statement about his book can serve no useful purpose. He has either put what he meant to into his manuscript — in which case the Reader will find it or he has failed to do so, in which case there is small advantage in knowing the nature and extent of his failure. Be satisfied to let your manuscript speak for itself.

When a manuscript has been entered in the manuscript book it becomes a number, like a convict or an automobile; and this number remains affixed to it throughout its whole period of probation. The manuscript book, by the way, differs widely in different offices. It may contain merely a laconic note of the dates of reception and return; or, in more methodical offices, it will show the entire history of the manuscript during every hour of its sojourn, into whose hands it passes, and what was the nature of the opinion in each case. Some houses supplement the manuscript book with a card catalogue, arranged under the names of authors, which serves the useful purpose of automatically checking any attempt, to resubmit the same manuscript a practice by no means rare, and prompted by the illusive hope that it may be given to a different and more sympathetic first Reader.

Every office has its own system of weeding out manuscripts and assigning them for their first reading. The ideal condition, of course, would be for the publisher himself to read personally every manuscript submitted, since no one else can know so well as he just what sort of books he is looking for. A member of a New York firm confessed, in a moment of genial expansion, that he was never happier in his life than during the months of the firm's humble beginnings, when manuscripts came in SO slowly that he and his partner did all the reading themselves. Such a condition is necessarily transitory; and the need for a first Reader becomes imperative, to play much the part that a fuse does in an electric light system, and hold back a large part of the literary voltage. Subsequent readings are a different matter; and it is no exaggeraen to say that to-day, in three-fourths of

the publishing houses, and especially in those that are most alive and up to date, the members of the firm are, to a large extent, their own second and third Readers.

The question not infrequently asked by the outsider is, What sort of a person is a publisher's Reader? And at first sight, it seems to be one of the most hopeless questions to answer, for it would be hard to find another vocation in which there is a greater outward dissimilarity. Readers are of all ages and degrees of training, from the elderly university man, with a lifetime of vicissitudes behind him, to the alert young woman from a country town, equipped with a scant high school education and a valuable fund of adaptability. In some cases it is a society woman, whom a sudden shift of fortunes has forced to become self-supporting ; or, again, a man who has graduated from the advertising department into the literary branch. But young and old, men and women alike, they all possess certain qualities in common; they are all necessarily broadly sympathetic, calm and deliberate in their judgments, and wide awake to the possibilities that may be dormant in each manuscript that comes into their hands. Their business is not solely that of establishing literary standards — although these must be kept in mind-but of passing upon a business proposition; their duty is not so much to say this book is bad, as to suggest what might possibly be done to it to make it good. These facts explain why, although several valued publisher's Readers are creative writers, with a novel or two to their credit, it is extremely rare to find a critic who succeeds as a professional Reader. The critic has trained himself to judge with a certain finality, whether favorably or unfavorably; . and he has the right to do this, because he is judging of a thing which has reached its definite and finished form. The publisher's Reader, on the contrary, always keeps in mind the possibility of revision; a manuscript is still potentially something in the course of development; the difference is not unlike that between the child and the adult; and the wise publisher's Reader is indulgent

toward faults, knowing that, as in the case of childhood, a manuscript may be made to outgrow them.

Naturally, no Reader is infallible; and the mistake which every first Reader is most carefully warned against is that of letting something really good slip through his fingers. A misplaced enthusiasm, unfounded praise of a book that proves to be mediocre, does no more serious harm than to waste a little time, since no book is finally accepted without many readings, but the first Reader's verdict, when negative, is in many cases final. And an incompetent first Reader, armed with too much authority, may do a good deal of harm through a long period of time before his incompetence is discovered. Here is the actual experience of one New York house: The manuscript department was largely in control of one young woman; the manuscripts she recommended received a second reading, but all the rest were returned unquestioned. Some of her recommendations were in the nature of over-praise, but, on the whole, her opinions seemed sane, and in no case was she responsible for books that proved to be actual failures.

But at the end of scme fifteen months, the manuscript records showed that she had turned down no less than six manuscripts any one of which the house would have been glad to take, and which, published elsewhere, had subsequently figured in the "bestseller" lists.

on the

Another publisher, commenting above case, said: "This seems to me an extraordinary and unnecessary case. I do not think that it could possibly happen to us, because of the system under which we work. When I have occasion to employ a new Reader, I begin by holding forth in a lengthy disquisition as to just what I want in the form of a Reader's opinion. First of all, it must tell me what the book is about, what the author has tried to put into it. I want him to tell me what the book is; I don't want to hear what the book is n't. He can tell me what his own opinion of the book is, but, first of all, I want him to give me facts that will enable me to form my own. If he does this, there is no fear of

anything really good getting by us, even if the Reader does underrate it."

But, notwithstanding this optimistic view, the fact remains that Readers do frequently let choice prizes slip through their fingers. It is not so many years since a patient and persistent beginner in fiction steadily bambarded the portals of a certain high-class monthly magazine, only to have his offerings returned to him, with the perfunctory. courtesy of the rejection slip. At length, to his great surprise, he received one day a letter from the editor-in-chief, expressing cordial appreciation of a story which had been published in another magazine, and begging the author to submit some of his work. And in the sequel, a goodly number of the stories previously turned down by the first Reader were published in that very magazine, and later brought out in book form by the same house.

It is a curious paradox that the very fact that constant reading of mediocre matter tends to blunt the literary taste forms one of the Reader's safeguards against blunders. It is easy to see how this happens. As already said, when a Reader thinks a certain book better than it really is, no great harm has been done, because the second or third Reader will check his mistake. It is the Reader who blindly misses something very good who commits what is irreparable. But. if you question any veteran Reader, he will tell you that the more his mind becomes blunted by the endless reading of trash, the quicker he is to grasp at even a gleam of intelligence, while a book that rises above mediocrity becomes magnified into a masterpiece. "I may over-praise," said one Nestor of the profession, "but the more tired I am the less danger there is of letting anything good slip by." And in further illustration, he instanced one of his own blunders, a fulsome eulogy of a ponderous and dull historical novel. "The truth is," he said, "I was so sick of fiction that the fact this was almost all history and hardly any story was such a mental relief that it struck me at the time as a very wonderful book."

It is a pity that professional etiquette for

bids the mention by name of novels that every one knows and that suffered many vicissitudes, and in some cases were saved from rejection by the scant margin of a single voice. One of the best sellers of two seasons ago serves as a case in point. The manuscript was handed over to a certain special Reader, whose verdict usually carried some weight. He was told that the house so far was divided in its views, with the weight of opinion against it. The next morning. when the Reader returned with his opinion, he was met with the words: "I am sorry we troubled you, but we have just written rejecting the book." 'Has the letter gone?" asked the Reader; "because if it has n't I want you to listen to me." It happened that the letter had not gone; but an hour later another letter went in its place, accepting the book unqualifiedly.

Here is the inside history of still another novel which a few years ago was being read and discussed throughout the breadth of the continent; it had gone to two publishers, been returned by the first without comment, and by the second after a personal interview with the author, who refused to consent to the imposed condition of changing the plot to a "happy ending." Every Reader and member of the firm had written favorable reports; the book was rejected on the statement of the head traveling salesman that "it would not sell." A third publisher happened to run across this manuscript reposing on the desk of a magazine editor. A casual question elicited the reply that the editor had read only the first few chapters. but that it was obviously hopeless. The publisher, happening to know some of the previous magazine work of the author in question, borrowed the manuscript, sat up the greater part of the night in a breathless reading of it, and wrote to the author in post haste, making an offer for the book rights. "But," he says, emphatically, "the editor was dead right in his opinion, as based on a reading of the opening chapters. The author had not caught the right stride until about Chapter V, and our only condition was that Chapters I to IV should be eliminated."

Probably the most important services rendered by Readers of the higher type and to a large extent, this means members of publishing houses is in the nature of advice as to revision. Publishers, editors, anď professional Readers are constantly and willingly giving the benefit of their experience to young authors seeking guidance. Here is a striking instance: A woman of unusual discernment, who happened at the time to be reading both for a publishing house and for a magazine issued by it, came across a striking short story of the South Sea Islands, submitted to the magazine by an utterly unknown writer. The workmanship was crude, but the plot was so strong and unusual that the Reader wrote to the author, telling him that it was too good to be wasted on a short story, and that he ought to work it over into a novel. As a result, the author, who had had a life of exciting adventures in the Philippines and a rich store of material, put himself under this Reader's guidance; a year was spent in remaking the short story into a novel; the Reader's verdict was adverse. "Perhaps I was wrong," she admitted; "but perhaps the fault is yours; suppose you try again, making such and such changes." Another year passed, and a second time the Reader decided against the book. But this time the faults were obvious, and due partly to advice that the Reader now recognized was unwise, and partly to the author's misconception of her ideas. A third year produced a work that they both agreed was good, and that received a cordial endorsement of public approval when the house subsequently accepted and published it.

But there are other demands for wariness on the part of the professional Reader, as well as watching out for dormant genius. The kinds of knowledge demanded of him are of the most motley sort, and often so far outside of his presumed experience that the only wonder is that he does not blunder oftener. Ignorance and dishonesty on the part of authors both offer abundant pitfalls. Here is a suggestive little instance, not very serious in itself, but typifying the sort of blunder that might so easily slip past an

editor. An uncommonly well-written animal story, dealing with a fight to the death between two black leopards, caught the attention of the whole office staff of a certain popular magazine of adventure; it was really a careful piece of work, and, as subsequent inquiry revealed, was based upon many hours of patient study of a lithe and sleek black leopard formerly contained in the zoological collection in Bronx Park. But, unfortunately, the misguided author laid the scene of his story in a Mexican forest, and one member of the magazine staff happened to be enough of a naturalist to remember that black leopards, in their native haunts, are never found very far removed from the Malay peninsula.

Lastly, a word of two about the greatest tragedy that can befall the manuscript department of a publishing house - the loss of a manuscript. Most houses make it their proud boast that no manuscript has ever been lost by them; and, indeed, final and irrevocable loss is extremely rare. But all houses have had numerous attacks of acute temporary heartburn, with a complete overturning of the entire office machinery, in a mad and desperate hunt after the mislaid document.

A single case of actual loss has come to the attention of the present writer. It was several years ago, and happened to one of the largest publishing houses in the country, through the carelessness of a young boy employed to wrap and label the manuscripts to be returned. In some way, two of these manuscripts became confused and the first intimation that the firm had of the tragedy was when an irate author wrote to know why some one else's manuscript had been sent him in place of his own, and what the publishers proposed to do about it. Further inquiry revealed the additional tragedy that the other manuscript had gone hopelessly adrift; and the situation became still more painful when the author avowed his intention to hold the manuscript sent him by mistake, as a hostage, until his own was found. All this is now somewhat ancient history; but there are certain persons connected with the manuscript depart

ment of the house in question who to this day do not like to hear the words "lost manuscript" mentioned.

One young woman, with an enviable record for accuracy, when asked whether she could remember of any manuscript having been lost during her tenure of office replied decisively: "No, indeed, I never have any trouble in finding manuscripts; my trouble is to get rid of them!" And she then proceeded to instance one manuscript which had reposed in the office safe for more than twelve years, and was still waiting to be claimed. "Every month or two," she added, "when I have a little leisure time, I send out a whole batch of letters, begging authors to call for their manuscripts, or asking where they will authorize me to forward them. But usually I get no reply, or else a request to keep the manuscript a little longer, until the author has a permanent address."

All things considered, the publisher's Reader is a wholesome influence in the publishing world to-day. His influence is exerted chiefly in eliminating what is worthless and in raising the whole average standard of the great mass of writings that range from frank mediocrity to something just short of genius. A Reader's opinions must necessarily in a measure reflect the standards of the publishing house for which he reads; and here and there we may find a Reader whose tendency is to recommend changes of a sort that commercializes rather than improves. But this is the exceptional case. It may be said, without fear of contradiction, that most publishers and Readers to-day are co-operating in an honest attempt to raise the standard. They cannot lose sight of the fact that books are a business proposition, as well as an aesthetic delight; but they can, and do, stretch many a point in favor of the finer qualities. As one Reader, who happens also to be a member of a firm, expressed it: "If we did not publish at least one or two volumes a year on which we were fully prepared to lose money, we should think there was something radically wrong with us."

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of the Popular Magazine, which says: "There are no stories of the white slaves in the Popular Magazine, and the writers never seem to have heard of an instance of marital infelicity. It is good to pick up a magazine of this kind with stories of the healthy sort, stories of big enterprises undertaken by men, stories of the stock exchange, of the army and navy, of baseball and other sports, an occasional love story, too, with the curtain falling upon the marriage scene, not rising upon it."

A queer case, brought under the English libel law, has been before the courts in England. The English Illustrated Magazine a while ago published a story under the name of W. Pett Ridge, which, as it was shown in court, was written by a Bournemouth grocer's clerk. Mr. Pett Ridge brought a libel action, asserting that his reputation as a writer had been greatly injured by having credited to him such stuff as that written by the grocer's clerk. The magazine editor's defence was that he supposed that the manuscript, which came without a letter and with only a stamped envelope addressed to "W. Pett Ridge" enclosed, was one of Mr. Pett Ridge's earlier efforts. He offered two guineas for it, while Mr. Pett Ridge's price, according to his counsel, for a story of equal lengthtwenty columns is twenty guineas. Jerome K. Jerome, testifying as an expert about the damage to the author's reputation, said that editors watch the work of authors, and that any one reading this story in the English Illustrated Magazine would think that Mr. Pett Ridge was going to pieces that he had softening of the brain. The magazine was required to pay £150 damages.

Why a writer should not be discouraged by rejections is suggested by a magazine article written by Reginald J. Smith, head of the London firm of Smith, Elder, & Co., and editor of the Cornhill Magazine. Mr. Smith says that for the magazine he edits there are read annually something like three