Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, Fifth Series, No. 4, Vol. I, January 26, 1884

No. 4.—Vol. I.
Price 1½ d.
SATURDAY, JANUARY 26, 1884.
Within these few years past we have from time to time given a word of warning and of encouragement to Literary Aspirants. We do not use the latter word in any disparaging sense; but simply as the only one which fully embraces the great and constantly increasing class of persons, who, as writers of matter good, bad, and indifferent, are now weekly and daily knocking for admission at the doors of Literature. We have always been favourable to giving encouragement to young writers of ability, and never a year passes but we are able to introduce a few fresh contributors to the world of periodical literature. But this encouragement must necessarily be within certain lines, otherwise evil and not good would accrue to many. We are from time to time reminded by correspondents of what a popular novelist, possibly in a half-jocular mood, advised in this matter. His advice to parents amounted to this, that if they had an educated son or daughter with no particular calling in life, but in need of one, they had only to supply him or her with pens, ink, and paper, and a literary calling might at once be entered upon. We fear too many have laid, and daily lay, this flattering unction to their souls. In the majority of cases, disappointment and heart-sickness can alone be derived from the experiment.
In order to give those outside the circle of editorial cognisance some idea of the amount of literary matter sent in by outsiders, and which falls to be adjudicated upon on its merits, we subjoin an abstract of the number of manuscripts received by us during the twelve months from August 1882 to August 1883. During that period we have had offered to us in all 3225 manuscripts, of which 2065 were contributions in prose, and 1160 in verse. These offerings varied from each other to the utmost extent both as to size and subject, from a few stanzas of verse to the bulk of a three-volume novel, and came to us from all quarters of the English-speaking world, England, Scotland, Ireland, the Continent, America, India, Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and elsewhere. Of the 2065 prose manuscripts, 300 were accepted by us for publication, or fourteen per cent. of the whole. Of the 1160 pieces of verse, only 30 were accepted, or less than three per cent. of the total. Taking the two classes of contributions together, of the 3225 manuscripts received, 330 were accepted—that is, of every hundred manuscripts received, ten were retained by us and ninety returned to their authors. If we estimate this pile of contributions according to its bulk, and allowing a very moderate average length to each manuscript, the whole, if printed, would have filled 9125 pages of this Journal , or as much as would have sufficed for eleven of our yearly volumes.