On this page
- Departments (2)
-
Text (5)
-
R^^ SaHXi ^^ J^^ — ^J u ^^^ .... ^ - j^ ...
-
I oo^TiEisnrs I
-
LITERARY INTELLIQENOB 106 MR. H. M. STAN...
-
St. Dunstan's House, E.C. February 1, 1890.
-
A UTHORS and publishers and the growth -...
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
R^^ Sahxi ^^ J^^ — ^J U ^^^ .... ^ - J^ ...
R ^^ SaHXi ^^ J ^^ — ^ J u ^^^ .... ^ - j ^ - ^ ' . ^^ . r y ^ J - ^ i- ^ " . ^ " Jj , ^^ J . ^ . ^ ' " ^ ' : ^ . '""* i " •""" " . " : ;"' . " — : vi , " t * - i .. •/"'' . ' ,.: ; . ; . ; ' ' ¦¦ ; - ;¦ ¦ -- ¦ ¦——¦¦ -- ^ - ^ " ' - *~ ¦¦¦ ¦; ¦ ¦ - ¦¦¦¦ ' - ¦¦¦;;¦ " ' ¦'¦'¦¦" . ¦ ¦ - ¦ ¦¦ - ¦¦¦¦¦¦•¦• - ' ¦ £ ¦ ¦¦ - ¦ - ;; r :. "'\" i \/ i' ; rvr ^ iJ 4 ! jji !| iC !^^ B ; : ¦ ' ; . ; ¦ ' ' : ; - ' ¦ , ¦ . '¦ - ¦ " ¦ . . '¦¦¦" ' ¦ ¦ ¦ : ' '" ' - * : ' ' ' ¦'¦ " ¦ * ¦ : / : , ' ¦ ' ^ v ^ to $ . The Publishers' Circular Fek-.-tj !«« ; > ;
I Oo^Tieisnrs I
I oo ^ TiEisnrs I
Literary Intelliqenob 106 Mr. H. M. Stan...
LITERARY INTELLIQENOB 106 MR . H . M . STANLEY 107
BOOKS AND RUMOURS OF BOOKS 107 NOTES AND NEWS 109 AMERICAN NOTES AND NEWS ill
CONTINENTAL NOTES Ill IN TENNYSON-LAND 113 OUR COLONIAL EMPIRE 114
INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT 114 THE COPYRIGHT QUESTION IN SOUTH AMERICA 116 BOOKSELLERS'PROVIDENT INSTITUTION 116
MR . WILKIE COLLINS * LIBRARY life CANON LIDDON ON DR . DOLLINGER 116 SALE OF RARE BIBLES 117
THE RIVERSIDE PRES 3 117
TRADE CHANGES 117
INMEMORIAM ng REVIEWS , & c . Us
INDEX TO BOOKS PUBLISHED IN GREAT BRITAIN BETWEEN JANUARY 16 & 31 123 BOOKS PUBLISHED IN GREAT BRITAIN FROM
JANUARY 16 TO 31 ,... 124 RECENT FOREIGN WORKS 12 »
NEW BOOKS AND BOOKS LATELY PUBLISHED 129 ' MISCELLANEOUS 148
BUSINESS CARDS 157 , 158 BUSINESS FOR SALE 160 SITUATIONS WANTED 160
ASSISTANTS WANTED * 160 BOOKS FOR SALE 161
BOOKS WANTED TO ^ PURCHASE 161
St. Dunstan's House, E.C. February 1, 1890.
St . Dunstan ' s House , E . C . February 1 , 1890 .
A Uthors And Publishers And The Growth -...
A UTHORS and publishers and the growth - £ * - of literature and bookselling in the
modern world form the subject of a couple of capJkital articles which Dr . Samuel Smiles has
just contributed to the pages of Murray ' s Magazine . The author of * Self-Help' shows
that the publication of books by' copy-money ' and by . subscription began about the same
time . He quotes Hearne , the antiquary , who stated that Dr . Henry Hammond ' was the
first man in England that had copy-money , ' and that he received it for his * Annotations on
the New Testament * which was printed in 1653 . The iirst book published in England
by subscription appeared four years later and was a Polyglot Bible prepared by Dr . Bryan
Walton . The lights and shadows of authorship in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries are passed in rapid but picturesque survey by Dr . Smiles , who reminds us that * the editors of ' Paradise Lostwere much
better remunerated than Milton himself ' ; that ' Robinson Crusoe' went the round of the
trade before Defoe could find a publisher for it ; and that it was reserved for Samuel
Johnson to break the back of patronage and to ' lift literature out of the slums of Grub Street . '
It was long , however—Johnson notwithstanding—before th * e literary calling recovered from
the contempt passed upon it with pen and pencil by Pope and Hogarth .
The alleged illiberality of publishers to authors is declared by Dr . Smiles to be a
grievance as old as the art of book-making . He contends that the publisher , as well as the
bookseller , is directly concerned in advancing literature , and he does not hesitate to assert that
the reason why so many books fail is because the peop *""• le who ¦ wrote them have nothing ? .
original / to say , or what they Bay is said badly . The man who deals ' in literary wares enters ¦ ' ¦' " ' ' " ' ¦ - " ' "' . " ' ¦* ¦ ' ' ¦'¦ ¦ ¦ " ¦ '
upon his business not as a philanthropist but
as a publisher , and the more books he sells the better for him , whether he issues them on his
own account or sells them on commission . It is therefore ridiculous , argues Dr . Smilesto
suppose that a publisher would refuse to pur , - chase a book which he considered to have a
reasonable chance , either to * depress an author or to discourage literature . ' The market in
literature , like every other market , feels the ebb and flow of the law of supply and demand
and the risks which publishers run are quite , as real and more substantial than . those of
authors . * Bookselling , ' declared Sir Walter Scott , ' is the most ticklish and unsafe and
hazardous of all professions , scarcely with the exception of horse-jockeyship . I apprehend
that upon the whole the account between the trade and the authors of Britain at large is
pretty fairly balanced ; and what these gentlemen gain , at the expense of one class of
writers , is lavished , in many cases , in bringing forward other works of little value . ' Dr .
Smiles's sensible remarks , upon which we have so far made a running commentary , deserve
the attention of both authors and publishers , for he has endeavoured to do justice to both
sides of an old and difficult problem . Publishers , we may addare supposed
according to a grhn old joke , to , be gentlemen , who wno drink armK champagne cnampagne out out of ot authors authors' ' sskulls kulk .
and unappreciated authors have always been , fond of venting their chagrin in bitter
epigrams which only reveal more clearly the discontent which gave them birth . Too ***
frequently , a man who has written a book develops into a man with a grievance . He is
chilled by the lack of appreciation with which his efforts have been received . The
apathy of the public hurts his pride , and dissipates ^¦ ^ ----- that . mild vision ...... — * - ^ - „ of ¦¦* fame ¦¦¦ - ^ m- ^ VKV ^* ^ K ^ which 9 W M . W"H ^ P ^ * W * W * he T ***•¦ ^^
secretly cherished . That the book on which he has lavished so much toil and skill should
-
-
Citation
-
Publishers’ Circular (1880-1890), Feb. 1, 1890, page 106, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/pc/issues/tec_01021890/page/4/
-