I

NEWS AND NOTES.

HOPE that readers of The Author will regard with favour the arrangement of last month's number, which contained nothing but the Report of the Dinner and the speeches pronounced

on that occasion. For my own part I would gladly

have a close season for magazines, journals, and new books of every kind. It would do the world every kind of good to rest from ephemerals during the months of August and September. There is plenty of old literature to read: no one can read anything like the number of good things that come out. If we would only rest! In a sense we do. The summer is the season for publishing in the magazines the papers which nobody cares to read. How if there were no publications at all?

The Authors' Dinner I regard as chiefly valuable because it is the only function in which authors, as a body, have ever come together. It is difficult to manage; it causes little frictions of the moment; there is always the usual excuse from the man you want most to get. He who is best qualified to speak on this or that point is sure to be ill or absent. Yet with all these difficulties we have met for the third time, and we have met very successfully in increasing numbers. Would it be possible, or would it be better for us-in our own interests-to meet in any other way? A conference has been suggested, or a

VOL. I.

conversazione, as a change from the dinner. As regards the former we should require certain very definite points of discussion, and there would have to be a very rigid chairman, and I think that reporters should be excluded. A conference of two days followed by a conversazione might be a change for glad to receive any communications on this subject. the better in our annual programme. I shall be very

For reasons not wholly unconnected with laziness and a long holiday I have to defer the few observations I wish to make on a certain Memorandum recently issued by the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge until next month. However, two letters on the subject which appeared in the Daily News and in the Guardian early in August, have perhaps explained my views as to the value of that document and have prevented my silence being misconstrued. Meantime, let us note one thing very carefully. There is not in the minds either of the Publication Committee of that Society or in the minds of those who were persuaded to sign this precious Memorandum, the slightest perception; not the least glimmering of perception; that literary property now exists. Yet they make thousands every year by literary property. And they obstinately refuse to inquire, as to their methods of acquisition, whether they are honest and honourable, or the reverse.

This prevailing ignorance of the existence of

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literary property and its rights has been also illustrated in other ways. Thus, a man who has long been connected with literature writes to a journal that he has been more "generously" treated by the S.P.C.K. than by other publishers. More generously! But the question is not one of generosity, but of justice. When will the world understand this? Are authors to stand, hat in hand, the tears of gratitude running down their hungry cheeks, when these high-minded Christian gentlemen bestow their doles?

The awakening, however, even of the religious mind is illustrated by a recent fact. A lady writes that another religious publishing society-nonconformists, these have sent her word, that although they bought certain books of hers outright, and she has no claim, in spite of their success, they recognise the equity of her case. They have therefore sent her a substantial cheque for past years and promise her a royalty in future.

This, you see, concedes the first principle to be observed by all honest men in the acquisition of literary property, viz., that the price paid for it, or the rental for the use of it, must depend on the actual sale of the book and not upon the amount fixed by the avarice of a sweater or the necessities of an author. But this is a Society managed by humble nonconformists, not by high-minded Churchmen. And a second lady, herself one of the unfortunate victims of the S.P.C.K., writes that she has just negotiated with another religious publishing house for the production of a book. She has received the same sum which she has been accustomed to get from the former liberal and honourable house, but accompanied by a very reasonable royalty in addition. We are waking up, after all.

Why is it that religious societies are always doing things of which private firms would be ashamed? I have, still further, received the particulars of a case which I set down as it was told to me. If I had time to investigate the case fully I would publish the name of the Society. The accountant of a certain society discovered that another officer, by an elaborate system of secret book-keeping, had turned the society into a firm trading for his own advantage! He proceeded to expose the whole business after an immense deal of trouble in unearthing the intricacies of the method. The result was that the committee, on the offender saying that he had now repented, with prayer and tears, and had turned over a new leaf, passed a vote of confirmed confidence-and dismissed the accountant! It seems incredible, and there may be another side to the story, but the documents, which I have received and read, appear to leave no doubt on the matter.

Here, again, is another case which speaks for itself. It is an advertisement cut out of a paper. In this case the name of the truly conscientious Society is given at full, for the admiration of the world :

"Competition for Twenty Pounds.

"The Junior Division Church of England Temperance Society offers the following prizes :- "Ten Pounds for the best set of eight dialogues

suitable for Church Bands of Hope, illustrating respectively the eight lectures of the syllabus (health, wealth, and temperance) for the next year's examination. "Ten pounds for the best set of eight stories for tracts for children (not exceeding 1,000 words), illustrating, respectively, the eight lectures above mentioned.

"The Society reserves the right to publish any competition, whether it gain the prize or not.

"For further particulars apply to the Secretary, (Junior Division C.E.T.S.), 9, Bridge Street, Westminster, S.W."

This Church of England Society calmly proposes, in fact, to keep for nothing all the things that are sent in to them. It "reserves the right to publish any competition, whether it gains the prize or not." Now if an enterprising butcher was to offer a prize of twenty pounds for the best pig, "reserving the right" of keeping and selling for himself all the competing pigs, whether they gained a prize or not, what would be said of that butcher's impudence? How would his brother butchers speak of the offer? In what light would it be regarded by the proprietors of pigs? Yet, because it is only literary property that is concerned, the respectable Committee of the Junior Division of the Church of England Temperance Society does not scruple to imitate that enterprising butcher. The committees of religious societies always, I believe, begin with prayer. Would it be possible for the Archbishop to draw up a form of prayer suitable for those committees which have to do with publishing?

Some kind person has sent me the prospectus of a Society which really does seem to meet that "longfelt want" which calls for every new association. One need not mention it by name, because an association with such benevolent aims cannot fail to make rapid way. It is, in fact, the much-desired Ghost Society. There has never been a time when people have more ardently desired dramatic success. There has also never been a time when so few people have possessed the first elements of dramatic success. They may now, however, by joining this Association, whose terms of membership ought to be very high, be able to gratify their laudable ambition.

They can have their manuscript plays corrected, revised, and put into practical dramatic form for them -no doubt by Messrs. Sims, Pinero, Henry Jones, Pettitt, and other leading dramatists. The Society is also about to issue a monthly paper, "supported by tales of the Association," which is a very odd form of support. They are also going to find engagements for ladies and gentlemen who wish to go on the stage, and they will teach people to play the violin or the harp, to sing, to become eloquent, and to compose music; in short, a most excellent Ghost Society. One department is, no doubt only for the moment, omitted. They do not yet propose to correct literary work and make it fit for publication. But here is a very great field lying open for the first comer. If only those who are now so foolish as to spend their money in paying for their own productions, receiving in return nothing but a nasty, spiteful notice in the papers, would only lay out that money in buying MSS. worth printing and put their own names to them, how much better it would be for all parties! For the author would get properly paid, the person with the money would get the glory, and the public would be spared the trash that is now offered them. We look for the develop ment of this new Society in the direction of literature. Perhaps we might do a good turn to our own members by creating a new Branch-the Ghostly Branch of the Society of Authors; or it might seem better adapted-a more natural growth-to the S.P.C.K.

An American paper, the Critic, has lately been preparing a list of the Forty living Immortals-the Academy-of the United States. Here they are, divided into the States or countries of their residence :

Massachusetts. Aldrich, Brooks, Cable, Child, Fiske, Frothingham, Hall, Higginson, Holmes, Howells, Lowell, Norton, Parkman, Whittier.

New York. Burroughs, Curtis, Dana, Gilder, Hawthorne, Stedman, Stoddard, Tylor, White. Connecticut. Clemens, Fisher, Lathrop, Mitchell, Porter, Warner, Whitney.

New Jersey. Stockton, Whitman.
Pennsylvania. Furness.

England. Bret Harte, James.
Columbia District.

Michigan. Winchell.

Georgia. Harris.
Italy. Story.

Bancroft.

The same paper is about to prepare a new list, containing the twenty who shall be considered the truest representatives of what is best in cultivated American womanhood.

In a lecture entitled "Literature as a Profession," Col. T. W. Higginson has made some remarks which are quoted in the Critic of New York. Among them are the following:

"Here, as nowhere else, the author stands free and dignified in his profession, with no class above him. How does a literary man stand to-day in England? So long as he is not raised to the peerage, he takes rank below the meanest man who has been and if, like Tennyson, he consents to join it, he has the extreme felicity of being followed in that body by a prosperous London brewer. The separation of set from set makes its mark in all the literature of England. Why is it that the American magazines have marched in solid column into England and displaced the English magazines? It is because the American magazine is a magazine. It is a place of comprehension. It brings people together."

His

Here are two interesting points. The first is the wonderful inability of the American mind to understand what rank means. As regards precedence the best English poet, if he had no title, would have to walk behind the lowest birthday or jubilee knight. But what Englishman in his senses would rank the birthday knight above the poet? What does it matter to the author and his position whether a brewer or a brewer's clerk receive a title? own position remains the same. It is that acquired by his reputation alone. The next point is more serious. The lecturer says that the American magazines have displaced the English magazines in their own land. Is this so? Does the statement approach the truth? If it is true, or nearly true, it is a very great reproach on English writers and a great blow and discouragement. Well, we have the Contemporary, the Nineteenth Century, the Fornightly, the National, the Universal, the New Review, Blackwood's, Macmillan's, the Cornhill, Longman's, Temple Bar, and a dozen others, all of which are well known to be flourishing, more or less--some, exceedingly-all supposed to be good properties, and all taken in and read in every part of our great Empire. The American magazines have come over here. One or two have succeeded, and deservedly. But to the detriment of the English magazines? I believe, not at all. If this had been the case, it would have been proved by a falling-off in prices paid to contributors, when the Society would have heard of it. But no such thing has happened. Some magazines there are which are in a bad way, and have been in a bad way for years, because, when a magazine takes a turn for the worse, it seems unable to recover itself, but goes continually down till it reaches the point of extinction.

On the other hand, the success of one magazine

may create such a demand as will make room for half a dozen more, and this, I take it, is the reason of the English success of the American magazines.

I wonder if it is too late to speak with admiration of a paper in an August magazine. The "Perilous Amour" of Mr. Weyman, in Temple Bar for that month, stood out, as regards interest, workmanship, and freshness, above and beyond everything else of that month-I mean, of course, everything else that I saw.

In August we received a letter from Lord Monkswell, who has charge of our Copyright Bill, informing us that the great length of the Bill made it for various reasons inadvisable that it should be introduced at so late a period in the Session. Both his lordship and others whom he kindly consulted on the matter, recommended that it should be held over until November. This little delay is quite unimportant; the more so when we remember the many long years through which authors have waited for some attempt at the remedial legislation, which is now only some three months away. Of course it is the attempt only, and not the legislation, which is so near.

The ingenious hidalgo, Don Quixote de la Mancha, seems to have thought that there were certain plights from which the extremest knight-errantry could not extricate a man. At any rate he tilts no lance on the author's behalf, but commends him simply to God. The passage runs as follows:

"Tell me, your worship, print you this book upon your own charges, or have you sold the copyright to some publisher?"

"I print it on my own account," said the author, "and think to gain a thousand crowns by the first impression, which will be of two thousand copies, which they will sell at six reales a piece in a brace of straws." ""

'Your worship is mighty well up in the account. It is well seen that you know nothing of the ins and outs of publishers. I promise you that when you shall find you laden with the bodies of two thousand books, your own body shall be so wearied that it will affiright you, especially if the book be a little dull and is nothing piquant."

"So then, your worship," said the author, "would have me give my copyright for three maravedis to a publisher, who will think he does me a kindness in giving me so much? I do not print my books to achieve fame in the world, for I am already known by my works; I want profit, for without it fine fame is not worth a farthing."

"God give your worship good fortune," said Don Quixote, and passed on.

"I cannot," says an eminent author and dramatist (who surely wants a holiday badly), "use my own judgment in a literary contract without being pounced upon and bullied by a trades union of authors." Now this is meant for us, and is not fair. We have pounced upon nobody, we have bullied nobody, nor have we ever attempted to pounce or to bully. We have never set ourselves up as a tribunal to which authors, eminent or otherwise, should apply before acceding to a publisher's terms, unless they wish to do so. We may have excellent reasons for thinking that they would be very wise if they did come to us, but we leave it to them: and more and more come daily. As for this particular author, he has never applied to us for advice and has therefore never received any. But a trades' union, I believe, dictates to its members that they should accept certain terms only, upon certain conditions only, and members cannot continue to belong to the union unless they do as they are told. We have never attempted or wished to take up this position. We simply say to all authors and to this our eminent member among them :—“ Complaints have been made and are still being made by men of letters that they have not obtained fair terms for their work, that they have been led to sign contracts to which they never would have assented had the meaning of those contracts been apparent to them, and the ultimate division of profits foreshadowed; that in short in the business side of the literary profession they have been at a disadvantage. Therefore the Society offers to make clear to its members the meaning of any proposal submitted to them, so that they may be, perhaps for the first time, in a position to understand whether they should take an offer or leave it." That is not the same thing as preventing an author from using his own judgment about a literary contract. Let those who have judgment exercise it, but what is to become of those whose judicial faculties are small, or who from absence of technical knowledge, or data from which to make deduction, cannot tell a good bargain from a bad one, when its terms are submitted to them? Must such an one always go to the wall?

Mrs. Craik and Mr. Richard Jefferies are both to be honoured in the same way.

There has lately been placed in Tewkesbury Abbey a medallion portrait of the author of "John Halifax, Gentleman." Tewkesbury was the home of John Halifax, and the last place visited by the author before her death.

Salisbury Cathedral very fitly has been selected as the right place to do similar honour to the memory of Richard Jefferies, a Wiltshire man and

the poet of the Wiltshire Downs. As regards the latter, subscriptions may be sent to myself, and I shall be very grateful to any who will help to erect this monument to the great naturalist and writer.

The following seems to me a remarkable story of perseverance. A young author writes :

"My story,' has only been rejected. twice, as yet. My first story, published just three years ago, was rejected thirty-six times before it was finally accepted. Another story of mine was only taken after forty-two publishers had refused it. So, you see, I cannot despair about -"

Besides, she is the only child of my brain that I have left to see settled in the world, all my other MSS. having been accepted, with the exception of a four-act drama."

One can only wish every success to the four-act drama. This author has worked his way to success against discouragement that would almost have dashed the ardour of the Bruce's spider.

Probably he could have spared himself a good proportion of these refusals, if he had been advised earlier of the most suitable direction in which to seek for a publisher. At the Society, we are often asked to 66 recommend a publisher," and it is possible that a mere glance at these books would have enabled us to save this author at least two dozen refusals by pointing out the publishers to whom it would be useless or unwise to apply.

We are glad to learn from their organ, The Journalist, that the Institute of Journalists thinks, like ourselves, on the matter of International Copyright, and that the Committee of Management propose to take such steps towards its establishment as may seem expedient. The question was brought to their notice through a resolution, passed on the motion of Mr. James Baker, by the Bristol Branch of the Institute. The motion was to the effect that "this meeting pledges itself to do all in its power to hasten the passing of a just and equitable copyright convention between this country and America, especially urging that in such a convention no injustice be done to the printers and papermakers of this country; and that copies of this resolution be sent to the Institute of Journalists and the Society of Authors."

M. Chatrian is dead. Chatrian, of the ErckmannChatrian series-Chatrian whom we have all loved since first we read him. As for me, I think I made the acquaintance of this godlike pair early in the sixties-the remote sixties. What popularity has

been the lot of these twins! Who can say how much they have done towards the extinction of the idiotic thirst for glory that formerly filled every ardent Gaul? Not that it has disappeared, but it burns. now with a dimmer force. The young men go out to war because they must, but they know that it is not à la gloire but aux abattoirs. They will fight no worse for the knowledge, but they will not fight unless they must. Chatrian is dead! And before he died he had quarrels with his partner! The latter is as bad to think of as the former. One thing is quite certain-when two men form a literary partnership, they construct by talk and confidence, by weaving and interweaving, by selection and by arrangement, between them a work of art. Treason to Art if one begins to count how many pages he has written more than his partner!

Charles Gibbon, who died last month at Yarmouth, while still a middle-aged man, was a most prolific novelist. He wrote over thirty novels, some of which, "For Lack of Gold," and "The Queen of the Meadow," for example, enjoyed considerable popularity.

I find the following in the Athenæum :

"In the course of nearly thirty years' continuous literary work, I have had frequent occasion for protest against the dishonesty of American publishers, but I think my latest experience supplies one of the most striking examples of unscrupulousness in piracy.

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"I am credited in a glowing advertisement with the authorship of a sensational romance called Tiger-Head; or, the Ghost of the Avalanche,' now being published in the New York Sunday Mercury. Now I never wrote a story called 'Tiger-Head; or, the Ghost of the Avalanche,' nor any story which could, by any possibility, be described by such a title, and I beg to protest most earnestly against this misuse of my name. In the words of the great Burke I may say, 'My errors, if any, are my own. I bear no man's proxy.' "MARY E. MAXWELL, née BRADDON."

At present in America, as everyone who enjoys any circulation in England knows, there is nothing to prevent the unauthorized publication of English books on the other side of the Atlantic. But it seems to me that Miss Braddon has, in this case, some chance of an indirect remedy, or has, at any rate, an opportunity of some sort for some sort of reprisal, though blood would hardly wash out the