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The Man of Letters as a Man of Business-Part2_William Dean Howells(1837-1920)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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popularity; but they do not, altogether, want enough literature



to justify the best business talent in devoting itself to belles-

lettres, to fiction, or poetry, or humorous sketches of travel,



or light essays; business talent can do far better in drygoods,

groceries, drugs, stocks, real estate, railroads, and the like.



I do not think there is any danger of a ruinous competition from

it in the field which, though narrow, seems so rich to us poor



fellows, whose business talent is small, at the best.

The most of the material contributed to the magazines is the



subject of agreement between the editor and the author; it is

either suggested by the author, or is the fruit of some



suggestion from the editor; in any case the price is stipulated

beforehand, and it is no longer the custom for a well-known



contributor to leave the payment to the justice or the generosity

of the publisher; that was never a fair thing to either, nor ever



a wise thing. Usually, the price is so much a thousand words, a

truly odious method of computing literary value, and one well



calculated to make the author feel keenly the hatefulness of

selling his art at all. It is as if a painter sold his picture



at so much a square inch, or a sculptor bargained away a group of

statuary by the pound. But it is a custom that you cannot always



successfully quarrel with, and most writers gladly consent to it,

if only the price a thousand words is large enough. The sale to



the editor means the sale of the serial rights only, but if the

publisher of the magazine is also a publisher of books, the



republication of the material is supposed to be his right, unless

there is an understanding to the contrary; the terms for this are



another affair. Formerly something more could be got for the

author by the simultaneous appearance of his work in an English



magazine, but now the great American magazines, which pay far

higher prices than any others in the world, have a circulation in



England so much exceeding that of any English periodical, that

the simultaneous publication can no longer be arranged for from



this side, though I believe it is still done here from the other

side.



VII.

I think this is the case of authorship as it now stands with



regard to the magazines. I am not sure that the case is in every

way improved for young authors. The magazines all maintain a



staff for the careful examination of manuscripts, but as most of

the material they print has been engaged, the number of volunteer



contributions that they can use is very small; one of the

greatest of them, I know, does not use fifty in the course of a



year. The new writer, then, must be very good to be accepted,

and when accepted he may wait long before he is printed. The



pressure is so great in these avenues to the public favor that

one, two, three years, are no uncommon periods of delay. If the



writer has not the patience for this, or has a soul above cooling

his heels in the courts of fame, or must do his best to earn



something at once, the book is his immediate hope. How slight a

hope the book is I have tried to hint already, but if a book is



vulgar enough in sentiment, and crude enough in taste, and flashy

enough in incident, or, better or worse still, if it is a bit hot



in the mouth, and promises impropriety if not indecency, there is

a very fair chance of its success; I do not mean success with a



self-respecting publisher, but with the public, which does not

personally put its name to it, and is not openly smirched by it.



I will not talk of that kind of book, however, but of the book

which the young author has written out of an unspoiled heart and



an untainted mind, such as most young men and women write; and I

will suppose that it has found a publisher. It is human nature,



as competition has deformed human nature, for the publisher to

wish the author to take all the risks, and he possibly proposes



that the author shall publish it at his own expense, and let him

have a percentage of the retail price for managing it. If not



that, he proposes that the author shall pay for the stereotype

plates, and take fifteen per cent. of the price of the book; or



if this will not go, if the author cannot, rather than will not

do it (he is commonly only too glad to do anything he can), then



the publisher offers him ten per cent. of the retail price after

the first thousand copies have been sold. But if he fully



believes in the book, he will give ten per cent. from the first




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