THE WRITER is published the first day of every month. It will be sent, postpaid, ONE YEAR for ONE DOLLAR. All drafts and money orders should be made payable to The Writer Publishing Co. Stamps, or local checks, should not be sent in payment for subscriptions. THE WRITER will be sent only to those who have paid for it in advance. Accounts cannot be opened for subscriptions, and names will not be entered on the list unless the subscription order is accompanied by a remittance. The American News Company, of New York, and the New England News Company, of Boston, and their branches, are wholesale agents for THE WRITER. It may be ordered from any newsdealer, or direct, by mail, from the publishers. *** Not опе line of paid advertisement will be printed in THE WRITER outside of the advertising pages. Advertising in THE WRITER costs fifteen cents a line, or $2.10 an inch; seven dollars a quarter page; twelve dollars a half page; or twenty dollars a page, for one insertion, remittance with the order. Discounts are five, ten, and fifteen per cent. for three, six, and twelve months. For continued advertising payments must be made quarterly in having described booksellers as the only retail tradesmen who buy "pigs in pokes," John Murray, the publisher, wrote to the Westminster Gazette to say : "I wonder if Mr. Hall Caine has ever heard of a publisher being asked to lay out hundreds even thousands of pounds on books which he has not only not seen, but which in some cases have not even been written, or has he been spending his days on some ostrich farm where such things are not recognized? "If so, let me tell him that it has become the ordinary practice for some authors, and especially for popular novelists, directly or through their agents, to arrange terms for their next book, sometimes even for their second and third books, on precisely such pig-in-a-poke' terms. There are even cases where competitive offers for futures' of this kind are sought. Frequently the actual royalties earned on such books never reach the prospective sum asked and given. I agree that the system is a bad one." -- To this Mr. Caine replied, saying that the difference between the position of the publisher who buys books from authors, unread and unwritten, and that of the bookseller who buys his books from the publishers, unread and unseen, is fundamental — namely, the bookseller has no choice, while the publisher is a free agent. "When a publisher, on his own initiative, buys a book before it is written," says Mr. Caine, he has only himself to blame if he suffers for taking such a risk; but the bookseller who would decline to buy any book which he had not read might as well put up his shutters." Then he adds, referring to Mr. Murray's remarks about manuscripts bought by publishers "unread, unseen": "It is a fact perfectly well known to my publishers. in England and America that throughout the whole period of my more than thirty years of authorship I have never once accepted a contract from any first read and known all publisher until he has about the book he has bought. "This course I adhered to so rigidly in the case of a book now in the press that I printed a private edition of it at my own cost, solely for the use of the various publishers, at home and abroad, who were good enough to wish to contract with me on the unwise terms which Mr. Murray deplores and perhaps practices, and it was not until I had received their assurance that they had read enough to know what they were buying that I agreed to sell." It has been announced, by the way, that William Randolph Hearst has made a contract with Hall Caine at $100,000 a year for four years, during which time," says the announcement, "the novelist will probably produce two books a year." C. W. Ernst, of Boston, who is an authority on words, gives some interesting facts about church names. He says: "In discussing church names it is safe to start with the facts of history. The word 'catholic' was first applied to the church by Ignatius, who wrote Greek; the first example in Latin is in the famous Muratori fragment. The term Catholic Church' cannot be found before the second century. "The term 'Anglican Church' was first used in Latin by John of Salisbury, about A. D. 1159. "The term 'Church of England' was introduced by Henry VIII, in 1534. "The word Episcopalian' was coined in 1690 by Increase Mather, laughing at the members of King's Chapel, Boston, Mass. "The term Protestant Episcopal' originated in Maryland in 1780. "The word 'Protestant' in church history has not been found before the year 1539." Epigrammatically criticising those who produce literature for revenue only, the late Mayor Gaynor is credited with saying that a certain novelist's career could be summed up thus: "How did he commence writing?" careful not to leave it on the centre table, where it might be picked up by "fourteenyear-olds." THE HAPPY ENDING. I think that Ford Walsh in his article printed in the June WRITER confuses "The Happy Ending" with the inartistic ending — for an unhappy ending is often quite as inartistic as a happy one. The ending of "The Iron Woman," for instance, is to my mind very inartistic. It is dramatic, but not final. Mr. Walsh should have quoted more examples to show just what he meant. The examples he did quote do not prove his contention. Neither do I agree with him that "if we think so much of beauty, we should ask for more unhappy endings where in the nature of the theme they are essentials." So long as we live there is always hope of happiness, and just as in our lives we go on day by day hoping we shall at last come to happiness, so we read page after page hoping to see the hero and heroine reach a place where we can leave them with some satisfaction. When we we are overcome with the inexorableness of Fate, as in Tess - we accept it, but we do not "like it," or ask for it. To show how the same author can use unhappy endings in both ways, compare "Tess" and "The Return of the Native." The ending of "Tess," in my opinion, is artistic, while in "The Return of the Native" the unhappy ending is inartistic, not to say grotesque and ridiculous. Annie Bigoney Stewart. SEATTLE, Wash. An editorial in Harper's Weekly, now controlled by Norman Hapgood, announces that the paper will be edited hereafter without consideration of "the immature mind," and that while nothing will be published "that is not entirely moral, a great deal will be published that is extremely frank." Under this policy Harper's Weekly will no longer be a family paper, according to the old American idea, and the "intelligent adults" for whom it is to be written will have to be WRITERS OF THE DAY. Barry Benefield, the author of the short story, "Anna Lipinsky's Star Flag," in the September Scribner's, and of "What Do You Think?" in the Smart Set for the same month, says he went into the newspaper business to escape school-teaching, then into magazine work to escape reporting. He comes from Texas the northeast corner of it, "where there are no prairies, no bad, bad cowboys, and no booful cowgirls." Upon graduation from the University of Texas, through which he had paid his way by schoolteaching, he saw a pedagogue's position right ahead staring him in the face. He rushed to the Dallas News for help, and after a year there went to New York, where he spent five years doing all kinds of reporting for the New York Times, and where he now lives. He has had stories in Scribner's, Collier's, Short Stories, the Smart Set, and several other magazines. A dramatized version of his short story, “Daughters of Joy," is scheduled for presentation at the Princess Theatre, New York, during the coming sea son. V. H. Cornell, who wrote "The Geniuses," in Harper's Magazine for June, and also the leading story, "The Tie That Binds," in the American Magazine for June, is the wife of Dr. Robert R. Cornell, a physician of Chattanooga, Tenn., and is the mother of five children. Her first magazine story was printed in Belford's Magazine twenty years ago. Belford's never paid for it, and the magazine died soon afterward. Mrs. Cornell was born in Virginia, and spent her childhood near Chautauqua, N. Y., later going to school just outside of Boston. After her marriage she lived for twelve years in the Cumberland Mountains, and she knows the people of that region as people, not as types. Naturally the mountain folk in her stories are unlike those characterized by casual observers. "The Narrow Way," soon to appear in Harper's, is a fair sample of her stories of mountain life. Mrs. Cornell has had two experiences illustrating the way of editors. "The Tie That Binds" was sent to Collier's three years ago. It made such an impression that the editor wrote he had passed it around among the members of the staff, who were all delighted with it, but he could n't take it. After three years and a little furbishing, it was accepted by the American. "The Geniuses" was sent to the Delineator a year ago. The editor could n't use it; but he liked it so much that he took it over to Everybody's Magazine - perhaps they might print it. Everybody's editor could n't use it, either, but later it quite suited Mr. Alden of Harper's Magazine. And all this was because the editors were interested in the stories - not the author, who was unknown to them. Elias Lieberman, whose story, "The Open Door," was printed in Lippincott's for September, is an instructor in English at the Bushwick High School, Brooklyn, N. Y. His poems have appeared in the New York Times, Munsey's, the Bohemian, and Youth, and he has had short sketches in prose used by the Associated Sunday Magazines, Satire, and the New York Sun. The McClure Syndicate has also published one of his short stories. His work as a teacher necessarily takes up much of his time and energy, but ever since his apprenticeship on the staff of the DeWitt Clinton High School Bulletin, the City College Mercury, and Quips and Cranks, he has been devoted to his literary work. His critical study of the short story in America, grouped according to localities, was published by the Editor Publishing Company, of Ridgewood, N. J., under the title, "The American Short Story." Mr. Lieberman has just returned from a honeymoon trip through Italy, Switzerland, France, and England, and as soon as he is settled down again he hopes to do much work. Gerald Morgan, whose short story, "Back of Third Base," appeared in the initial number of Harper's Weekly under Mr. Hapgood's management, (August 16) is a graduate of Yale, class of 1901, and was a correspondent for the New York Tribune during the Russo-Japanese War. He has also been a contributor of fiction to Collier's Weekly and other magazines. Mr. Morgan resides at Staatsburg, Dutchess County, N Y., where he is active in one of the political party organizations. Helen Van Campen, whose story, "Pansy Ziliphone's Party," was published in the Metropolitan for August, began writing vaudeville stories for the New York Morning Telegraph, under the name of Helen Green, eight years ago. She wrote other fiction, also, living at different times in New York, Northeast Canada, the tropics, and the American West, but wherever she was she turned out twelve columns a week for the Telegraph until 1910. In 1912 she began writing magazine stories. She now lives on an island in Prince William Sound, Alaska, where her husband is manager of a large copper mine, and she is at work on an Alaska book. PERSONAL GOSSIP ABOUT AUTHORS. Browning. Among the Browning manuscripts sold in May was a little group in Elizabeth Barrett's delicate handwriting, containing her suggestions for verbal alterations in Browning's "Dramatic Romances and Lyrics," which he was preparing for the press. "It is curious to find Elizabeth Barrett, whose ear, to judge from her Own poetry, was not remarkably sensitive, criticising the imperfect rhythm of Robert Browning. But Miss Barrett was a better critic than poet at this period (which, be it remembered, was before the 'Sonnets from the Portuguese' and 'Aurora Leigh')." Her notes on Saul" are reproduced by the writer in the Cornhill to illustrate her method. She writes: definitely? And the rhythm cries aloud for it, it seems to me. -- "The vast, upright" Quaere "the upright". . . for rhythm. "Then a sunbeam burst thro' the blind tent-room Showed Saul." Now, will you think whether, to enforce the admirable effect of your sudden sunbeam, this first line shall not be rendered more rapid by the removal of the clogging epithet "blind" - which you repeat, too, I believe, farther on in the next page? Of the great ride from Ghent to Aix, Miss Barrett wrote with the enthusiasm of conviction "You have the very trampling and breathing of the horses all through-and the sentiment is left in its right place, through all the physical force and display. . . . I know you must be proud of the poem, and nobody can forget it who has looked at it once. . . By the way, how the 'galloping' is a good galloping word! And how you felt it, and took the effect up and dilated it by repeating it over and over in your first stanza, doubling, fold ing one upon another, the hoof-treads." Mlle. De Coulevain. The novelist who wrote under the nom de guerre of “ Pierre de Coulevain" and who was in real life Mlle. Favre, died a fortnight ago in Switzerland. Favre, who was no longer young, was a recluse, shrinking from human companionship. She had been a governess in England, where she found the material for her book, "L'Ile Inconnue." One who knew her says that "the idea of death obsessed her and she carried about with her in one of the innumerable trunks by which she was always surrounded for she delighted in a wandering life the dress and shoes she intended to wear in her coffin."- New York Tribune. White. not to say that "drear days" conspires against "dread ways," found afterward. And the solemn flow of the six lines should be uninterrupted, I think. The entrance of David into the tent is very visible and characteristic - and you see his youthfulness in the activity of itand the repetition of the word "foldskirts" has an Hebraic effect. In a sketch of the author of "The Blazed Trail," cited in the Bookman, we are told that this book was written while Stewart Edward White was actually working in a lumber camp in the depths of the Michigan woods. He would begin to write at four A. M., and work until eight, then go out for a day's lumbering. He was doing this, needless to say, for the sake of the story, for he had up till then tried his hand at many a kind of work in order to increase his knowledge of men and things and forward his literary career. He had even been a clerk in a publishing house at nine dollars a week in order to learn more about how books are made. We are told that when the manuscript of "The Blazed Trail" was finished he gave it to Jack Boyd, the foreman, to read. Boyd began it after supper one evening and when White awoke the next morning at four o'clock he found him still at it. As Boyd never even read a newspaper, White regarded this as a triumph and felt that success was assured. CURRENT LITERARY TOPICS. Editing for Girls. A very delicate question inevitably faces any American publication that wishes to exercise leadership in thought. Either it has to confine itself to topics and treatment which are suitable to all members of the family at any age, and thereby cut itself off from much that is important, or else it has to take for granted that it is written for intelligent adults, and in this case there will be a certain amount of scolding whenever anything is published that is not especially adapted to the immature mind. For our part, we have chosen the second course. We should like to be popular among the fourteen-year-olds, even those of conventional parentage, but we are not willing to give up the entire expression of our thought on all serious matters of the day. Nothing, it need scarcely be said, will be published in this paper that is not entirely moral, but a great deal will be published that is extremely frank.- Harper's Weekly. The End of the Story. One of the chief joys of which advancing civilization has deprived us is that of reading books with a comfortable certainty as to the outcome. In an earlier and more restful day the novelreader was never haunted by the shadow of an impending doom. Let the trials of Arabella be never so heart-rending, let Mordaunt be baffled by fate in every chapter but the last, none the less the reader could banish his fears in the certainty that at last Arabella would fall into Mordaunt's arms, and that the cruel uncle, brought finally to pious repentance, would declare the happy pair the heirs to his enormous wealth. All this may have been silly, but it was immensely comforting. That it in no way detracted from the interest is proved by the enthusiasm with which many of the old stories were read and re-read. To-day things are very different. The traditional happy ending is frowned upon; the hero often either fails altogether to win his prize or else wins it only to find that the gilded idol was of clay. Even in the lightest of comedy scenes we are oppressed with the thought of tragedy to follow; we cannot guess the outcome till we reach the end of the book, and then too often we only wish it had been otherwise. The rampant realists announce that this is like life itself. Life is uncertain and frequently tragic; why should the creatures of fiction be foreordained to happiness? Demanding realism at any expense, the novelist of to-day goes forth to wallow in misery and proclaims that he is doing well. This is the great justification of the modern story-ending, that it is true to life. That is exactly what is the matter with it. We do not read fiction, unless we are suffering from morbidness, in order to get an extra dose of the uncertainty of life. We read it to be entertained. Should we find much pleasure in watching an acrobat if we really half expected him to break his neck in the course of the performance? This pall of uncertainty which envelops so many stories of to-day may be realistic, but it does not make the sort of reading which is a delight in comfortable hours of mental relaxation. The old novel, with its leisurely motion and interminable length, had many faults, but at least it did not sin through a misconception of its purpose. Reformers are necessary evils, and the man who is forever crying out to us to mend our ways is like the slave whose duty was to remind the king of old, in the midst |