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LITERARY INTELLIGENCE 490 ; REVIEWS, &c ...
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St. Dunstan's House, E.C., May 1, 1890.
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QOMEBODY recently rushed into print ^ wi...
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.
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Transcript
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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.
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490 -Liic j _ uuiioncio v ^ May 1 , i 8 qo H ]
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Literary Intelligence 490 ; Reviews, &C ...
LITERARY INTELLIGENCE 490 REVIEWS , & c 5 l ) 2 BOOKS AND RUMOURS OF BOOKS 491 ! INDEX TO BOOKS PUBLISHED IN GREAT
NOTES AND NEWS 494 BRITAIN BETWEEN APRIL 15 & 30 5 ( J ( J AMERICAN NOTES AND NEWS 496 ! BOOKS PUBLISHED IN GREAT BRITAIN FROM CONTINENTAL NOTES .,......,. 497 ; APRIL 16 TO 30 :, () 7
BOOKSELLERS OF TO-DAY . - ! RECENT FOREIGN WORKS ... , ....,. > n III . —MESSRS . BICKER 3 & SOX 498 NEW BOOKS AND BOOKS LATELY PUBOLD AND NEW STYLES 4 ¦ IX TYPOGRAPHY ¦ ¦ .... 498 i LISHED .. f >! 2
^^ ^ b ^ H ^ fc ^ ^ b ^^ ^ ta ^ ^&^ ^^ 1 flh ¦ * V r' *^ , ¦»¦ . ^* . » - * ^ fc ^» ^ if ^ k - * =. ¥ mf -n- 7- ~ _^ * v *~ J T — «* ¦ T . ¦ i * L-f ,, f V ? T ~ ^^ * - * ^^^^ ^^ " * ^ " ^ ^^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^ vwwvv . " — _ .. ^ H ^ V ^ TTIf irrHffVip ^ ll ^^^ VWITTV KlV .. frtm ... BOHN'S CATALOGUES . 499 \ MISCELLANEOUS .................................. - MUDIE'S LIBRARY FROM AN AMERI CAN POINT i BUSINESS CARDS 54254 : ;
, OF VIEW 500 BUSINESSES FOR SALK - 544 ' , ^ : , BOOKSTALLS OX QUAYS . .... 500 ' ASSISTANTS WANTED ., 545
THE GLADSTONE LIBRARY ...................... 501 SITUATIONS WANTED ; ,-, TRADE CHANGES 501 | BOOKS FOR SALE .... ! i 4 tj i
IN MEMORIAM 501 , BOOKS WANTED TO PURCHASE in ;
St. Dunstan's House, E.C., May 1, 1890.
St . Dunstan ' s House , E . C ., May 1 , 1890 .
Qomebody Recently Rushed Into Print ^ Wi...
QOMEBODY recently rushed into print ^ with the startling announcement that for
one reader of books in the United Kingdom there are a score in the United States .
Assertions of this kind have often been made before , though the charge , we are inclined to
think , has never been put in a more sweeping form . It is , of course , easy to make
statements of this kind , and ordinary people in the absence of any means of testing the
accuracy of the matter for themselves are apt to settle down at last into the conviction
that the often-repeated and uncontradicted assertion is true . We are glad , therefore , to
think that the statement in its latest and most j extravagant form has not been allowed to
pass unchallenged ; and it is all the more gratifying to find that the cudgels have been
taken up on behalf of English readers by an American critic , and one , moreover , who
knows better than most men what is the actual public appreciation of literature on the
other side of the Atlantic . In the pages of the current number of the
North American Review , an able comparison is instituted by Mr . Bunce between the
English and American book markets , in the course of which some neglected facts are
pointed out . For example , Mr . Bunce appeals ; with business-like directness to the financial
returns of authorship , and argues that a by no means unfair test of the reading activity of
the people is to be found in the rewards they are willing to mete out to the men and women
whose books they admire . Single books in reading the United public States b , which tormsuc have h as taken 4 Uncle the
y , Tom Hur , ' s Cabin and two / * The , or Wido three Wide others World , have , ' ' , Ben of
course , brought their authors fortune , as well as fame ; but profits at all corresponding to
those which rewarded the genius of Sir * s , . . „ . „ .,. ,. - ., i ,, ;?¦; ' m » - . - . - •¦• ¦ ' : : : , „ . . ,. ; . ,
Walter Scott , Charles Dickens , Bulwer Lytton , Eliotand Lord
George , Macaulay , have had no parallel in America . It may be urged in
reply that Mr . Bunce forgets that American 1 literature cannot claim , as yet , to have
produced writers of the same rank ; though , in I saying this , we have no wish even for a
j moment to ignore the splendid services to letters of men like Emerson , Nathaniel
Hawthorne , Longfellow , Russell Lowell , or ; Wendell Holmes . It is rather discouraging ,
; by the way , in this connection to find that a distinctly third-rate writer , like the late Mr . E . P . Roe , was ' the most successful of recent
American novelists / and such a circumstance is a reflection on the taste , if not the healthy
instincts , of the rank and file of trans-Atlantic readers . Mr . Bunce goes so far as to say that
he knows of no American author publishing rapidly book after book whose average receipts
compare at all favourably with those of English authors of corresponding rank and- reputation .
Even so far as exceptional books are concerned books written by men of acknowledged
genius—England , he declares , ' still pays much more liberally' than America .
We have reprinted elsewhere what Mr . Bunce has to say about the English circulating
library system and the manner in which it renders possible the publication of books
which otherwise would have a poor chance of finding their way into the market . At the
same time , the reference to * Mudie ' s , splen < li < l orders' is one which suggests the possibility
of two opinions , and some publishers on this side of the water may possibly wince at such
an allusion . We cannot pretend in this column to deal one by one with the points raised
in the article in question ; indeed , all who an ; specially concerned with the subject ought U >
read Mr . Bunco ' s criticisms for themselves . There is unquestionably much truth in tin ?
contention , however , that one of the best m /\ f- K /\ / I a / vt / Ynii / vimrv # * ri a / tAinnntvaiiirA 11 f- / " > TVl 1 'V
., _ ^_ r-r . —~ M
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Citation
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Publishers’ Circular (1880-1890), May 1, 1890, page 490, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/pc/issues/tec_01051890/page/4/
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