He

and no opportunity for revision or correction. roundly claims the right to republish our sermons as a literary speculation, uncorrected and unrevised, when and how he pleases, unless, indeed, we inform him beforehand of our intention to publish them for ourselves. How he treats third-class preachers I hardly dare to imagine. It may be that he does not publish their sermons in any shape. If so, I should be infinitely obliged to him if he would henceforth put me in the third class. Probably, however, if we had the opportunity of interviewing the eminent preacher above referred to, he would tell us that, having been offered the uncomfortable alternative either of devoting much valuable time and pains to revising and correcting his sermons for another man's profit, or of allowing them to go forth unrevised, he chose, as the least of two evils, the latter course. So should I, were I given the choice, of which, however, it appears I am not worthy.

The editor adds that "it is impossible for him to yield to any further claim of mine." Let me assure him that I made and make no claim upon him whatsoever. I fully anticipated, as I said in my former letter, that any claim of mine on him, either for justice or mercy, would "fall on deaf ears." Preachers are, as I said, "the natural prey and diet of religious editors;" and I have never heard that the carnivorous animals are much affected by the sufferings of the creatures upon which they dine.

All that I claimed was the right to disclaim all responsibility for the "bald, disjointed trash," which he has published as mine, and to warn intending purchasers of it as to what they would get for their money.

One word more on the general subject. I make no complaint of reporters. They do their best, often under very difficult circumstances, and it is no discredit to a country reporter if he is not as deft and practised as one of the staff of The Times, nor so well skilled in divinity as to qualify him for detecting doctrinal misstatements in his reports, which nevertheless may be distressing to a preacher. Nor do I in the least complain of the editors of local newspapers for publishing such reports. I am not so absurd as to expect that editors of newspapers should send me, even if it were always possible to do so, the proofs of my sermons or speeches, and still less that they should find space, to the exclusion of other matter, for sermons in extenso. I am quite content in this respect to share "neighbours' fare," and to suffer, as every public speaker must, the passing annoyance of some misquotation, which I can correct, if I care to do so, in the next day's paper, or the suppression of what I might wish had been published, but

which the editor, probably quite rightly, thought might not interest his readers. I know that all such reports will, in a day or two, find decent interment and oblivion in the common grave of speeches and sermons, the back files of old newspapers.

But it is quite another matter when some religious editor exhumes the mangled corpse, labels it as mine, and displays it in an exhibition, "admission sixpence," in order that he may turn what I suppose he calls an honest penny at my expense. To protest against this may appear to the editor a "claim" so outrageous that he "declines to comment on it." To me it appears a perfectly just and reasonable protest against a practice which I had rather not describe by its proper name. I am, Sir, Yours faithfully,

W. C. PETERBOROUGH.

The Palace, Peterborough, June 22nd.

THE INAUTHORATED CORPSES.

TTM

WO Congresses, fifteen Legislatures, one House of Commons, and several hundred newspapers had sat upon the question of International Copyright for years; and nothing beyond pirated editions were ever hatched of it. As the honourable member for Lower Idaho pointed out in Congress: "If we can hike down the fruit of the centuries from the moss-gnarled trunks of an effete civilization over the sea, why in Paradise should we pay a dollar for a book when we can hook it for a dime? Let the good work go on." In England every vestryman knew that there were no votes to be obtained from authors, and no one could quite understand what it was the gang wanted, or why they should actually own what they had "made out of their heads, y' know," and the situation crystallized itself into a round game of grab. The American publishers began by giving an English author ten pounds for advance-sheets of a book which they brought out for fifty cents. Then the Sad Sea Wave Library would undercut the first firm, and produce a thirty cent edition; and last of all the Bowery Bloodsucker Serials" would set a muzzy German to abridge and adapt the book and would issue the mutilated fragments for a dime or ten cents. When a man had taken some trouble over his book and put perhaps one or two ideas into it, and was feeling happy, his friends would post him American variorum editions of that book to make him happier. Later

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on the American publisher discovered that it was not worth while to pay the author for advancesheets at all. The syndicates established an agency for appropriation, and their agents moved among the English printing-houses and turned the handle. of a printing press four or five times more than was necessary, and went away with the advancesheets. That was called Enterprise, and it made both the British and American reading public laugh.

Then the authors borrowed some writing-paper and wrote a petition to Parliament asking that the fight might be made if not a fair, at least a free one. They respectfully prayed that all the laws were on one side, but, they said, if the matter of copyrights were "left to be fought out by such instruments as your petitioners' resources allow they would ever pray, &c." Parliament being then extremely busy with a new scheme for Local Self-Government in Cornwall (which county had discovered that it was Phoenician and not British), said, "Let it be law as it is desired," and it was law.

Three days after it came into effect, the London representative of the great "publishing" firm of Fibbs and Glew met an author-man by appointment in the former's rooms.

"How is the Legend of the Spotted Death getting on ?" said the representative, with a grin.

"Gone to press," said the author. "What are you going to do about it ?"

"Nothing much. One of our men photoed the MS. page by page in the office, with a buttonhole camera. I've mailed the enlarged films to America, and I guess we've got the drop on your English firm this time."

"But I'm going to knock the thing about in proof a great deal," said the author. "There's more bad work in the last chapter than I care to think of."

"Can't help that," said the representative. "We must be first in the market if you wrote a revised edition of the alphabet with twenty-six misprints. However, we've dealt with you from way back. Here's a tenner. Take it or leave it."

He turned to his desk to get the money. When he faced round he was looking directly down the barrel of a 440 Derringer. His hands stiffened above his head, the bank note in the right fist.

"Who has the drop now?" said the author. "It's a fair fight at last-with such resources as we can command. Keep your hands up, please." "Don't be an ass," "said the representative. "This isn't a theatre."

uncle gives to a boy going to Eton, as well as to make hay of my sentences to suit your convenience. There was no law, and so you reverted to the primitive man. Quite right. Now you're going to learn the law just as a horse-thief in Idaho learns it-through fear of death and physical pain." He took the bank note from the uplifted hand. "Lie down on the hearth-rug with your hands behind you. I'm going to take all the money I can find in the office. Drop!"

The representative obeyed, and the author made investigations which repaid him for two years' sales of unauthorized editions.

"Now it's not safe," he concluded, "to leave you with a fighting hand. I should be within my right if I killed you as your countrymen kill horse-thieves. And let us be moral. Why do they kill horsethieves?"

"Because," said the representative, his face on the hearth-rug, the hearth-rug, "the assumption is that when you steal a horse you dismount a man, and the man may die in the wilderness."

"Exactly. How do you know where I wish to ride on these my books, and why do you try to dismount me before I dismount myself?"

Hold

"There was no law," said the representative. "The law has come now. It's primitive for the nineteenth century, but I think it will work. your right hand over the fender-rim; I don't want to spoil your carpet. There! Through the right wrist. That will cripple you for life. If you can shoot me with your left next time we meet, well and good. Then you can go on stealing without fear. Let me tie your hand up. We must all learn the Law with pain and sorrow. Good bye!"

The author departed while the representative lay fainting with his head in the fender. He came of

a nation eminently just at heart, so he brought neither a civil nor a criminal suit against the author, but went to the very best doctor and the best gunmaker in all London, and made arrangements to bring out an edition as soon as possible of that author-in boards-limited to one copy.

Τ'

LEAFLET No. III.

ON PAYING FOR PUBLICATION.

HOSE who pay for the publication of their works are young poets, travellers, novelists, essayists, and clergymen who bring out their sermons. The number of poets who at the present moment can dispense with the ceremony of pre-payment for publication is certainly small, probably not more than eight or nine. And there appears no indication of an immediate increase in their number. The handsome illustrated books of travel appear also, for the most part, and judging from the agreements sent to this Society, to be largely paid for by the author, who is asked to "guarantee," that is, to take and pay for, at a certain price, so many copies. The greater number, however, of those who pay for the production of their books are novelists. Now in the year 1889 lhere were 828 new novels published and 353 new editions of novels. (Let us here remark that both writing and publishing of novels ought to be in a healthy condition since so many new editions are called for.) Out of the 828 new works of fiction at least one-half are children's books or goody books, of which the output is enormous. Of the remaining half between two and three hundred are three volume novels; the rest are either six shilling one volume novels, or shilling stories. In any case at least two-thirds, and perhaps three-fourths, of this long list of novels are books paid for by the author.

The following is the invariable process. The author has written the book-perhaps with immense pains and trouble; perhaps he has "dashed" it off at odd moments when there was nothing else to do. In any case the MS. is at last ready. The writer of it now begins to send it round. He looks at the advertised lists of books. He selects a firm if he is wise, he begins with a big house : and he sends off his manuscript. He then waits with a beating heart for a reply. Presently he receives a polite answer declining the work. He tries another publisher with the same result. And a third-being rejected again. At this point he generally commits a fatal error. For, if he were a wise man, he would argue that (1), these firms all

VOL. I.

ardently desire to publish good work which they can sell; that (2), the fact of their refusal to publish his work shows that it lacks at least commercial value, if not literary merit; and that (3), he should now revise it and submit it to some third person, say one of the readers for this Society, for an independent opinion as to the cause of these repeated failures. But he does not take this line at all. He says, "Perhaps, if a great house will not take my MS., a smaller house will." Now, there are small houses of various kinds. Most of them mainly live by bringing out books which are paid for by the authors. Some of them do this work, which can hardly be called the highest class of publishing, honourably and honestly. Others, to put it mildly, do not. He goes to one of these and he pays for production.

Whether the author pays a large sum or a small sum need not here be considered. The question is, why he pays anything at all.

Consider. There are many authors and many publishers. But there is only one public. It is true that there are many branches of the public. One branch, for instance, likes sporting books, and another likes religious books; some like love stories and others like murders. Still only one public, wherever the author goes-for all publishers alike.

Let him ask this question then. If this public should refuse to buy this MS. if published-say by Longman or Bentley, of what other publisher would they buy it? and for what reason?. In other words:-If a MS. is offered to all the respectable houses in vain, it is refused because all the respectable houses are agreed in thinking that the public will have none of it. Where, then, is that other public which will demand it when it is published elsewhere?

In this Society, cases by the score-by the hundred-have been examined in which the author has had to pay for the production. Nay, in looking down the lists of new books advertised in the papers, we are able to name the books which are paid for because we know the houses which publish in this way. Seldom, indeed, does a case come before us in which the writer gets any of his money back. Never does he get any kôdos at all. He

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gets contemptuous reviews, his friends snigger at his failure, he writhes under the shame and pain of the plain truth and when his accounts come in there prove to have been no sales.

Only yesterday I read a letter from a young lady. She had paid £50, being deluded by glowing hopes, but not actual promises, of large profits to divide. The sales amounted to £1 2s. 9d. Sometimes, however, there are absolutely no sales at all.

Literary vanity is, of course, at the bottom of this folly. All the writer asks for is to be in print, only to be printed; if he can obtain this, as he always can on such terms, he will pay anything and sign anything. No rebuffs, no reader's opinions, no rejections can persuade him that his MS. is worthless, and that, whatever he pays, he will meet with nothing but disappointment, vexation and shame. He is quite sure that his work is brilliant and certain to succeed.

There are instances on record of books, after wards successful, having been refused by one publisher after the other. The famous and leading case of Vanity Fair is one. These instances do mightily comfort the rejected author. He feels himself a possible Thackeray if only he can get printed. Mistakes, he says, have occurred before.

now.

Readers are fallible. Mistakes may occur again. And perhaps the reader is also himself a novelist. We all know that jealousy is a common as well as a hateful vice. Or perhaps the reader knows some private enemy of the author and bears a grudge. What more likely than that the jealous reader should wish to smother a dangerous rival? Or perhaps the perfidious reader has not even taken the trouble to look at his work. Anyhow, since the best firms are so foolish as to refuse to make money by his work, some other shall have the chance. He will get it printed even though he has to pay for it. And so the output of worthless books is increased by one more, and the reviewers grow more and more savage over the swelling flood of rubbish, and the noble art of fiction is degraded and insulted. Will not the readers of this paper join in dissuading, by all means in their power, their friends from paying for production? EDITOR.

But he never paid me.

"I recently sent an article of a similar character, on which I had expended a considerable amount of trouble and time, to a monthly magazine. The editor has now lost it. I have kept no copy, and must write it again. Is there no redress?

"A publisher lately signed an agreement in which he covenanted to bring out a written work in a certain series at a certain price. He has printed the work and now refuses to bring it out, alleging that he believes it would be a failure. He offers the author the printed sheets for the price of setting up the work. What should the author do?"

If such a thing should now occur of an editor accepting a MS., publishing it in his paper, and refusing payment, the author has only to bring the case before the Society and he will get redress. But the Society cannot take up old cases.

As for losing a MS. most editors find it necessary to warn authors that they will not be responsible for losing MSS. If contributors could see the piles of MSS. offered to every editor they would not be surprised at this stipulation.

The third question is one for a lawyer to consider. The proposer of the case should sent up all the agreements and letters to the Secretary.

"When an author has paid for the publication of a book is it fair on the part of the publisher to sell the remainder of the edition as waste paper without consulting the author, without giving him the choice of buying up the remaining copies, which he would assuredly in many cases be glad to do at a price even above that of waste paper?

"If the publisher is entitled to do this can the poor author lay no claim to a share in the proceeds of this melancholy transaction?"

The reply to the last question is that the agreement generally contains a clause giving the publisher such power. It is for the author before signing the agreement to make a stipulation that he shall first be consulted If he has paid for the publication all the copies should be his own, and the remainder of the stock should be sent to him as soon as the sale is finished.

Up to the present, authors have always felt that to have an MS. published in a magazine was to ensure payment according to the scale of the magazine. This prop appears about to be knocked from under them. An enterprising publisher has now hit upon the ingenious plan of getting work into his magazine for nothing. His method and the generosity of his soul are shown in a letter addressed to an author. He says that he has been in consultation with the editor of the Magazine since he received the writer's MS. The Editor is willing to insert this story as a serial, if it is illustrated. This the Firm would be willing to do at their expense, "if you are willing to make over the story to us free of charge." Should the Firm, in the future, think to bring out the work as a volume, they should perhaps be able to offer some small sum. The pages of the magazine, he says, are full for twelve months to come, but the Firm will retain the MS. and insert it after that period if the writer wishes. "It would have the effect of placing your name before the public at all events."

He goes on to say, "The Firm feel that the publication is such a speculation, that considering that a great deal of money will have to be spent upor. illustration and advertising before its publication, no payment can be offered to the author until the work appears in book form." The letter concludes with these words: "We have really only made the offer to insert the story in the magazine so as to try and give you some encouragement to continue writing."

Observe upon this:-1. The publisher, considering the vast sums he spends on illustrating and advertising his magazine, cannot pay for the work at all. The same reasons apply to all other contributions. Therefore, we suppose, he has a good reason for paying nobody. 2. The author is to give him the copyright of the work. If he chooses, he is to give her "some small sum," whether it succeeds or not. Even if it turns out to be a great success, he is not bound to give the author anything. 3. This noble offer is wholly disinterested and prompted by nothing but a disposition to help a struggling author! Generous, large-hearted, wholesouled Patron of Letters! One other observation presents itself. How enviable is the lot of the

editor of such a magazine!

"In your last_number, quoting Mr. Rider Haggard's letter to Messrs. Rand, McNally & Co., you very justly denounce what you call a 'new terror to literary men.' But this piratical liberty of mutilating as well as stealing literary property is by no means new. It must be some fifteen years ago that I picked up by chance on an American book

VOL. I.

stall a little book of my own, which, without my knowledge, had been fitted for theft by the alteration of phrases likely to wound transatlantic susceptibilities. I fancy such a process of judicious editing of stolen matter is far from uncommon. Has no enterprising American firm thought of bringing out a revised edition of the Bible, with desirable omissions-for instance, of the eighth commandment ! We can sympathize with Mr. Rider Haggard; but he must not expect from all robbers the courtesy of a Claude Duval." A. R. H. M.

"Do warn,” a lady writes, "all young authors of the folly of doing all or nearly all their work for one editor. Editors die, or, as in my case, take up another paper or magazine, and the faithful old contributor finds her position changed.

All

"Ten years ago I did an immense amount of work for a certain paper, which we will call the Strand Circus-essays, stories, &c. It was then edited by the eldest son of the proprietor, and I was given to understand that it would be worth my while to work away at the Strand Circus, to study its interests, and not go roving here and there with MSS. Therefore I declined offers of work from other papers, and never sought new openings. went well for many years. Then the father died; his son had to take over other work, and a new editor was appointed." The sequel may be guessed. The warning, however, is serious. Let no young author be contented with one magazine or journal. In every fresh opening he should find another pillar of support, and another body of readers and friends.

Bad authors create bad publishers. This fact, once fully apprehended, should be an incentive to the production of good work. But perhaps the statement wants explanation. A correspondent furnishes an illustration.

"A lady once wrote to me 'as a successful author'—I had at that time published one indifferent novel, which had been gently reviewedasking my advice under the following conditions. She had published three novels at her own expense, not one of which had attracted any attention. What did I think she had better do now? The style of her stationery, as well as this confession, pointed to her being wealthy, while the literary style of her letter proved that she had no idea of writing at all.

"This experience directed me in certain inquiries, and I discovered how the idiotic three volume novels which are found in circulating libraries at

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