exist to restore to us the beneficent socialism of the sixteenth century, will come down upon you, and they will, perhaps, establish a ministry or a department for the protection of the authors, and thus will destroy the reason of your existence. The department will collect statistics, they will be able to say that two, or possibly three, men are studying at the same time the same period of history, that possibly half a dozen young ladies are writing novels, in each case the motif of which may be the gentle passion, and it would be very easy for them to point out that this is an enormous waste of labour, that it could be done much more cheaply and much more expeditiously by a ministry of literature, with the help of assistant secretaries for prose, poetry, and so forth. This is not utterly irrelevant, because in the past you have fought the pseudo publisher, otherwise the pirate. For the future your object is to combat pseudo philanthropy, otherwise Socialism

I

-it is the only way by which you can keep the Society alive, and by which we in the Society can exist. I have to associate with this toast the name of your chairman, Mr. William Martin Conway, a gentleman who has climbed to distinction on the Alps, the Apennines, and the Himalayas; who is equally prominent as an art lecturer, mountaineer, author, and who now desires to enter into that singular assembly consisting of commoners who desire to become peers, and peers who desire to become commoners. am peculiarly unable to speak of Mr. Conway; luckily you know him better than I do. I am unable because my opportunities have never led me much into the study of art, and my inclinations have never led me to mountaineering, except with the friendly help of a locomotive. But there is just one point for which Mr. Conway is very remarkable, and upon which I am able to speak with the highest authority. Mr. Conway is a man of a most extraordinarily good judgment, and extraordinary good taste. He has brought the proofs of that here to-night, and they sit on my left hand. (Laughter and hear, hear.) Ladies and gentlemen, I ask you to drink to the toast of the Incorporated Society of Authors, associated with the name of Mr. W. M. Conway.

We un

MR. W. M. CONWAY.-Mr. Chairman, Your Excellency, My Lords, Ladies, and Gentlemen: I have often thought that this annual dinner of the Society of Authors might be made a very much more amusing function than it is. fortunately meet only to dine. We don't meet, I am thankful to say, to collect money, neither do we meet to sell the products of our labour. I have sometimes thought that if on these occasions every member of the Society of Authors attended with his manuscripts, and if we invited the publishers of London to dine with us, and if, after duly baptising the whole show in champagne, we held an auction, that the frolic would be something worth attending. (Laughter.) However, you have drunk the health of the Society of Authors, and it is for me to attempt to justify that somewhat rash act. Sir, the Society of Authors is at all events an active society-when it has nothing else to do it falls upon Mr. Gosse (laughter), we fill up odd moments by quarrelling amongst ourselves, and when we get a chance we fall upon a common enemy. Squabbling is said to be a sign of life, and I am sure that the Authors' Society, throughout the whole course of its not too long existence, has been engaged in one successive series of squabbles. It was once my pleasure-at least, my duty-to be the secretary, or, rather, to run, a thing called the Art Congress for the three years of its chequered existence. During that time I attained a somewhat minute and peculiar

acquaintance with the attitude of the artistic mind in the face of business. Since I have been intimately associated with the Society of Authors I have had proofs-derived from this former experience—I have had proofs that the author is really an artist. I find that in many matters of business the author approaches the situation with that kind of attitude which is distinctly characteristic of the artist who abuses everyone all round, but more especially his own attorney (laughter), and we who have sat for some time on the committee of this Society are now thoroughly accustomed to the artistic attitude of authors-we have become so accustomed to it that unless we are abused by the members we don't consider that we can be possibly doing our duty. (Laughter.) There is my friend Mr. Besant, who at intervals boils with indignation. I say that this boiling with indignation on the part of our founder, Mr. Besant, is the great source and origin, and, I hold, the moving force, that has created and maintained this Society. (Applause and laughter.) Unfortunately for myself, I am unable so to boil when I hear that an author has entered into a ridiculous agreement. Mr. Besant does the boiling with indignation, and it is for me to advise him to carry out his contract. It seems to me that the first thing that an author who has played the perfect fool in the matter of the making of his agreement has to do is to suffer the penalty of his folly for the time being, and to afterwards go to the Society of Authors to guard him in the future against similar blunders. (Hear, hear.) Another member of the Society wrote to us the other day and said he would like to become a member of the Society, not because he intended to make any use of it, but because he wanted to have a guinea's worth of fighting for his money. We elected that gentleman immediately (laughter), being, I hope, a sporting committee, and we have since been sitting around waiting for the fray. (Laughter.) Unfortunately the only sport we have been able to have out of him has been a letter communicated to the public press in which he abused us for dining here to-night. (Loud laughter.) Well, we have heard something of late about booksellers, and I had a sort of idea of talking about them myself, but it occurred to me that it would lead to a disquisition on political economy which 1 feared would be rather a heavy morsel after dinner. So we will pass by the booksellers, and come to our other friends the publishers. Gentlemen, our relations with publishers-the relations, that is to say, with the main body of authors with whom we come in contact-appear at the present time to be highly satisfactory, for the number of disputes-most of them small ones - that has been brought to our notice of late has been ex