PART I. The Relations of Autbors and Publishers + Publishing Methods and Arrangements On Securing Copyright BY G. H. P. AUTHORS AND PUBLISHERS I IT Introductory IT has been a popular assumption that between authors and publishers little sympathy existed; and from the very beginnings of literature there has been a more or less continuous stream of complaints from authors who have felt themselves aggrieved, on one ground or another, against the men through whom their productions have been brought before the public. These authors have, in not a few cases, convinced themselves, or at least have endeavored to convince others, that if they failed to receive from the public what in their opinion was an adequate return for their productions, such failure was chargeable not to any want of substantial merit in their work, but to the lack of effective business service on the part of the publishers, or to the tendency of the latter to absorb for themselves an undue proportion of the receipts. The Sins of Publisbers Grievances of Butbors The story of Campbell, at a literary dinner, proposing the health of Napoleon, because he once shot a publisher,' has often been quoted as a fair expression of the feelings of literary workers, and if there is any truth in the picture which represents the publisher as a sort of ogre, whose den is strewn with the bones of authors, and who quaffs his wine out of their skulls, this assumption is certainly natural enough, as between the eater and the eaten there can be little love lost. It must be admitted that the reminiscences of authors do contain not a few instances which serve to justify this vulgar impression as to the piratical and profit-absorbing tendencies of publishers. The complaints begin as early as the time of Martial, who was a most persistent grumbler. He indulged in the luxury of having not less than four publishers at one time, and took occasion to include invectives against them all in satires or epigrams which the publishers obligingly continued to publish for him. Horace, too, complained that his publishers, the Sosii, took to themselves the gold produced by his writings, leaving for "the author's reward only fame in distant lands and with posterity," and even Cicero was not 1 Johann Philipp Palm, of Nuremberg, shot in 1806 for publishing a pamphlet against the rule of the French in Germany. of Butbors always ready to be satisfied with the reports Grievances of his valued friend and prince of publishers, Atticus. In modern literary history, the names of Milton, Johnson, Goldsmith, Voltaire, Balzac, Heine, Byron, the elder Disraeli, and many others will at once recur to mind as having left, in their books or in their correspondence, more or less acerbitous criticisms of their publishers. And, to bring the record down to our own days, that charming writer and true-hearted humanitarian, Walter Besant, while speaking of his own business relations as being entirely satisfactory, has been taking up the cudgel most vigorously on behalf of the oppressed class of literary workers, and has shown eloquently, if not quite convincingly, that in the publishing business as now carried on there is no risk, and that the substantial profits from the production of literature are in great part absorbed by the grasping publishers. Such a long series of complaints from literary workers of many generations constitutes on its face rather a serious indictment against the fair dealing of publishers, but before deciding that a good case has been made out, one or two considerations are entitled to attention. It is proper to remember, in the first place, that nearly all the narratives of the differences that have arisen between authors and publishers have come to us in ex parte |