VOL. XXXI.

If one would write a successful novel he should have clearly in mind, at the outset, the kind of success at which he will choose to aim; in general, whether he looks for immediate financial reward, for a great moral effect, to exploit a favorite theory, or for a permanent artistic creation.

He may intend to write a story that shall simply entertain the reader in a pleasant way, like a stroll through a garden full of flowers in full bloom, all of which are common and familiar. This is the easiest story to write,

Awarded the prize offered by Books and the Book World of the New York Sun for the best short article by any author on any phase of book writing.

No. 11.

.and in this field facility may be most certainly cultivated and most extensively exercised. The reader will readily recall writers who supply the market by a steady output, which finds an immediate sale and a year or two later appears in abundance on the second-hand stalls at one-sixth of the publisher's price. These writers sometimes candidly reveal their process as so many hours a day at the typewriter, producing so many words each week. They never are like Dickens, who sometimes sat all day, pen in hand, without thinking of a word to write. But it is not necessary to despise these decidnovels; they have their place as properly as the candy shop has its place among the more serious establishments in Main street. Children are not the only

uous

lovers of candy.

Or, the writer may choose to entertain by constructing a plot that will arouse the reader's curiosity and challenge his ingenuity at guessing in advance of its successive revelations. This includes the detective story. It cannot be produced by any measured click of the writing machine, and by many good writers it cannot be produced at all. If the plot is its only characteristic, all the other elements being commonplace, it may be fairly successful even largely successful in immediate sales but, as the rocket stick descends in the last chapter, no one ever turns to the book a second time and the circulation comes to an early end.

Or, the writer's main purpose may be to set forth picturesquely the peculiar traits and social habits of a chosen community at some definite period. This, whether of a long past or of a recent time, is the historical novel. The more ambitious ones are founded on a real or pretended study of people and manners in a remote time and region, with unnecessarily careful attention

to costumes. Some of the best known are of questionable accuracy; and the value of some, even if accurate, is subject to doubt.

Or, a writer may choose the story as the best medium for calling wide attention to a prevalent wrong, expecting thereby to secure its condemnation and abolition. But the beneficent purpose cannot dispense with the necessity for interest as a story. A writer who assumes this task is not likely to escape the rule that all art involves some degree of exaggeration.

Or, the writer may use a story as the means of setting forth a minute psychological study of a soul beset by special cir

cumstances or subjected to peculiar influences. Here again the narrative must have something of life and motion; otherwise the psychology might better be expended in an essay for those who read minutely and with a considerable ingredient of study.

Or, the writer may have a conception of a novel and interesting character and set it forth as the central figure of a well constructed story, furnishing for this character a good background of significant incidents and minor characters. The central figure may be from history, but for the highest success it must be a pure creation. NEW YORK, N. Y.

Rossiter Johnson.

My acquaintance with editors during the past thirty years has been extensive and peculiar. On the whole I like editors very much better than I liked my masters at school and college. I have found them more amenable. I am sure I shall not be offending any one of the living editors with whom I have had dealings by describing some of their idiosyncrasies. I am writing more especially of their idiosyncrasies in the poetical market.

I never knew more than two editors who had any idea of poetry or maybe I had better say verse; it is a more comprehensive

term.

One I knew very well. He has passed away. De mortuis nil nisi bonum and the latter word should generally be spelled "bunkum " but were he alive today I should, and could, have nothing but good to say of him. Now that he is no more, I reverence his memory. The only fault I ever found with him was that he would incessantly urge me to take up New Spelling, whereas if there is a thing I hate it is the spelling of "through" as "thru," and "night" as "nite," and so on. I remember how thoroughly disgusted he was when I told him facetiously I much preferred Esperanto.

Another editor I remember for whose opinion about verse I have n't the slightest respect, who showed me galley on galley of verse which he had accepted for his magazine.

"There is a thousand dollars' worth of verse on those galleys," said he, "all of which I have paid for, and heaven only knows when the verses will be used." Some time after that he sent for me. His boss intended to bring out a new magazine a new technical magazine. Would I write the initial poem for it? It was a magazine devoted to the railway world. What did I know about trains? Very little, and that little I would give worlds to forget. It appeared, therefore, that I was the very man for the job. I set to work and evolved out of my imagination nearly fifty lines about a train going at full speed through town and country. I sent the poem to the editor and was again summoned to his presence. The poem is all right," said he, "but you have made the train stop." I smiled. "Surely it must stop sometime and somewhere." "Not at all," responded my reviser, "the train must go on forever." I altered the poem, and that train is still running! I am not quite sure whether the magazine is, or not. I said that the poem consisted of about fifty

lines. The editor insulted me very lightly by sending me a check for Five Dollars. When I objected, he replied that the magazine was new and he could not at the moment

afford to pay me any more. He would see that it was made up to me later on. He never did!

There was another editor, too, who was in the habit of accepting a great deal of my verse and paying me disgracefully. He palliated his offence, however, by treating me to luncheon very frequently, so I forgave him, for, as you know, a poet will do anything to obtain a meal!

Once upon a time I wrote about twelve lines which for the life of me I could not understand. I can't understand them now. A lady friend informed me, after reading them, that they were the product of my subconscious self. Very likely they were; one never knows what that little demon is up to. I am sure I could never have written them in a lucid interval. I took these lines to an editor, who read them and accepted them on the spot. The time of acceptance, as I remember, was immediately after the editor's luncheon hour. The lines appeared, and then I tackled my editor. "Do you know what on earth those lines mean?" I asked. “No!” he replied, "but I was hoping you might." I confessed I did n't. "Well, no matter," said he consolingly, "they look mighty pretty!"

Another would-be poetical editor he was a rustic and how he ever obtained his would position I can't conceive to this day insist on revising my verse according to his views, until I was a fit subject for a lunatic asylum. He had no idea of metre or of rhythm, but unfortunately he knew he was an editor. He was really more than conscious of that fact. I am truly sorry for that man, for and I am sure I drove him to this awful extreme he took to writing free verse, and so far as I know anything about that peculiar madness he writes it very well. I leave him to his terrible fate, for that is revenge enough for me. He was really very simple.

-

This same well, "adjective jerker" seems the most appropriate name for him told me that he wanted contributions which were "casual and mellow." I understood

a milk-and

what he meant by "casual' watery Stephen Leacock style but wh.t in the world he wished to convey by the word "mellow" I never could understand. I rather expect he wanted me to sacrifice at the shrine of Bacchus until my writing became "mellow" enough to suit his columns. I gave up trying after a time. Apparently I did n't use the same brand he did!

And here is an instance worth relating, as it shows the desirability of not tearing up manuscripts, unless they are purely ephemeral, and not even then, sometimes. A Sunday editor accosted me on the street, asking whether I had any verse which might be acceptable to him. I was diffident. He insisted that I must have a whole trunkful of rejected manuscripts. I had. Would I send him some of them? I would, and did. The next Sunday, to my absolute astonishment, a dozen of my verses appeared in the periodical which he was editing! And he paid me for them, too!

Then there were other editors. A comic journal editor, who had been a free lance, and so knew how to commiserate my lot, used to accept manuscripts of mine day after day until he had to compromise by paying me off at the rate of so much a week. (In those days, I should mention, this particular journal paid on publication). Another comic journal editor met me and inquired whether Pegasus had galloped away from my part of the world. I replied in the negative, but he was sure, so he said, that I had for the time being written myself out, so far as verse was concerned. He then and there gave me an order for a prose screed, not to exceed 1,500 words. I wrote this in an hour, and received Forty-five Dollars for my contribution. That editor is alive still, and I love him!

Lately I had an idea of compiling an Anthology of real vers de société, contributed to the newspapers and magazines of late years. I put my project before a publisher, who promptly told me that it would be an extremely small book, as there were very few vers de société poets in the country. From a pretty close observation I think he was right; but that is matter for another story. La Touche Hancock.

CHICAGO, Ill.

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com

tors and photographers, without the use of type. The Literary Digest has distinguished itself by producing two full-size numbers in this way. The copy is carefully typewritten, and the pages are made up by pasting the typewritten sheets on large sheets of cardboard, with prints of the cuts to be used pasted in the proper place, and the headings put in by artists with a pen or brush. Errors in typewriting discovered by the proofreaders are corrected by re-typewriting the lines and pasting the corrected line in each case over the line with the misprint. This, of course, is a delicate operation, but the work is no greater than the work of correcting a line of linotype misprint. When corrections have been made, the page is photographed and a zinc piate is made, the size of the type being somewhat reduced in the process. The printing is done from these zinc plates. The result is a good-looking magazine, a little hard to read because typewriter type solid, reduced somewhat in size, is not so legible as ordinary leaded print. The lines of print cannot be spaced, on the linotype, to make them all of equal length, and so the right-hand margins of the columns are irregular. If a new face of type, like that of ordinary print, is provided for the typewriter, however, and if some way can be found to space the lines to make them of equal length, magazine pages can be produced by this process which will compare well with pages set in type, and it is possible that the strike of the typesetters in New York may in the end greatly reduce the amount of the work that typesetters have to do. It is a question whether good taste requires that the printed lines of prose, any more than the lines of poetry, shall be of equal length. Benjamin R. Tucker, a publisher who brought out books in Boston and New York, used to print books and his magazine, Liberty, with no attempt to space the lines to even length, his idea being that the saving of expense in setting type atoned for the irregular appearance of the page.

as

Some writers seem to think that editors have a prejudice against folded manuscripts, and take pains to supply themselves with