THE WRITER. WM. H. HILLS, . EDITOR AND PUBLISHER. THE WRITER is published the first day of every month. It will be sent, post-paid, ONE YEAR for ONE Dollar. ***All drafts and money orders should be made payable to William H. Hills. Stamps, or local checks, should not be sent in payment for subscriptions. The Writer will be sent ouly 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. When subscriptions expire the names of subscribers will be taken off the list unless an order for renewal, accompanied by remittance, is received. Due notice will be given to every subscriber of the expiration of his subscription. ***No sample copies of THE WRITER will be sent free. The American News Company, of New York, and the New England News Company, of Boston, are wholesale agents for THE WRITER. It may be ordered from any newsdealer, or directly, by mail, from the publisher. THE WRITER is kept on sale by Damrell & Upham (Old Corner Bookstore), Boston; Brentano Bros., New York, Washington, and Chicago; George F. Wharton, New Orleans; John Wanamaker, Philadelphia; and the principal newsdealers in other cities. Everything printed in the magazine will be written expressly for it. Not one line of paid advertisement will be printed in THE WRITER outside of the advertising pages. Advertising rates will be sent on request. Contributions not used will be returned, if a stamped and addressed envelope is enclosed. The January number of THE WRITER Will include a title-page and full index for Vol. VI. of the magazine, which closes with the present number. The bound volume of THE WRITER for 1892-93 will be ready for delivery January 15. THE WRITER for 1894 will be full of interest to all who are concerned in any way with literary work. Those whose subscriptions have expired are invited to send renewals now. Friends of the magazine can help it greatly by renewing their own subscriptions promptly, and by sending the names of new subscribers in with their renewals. THE WRITER for a year is an inexpensive Christmas gift that any literary worker will appreciate. A set of bound volumes of THE WRITER and THE AUTHOR makes a still more valuable Christmas present. The movement toward a cheaper magazine literature, which was begun by the publication of McClure's Magazine at fifteen cents a copy, has been followed by several reductions in price by other magazines. The most notable change in this direction was that of the Cosmopolitan, which astonished everybody a few months ago, and more than doubled its circulation, by reducing its price to thirteen (nominally twelve and a half) cents a copy, still maintaining the high quality of its artistic and literary work. Munsey's Magazine is sold now for ten cents a copy. The price of Peterson's has been reduced to ten cents a number, or one dollar a year. And now the solid Forum announces a reduction in its annual subscription price from five dollars to three dollars. What will come next the reading public is waiting anxiously to see. There is no doubt that the price of magazines in this country has been comparatively higher than that of newspapers and books. Methods of production have been cheapened, the most notable change, probably, being due to the substitution of process pictures for those engraved by hand on wood, but the selling prices of monthly periodicals have nevertheless remained the same. In view of the large income from advertisements which all successful magazines receive, it would seem that their publishers might well afford to reduce their subscription price. The experience of the Cosmopolitan has shown that reduction of price is followed immediately by a large increase of circulation, and the increase of circulation means more advertising, at higher rates per page. Now that the break in prices has been made, it seems probable that competition will force the other magazines to cut their prices, too- in which case the public will get all the benefit. It is. interesting to note, however, that the Century and Harper's Monthly have maintained their old price of thirty-five cents a number all along, in spite of competition from Scribner's, Lippincott's, and the Cosmopolitan, all of which have been sold at the lower rate of twenty-five cents a copy. Many inexperienced writers wonder why it is that a story intended for a certain issue of a weekly periodical is too late for publication if it is received by the editor a day or two before the date on which the periodical appears. They do not understand that the exigencies of large editions and national circulation require that any given number of a popular periodical shall be made up, and in some cases printed, weeks in advance of the date which it bears. A good illustration of this is afforded by the handsome Christmas number of the New York Ledger, which went to press this year November 25, and which will be issued, dated, and in the hands of all its readers December 16-nine days, at least, before the Christmas holiday. "Can't afford to buy a typewriter?" Non sense. If you are a writer, dependent in any way upon pleasing editors with your manuscripts, you can't afford not to buy one. Suppose you were an editor, now, looking through a mass of manuscript just received, to find good copy for your magazine. You are human, probably; editors are no more, no less. Isn't it easy for you to believe that of two manuscripts sent in for you to read, one as legible as print, in fair and handsome typewriting, the other written with a pen, in light, faint characters, or in a crabbed, uneven hand, the typewritten manuscript would naturally get your first attention? Suppose it to be good. You need but one manuscript of the kind just at present; what is the use of giving the other one more than a rapid glance? It does n't look as if it would be easy to decipher. It may be a good story, possibly better than the one you have, but that is good enough, and so why bother with this other one? Can't you imagine yourself sending it back to the author practically unread, when, if he had sent it to you typewritten, it would have stood at least an equal chance with the other story? You may fancy that if you were an editor, remembering the days when you were sending "contributions" to all the publications you ever heard of, undesired and unasked, you would read religiously through every manuscript that came to you, regardless of all the difficulties in the way, so that your judgment of everything submitted to you might be absolutely just — but, bless you, you wouldn't. You would do just as all editors do, read what looked most readable until you had found that of which you stood in need, and then send back to the authors. the "contributions" that were left. This is a practical age, and editors must be practical in getting manuscript for their publications, just as merchants must be practical in buying goods. So many manuscripts are sent typewritten to editors nowadays that pen-written manuscripts, unless they are unusually legible, are at a distinct disadvantage in competition with the rest. Of course, if an author has made his name, editors will read what he sends, no matter how poorlywritten it may be — although very many of our famous writers now either use typewriters themselves or have all their manuscripts copied by amanuenses before sending them to editors. The author, however, who needs to please his editor cannot afford not to use a typewriter, either personally or by proxy. A typewritten manuscript to-day stands at least three times as much chance of acceptance as a manuscript written with a pen. But there are other advantages connected with the use of the typewriter in making manuscripts. The typewritten matter is so legible that an author can tell by looking over his copy about how his article is going to look in print. Improvements that otherwise he would not think of as being necessary are consequently made. The ability to "manifold" makes it possible for him to make one or more copies of his manuscript simultaneously with the original, and with practically no trouble on his part. Then, if some careless editor loses his manuscript, his labor is not altogether thrown away, since he can easily reproduce the article from the "manifold." Moreover, the use of the typewriter in making manuscript reduces postage bills - if one writes much, enough to pay the whole first cost of a typewriter within no very great length of time. A typewritten manuscript covers less paper than the same manuscript written with a pen, and the saving of postage and paper both may amount to a considerable sum as the years roll by. Certainly no one who writes much for publication can afford to be without a typewriter. The machine will pay for its own cost many times over, and, directly and indirectly, the writer will find the investment in a typewriting machine to be one of the best he ever made. In newspaper offices the typewriter is getting to be quite as necessary a feature as the office boy. An order has been issued by the Boston Globe that all copy written by reporters after January 1, 1894, shall be in typewriter print. Other large papers have adopted the same rule, and all daily papers are reasonably sure to come to it in time. Even if reporters and editorial writers are not expected to run their own machines, competent typewriters to take dictation will be provided, and as years go by very little, if any, copy will be received in the composing room that is written with pencil or pen. The saving of time in proof-reading and corrections, owing to the legibility of typewritten matter, has convinced enterprising newspaper business managers that one of the best economies possible in a newspaper office is to spend a few hundred dollars for a set of first-class writing machines. QUERIES. W. H. H. [In making a manuscript a footnote should not be put at the bottom of the page, as it is in a printed book, but should be written, with a little space left above and below it, directly following the sentence to which it applies. An asterisk should be put after the word, or sentence, to which the footnote applies, and another asterisk before the first word of the footnote. If the sentence before the footnote is not intended to end a paragraph, the mark, "No ¶," should be put both at the end of the sentence in question and at the beginning of the first sentence following the footnote. It is well to draw a line clear across the paper above and below the footnote, to separate it from the text, and to write the word "Footnote" at the left. The compositor will put the note in type along with the rest of the matter, making it a separate paragraph, of course, with a turned rule above and below it, and it will remain in the body of the matter on the galley until it reaches the man who makes the type up into columns or pages; he will place it at the bottom of the page, or column where it is designed to go. W. H. H.] knowledge that he imparts does not come to the reader in the form of a sugar-coated pill. It is sweet and toothsome clear to the heart, and there is no bitterness about it. In this book of short essays there is not a chapter that will not have interest for any intelligent reader. Mr. Waters has studied and lived to some purpose, and he writes because he has something definite to say. His mind is well stored with interesting facts, and he has thought independently to good purpose. As a result his book is both instructive and inspiring; no one can read it without learning something from it, or without finding in it an incentive to the accomplishment of higher and better work. It is sensible and practical throughout. The reader feels everywhere the personality of the essayist, and the essays include just enough autobiography to give the writer of them a living presence in the reader's mind. "Genius" is the main subject of the book. "The Homes and Haunts of Genius," "What Genius Is," "Indications of Genius," Examples of Genius Overcoming Difficulty," "How Genius is Awakened," "How Genius Is Developed," are a few of the headings of chapters relating directly to this subject. Of even more direct interest to readers of THE WRITER are the essays on "The Secret of Literary Success," "A Word to Beginners in Literary Work," "Learning to Write English," "Unconscious Ease' in Literary Work,” How Authors Compose Peculiar Habits," and others in which literary genius more especially is discussed. One good feature of the book is that it may be either read consecutively or dipped into here and there as the reader finds something to his taste. In either case the reader will be well repaid for all the time that he may spend upon it. 66 99 66 W. H. H. The Life of WILLIAM COBBEtt; or, Getting on in the WORLD. By Robert Waters. Third Edition, with Appendix. 327 pp. Cloth, 50 cents. New York: Worthington Company. 1892. Readers of THE WRITER are likely to be interested in William Cobbett chiefly because he wrote an English grammar that has been generally regarded as one of the most sensible and helpful books on the right use of English ever published. The grammar, however, was only one outcome of the activity of a remarkable career, which Mr. Waters describes in this volume in a most interesting and entertaining way. The fact that three editions of the book have been required since its original publication is the best evidence of its quality. her a place among the best known writers of the country. Although "Deephaven" was her first book, however, and was written almost in her girlhood, it is altogether one of the best pieces of work that the author has ever done. Its absolute fidelity in description of New England life and character, its fresh humor, its delightful portraiture of the two girls whose summer stay in Deephaven is the foundation of the story, and the touching pathos of the minor passages make it a distinct feature in the literature of New England, and give to it a peculiar charm. The story is well worthy of the attractive holiday dress now given to it by the publishers. This new edition is not one of the old style "holiday books" designed chiefly for show as an ornament upon the parlor table. It is a beautiful library edition, carefully printed from new plates, fittingly illustrated and strikingly bound. The use of the Mayflower in the original design upon the cover was a happy thought. The illustrations, about fifty in number, are in keeping with the spirit of the book, and, like the story, they are faithful pictures of New England scenery and life. Mr. and Mrs. Woodbury have done admirable work, and it has been reproduced with admirable skill. Those who have known "Deephaven "in the past will read the book again with new delight in this new edition, and those who have never read it until now are fortunate indeed, since their first enjoyment of the story will be heightened by all the aids that the modern bookmaker's finest art can give. W. H. H. A NATIVE OF WINBY, AND OTHER TALES. By Sarah Orne Jewett. 309 pp. Cloth, $1.25. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, & Co. 1893. 66 "A Native of Winby” includes, besides the story of the Honorable Joseph K. Laneway's return to the little red country schoolhouse where he thumbed his primer and whittled his desk cover in his youth, seven other tales, entitled "Decoration Day," 'Jim's Little Woman," "The Failure of David Berry," "The Passing of Sister Barsett," "Miss Esther's Guest," "The Flight of Betsey Lane," "Between Mass and Vespers," and "A Little Captive Maid." The two last named are IrishAmerican stories, but in this somewhat new field Miss Jewett's success is no less great than in her sketches of New England life. "Decoration Day" is one of the best stories that she has ever told. The binding of the book is exquisite, and it is printed in the best style of the Riverside Press. W. H. H. With illustrations Cloth, 75 cents. NO HEROES. By Blanche Willis Howard. by Jessie McDermott Walcott. 97 pp. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, & Co. 1893. "Blanche Willis Howard" - she wisely omits the "von Teuffel" from the title-page — is not so successful in this boy's story as she was in a different undertaking in "One Summer," or "Guenn," or even in "The Open Door." "No Heroes "tells the story of a doctor's boy who gave up a delightful trip to Cuba to nurse a crusty old pedler through an attack of smallpox, and then was rewarded by unexpectedly getting the trip to Cuba, after all. W. H. H. AN ARCHER WITH COLUMBUS. By Charles E. Brimblecom. Illustrated. 183 pp. Cloth, $1.25. Boston: Joseph Knight Company. 1894. It "An Archer with Columbus" is a lively story for boys, of peculiar interest in this Columbian year. The hero, Felix Madrigal, was the illtreated apprentice of Ignacio Diaz, a tailor of the seaport town of Palos, in 1491. He fell in by accident with the son of Columbus at the time when the Admiral was seeking the aid of Isabella and Ferdinand for his great voyage of discovery. At the boy's earnest request, Columbus permitted him to join the expedition, and he remained in the service of the discoverer till the latter's death. The story is full of adventure and interesting incidents, and is well and clearly told throughout. It has sufficient fidelity to history to give to its boy-readers a good idea of the eventful time of which it treats, and yet it is so skilfully told that there is not a dry page in the book. The publishers have issued the story in attractive form, with fifty good illustrations from original pen-and-ink sketches. will be a good holiday gift for any lively modern boy. W. H. H. BACK COUNTRY POEMS. By Sam Walter Foss. Illustrated. 258 pp. Cloth. Boston: Potter Publishing Co. 1892. Sam Walter Foss might fitly be called the James Whitcomb Riley of New England. His poems have had wide circulation in the newspapers and magazines, and this collection of some of the best of them is a most welcome addition to permanent literature. Mr. Foss dedicates his book "to all men and women who are fortunate enough to live back in the country." That indicates the spirit with which he looks upon back-country life. He knows it from experience, and his poems depict it as it is. His dialect is as natural as life, and his poems are pervaded with the genuine dry Yankee humor. "The Volunteer Organist," "The Railroad Through the Farm,' Milking of the Cow,"" W'en Melindy Tol' Me "Yes," "The ,""" Boston and Glory," "The Sillickman," "Woodchucking," "God-be- glorified Jones' Mortgage," "The Quartette's Anthem," "Ingin Summer," ," "The Calf on the Lawn," and "The Grassvale Railroad" are some of the homely inspirations of his muse, and they are all put into tuneful verse that has many of the qualities of poetry. In poems of child-life, too, Mr. Foss excels, and his book contains poems in still another vein, like "Drop Your Bucket Where You Are" and "The Baby King of Spain," that are becoming known to readers everywhere. THE CHILDREN of the Ghetto. By I. Zangwill. Vol. I., 451 "Pictures of a peculiar people" is the subtitle of this unusual story of life in London's Jewish quarter, which has attracted so much attention since its first publication in England. The present edition of it is an admirable one, and, like all the books issued by the Jewish Publication Society of America, deserves to be widely read. The society is conferring benefit on Jews and Gentiles alike by publishing books on the religion, literature, and history of the Jews and encouraging original work by American scholars on these subjects. Since its organization in June, 1888, it has sent out an admirable series of valuable and interesting publications, to which "The Children of the Ghetto" is a notable addition. W. H. H. THE BOOK OF THE FAIR. An historical and descriptive presentation of the world's science, art, and industry, as viewed through the Columbian Exposition at Chicago in 1893. By Hubert Howe Bancroft. Part III. 40 pp. Paper, $1.00. Chicago and San Francisco: The Bancroft Company. 1893. The third part of the sumptuous Bancroft "Book of the Fair" gives, if anything, even a more favorable opinion of the work than that given by the first two parts. The text continues to be interesting, and the treatment of the subject adequate, while the increasing use of fine half-tone pictures gives a photographic reproduction of the great exposition. The pictures and text of Part III. relate to the dedication and opening of the fair, the naval review in New York harbor, and the government and administration departments. The artistic and the typographical details are of the highest excellence. BOOKS RECEIVED. W. H. H. |