REMUNERATION OF AUTHORS.
In that varied and interesting of antiquarian and literary curiosities, "N. & Q.," perhaps a collection of the prices paid by booksellers and publishers for works of interest and to authors of celebrity might find a corner. As a first contribution towards such a collection, if approved of, I send some Notes made some years ago, with the authorities from which I copied them. With regard to those cited on the authority of "R. Chambers," I cannot now say from which of Messrs. Chambers's publications I extracted them, but fancy it might have been the Cyclopædia of English Literature. To any one disposed to swell the list of the remunerations of authors, I would suggest that Disraeli's Curiosities of Literature, Boswell's Life of Johnson, Johnson's Lives of the Poets and other works of every-day handling, would no doubt furnish many facts; but all my books being in the country, I have no means of searching, and therefore send my Notes in the fragmentary state in which I find them:—
| Title of Work. | Author. | Publisher. | Price. | Authority. |
| Gulliver's Travels | Dean Swift | Molte | 300l. | Sir W. Scott. |
| Tom Jones | H. Fielding | Miller | 600l. and 100l. after | Ditto. |
| Amelia | Ditto | Ditto | 1000l. | Ditto. |
| History of England | Dr. Smollett | 2000l. | Ditto. | |
| Memoirs of Richard Cumberland | Himself | Lackington | 500l. | Ditto. |
| Vicar of Wakefield | Dr. Goldsmith | Newberry | 50l. | Dr. Johnson. |
| Selections of English Poetry | Ditto | 200l. | Lee Lewis. | |
| Deserted Village | Ditto | 100l. | Sir W. Scott. | |
| Rasselas | Dr. Johnson | 100l. and 24l. after | Ditto | |
| Traveller | Dr. Goldsmith | Newberry | 21l. | Wm. Irving |
| Old English Baron | Clara Reeve | Dilly (Poultry) | 10l. | Sir W. Scott. |
| Mysteries of Udolpho | Ann Radcliffe | Geo. Robinson | 500l. | Ditto |
| Italian | Ditto | 800l. | Ditto | |
| Mount Henneth | Robert Bage | Lowndes | 30l. | Ditto |
| Translation of Ovid | John Dryden | Jacob Tonson | 52l. 10s. | R. Chambers. |
| Ditto of Virgil | Ditto | Ditto | 1200l. and subscriptions | Ditto |
| Fables and Ode for St. Cecilia's Day | Ditto | Ditto | 250 guineas | Ditto |
| Paradise Lost | John Milton | Sam. Symmons | 5l., 5l. 2nd edit., and 8l. | Sir W. Scott. |
| Translation of the Iliad | Alexander Pope | 1200l. | R. Chambers. | |
| Ditto of the Odyssey (half) | Ditto | 600l. | Ditto. | |
| Ditto ditto (remainder) | Ditto | Browne | 500l. | Ditto. |
| Ditto ditto (ditto) | Ditto | Featon | 300l. | Ditto. |
| Beggar's Opera (1st part) | John Gay | 400l. | Ditto. | |
| Ditto (2nd part) | Ditto | 1100l. or 1200l. | Ditto. | |
| Three abridged Histories of England | Dr. Goldsmith | Newberry | About 800l. | Ditto. |
| History of Animated Nature | Ditto | Ditto | 850l. | Ditto. |
| Lives of the Poets | Dr. Johnson | 210l. | Ditto. | |
| Evelina | Miss Burney | 5l. | Ditto. | |
| History of England during the Reign of the Stuarts | David Hume | 200l. | ||
| Ditto ditto (remainder) | Ditto | 5000l. | Ditto. | |
| History of Scotland | Robertson | 600l | Creech. | |
| History of Charles V. | Ditto | 4500l. | Ditto. | |
| Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire | Gibbon | 6000l. | R. Chambers. | |
| Sermons (1st part) | Blair | 200l. | Creech | |
| Ditto | Tillotson | 2500 guineas | R. Chambers | |
| Childe Harold (4th canto) | Lord Byron | 2100l. | Ditto. | |
| Poetical Works (whole) | Ditto | 15,000l. | Ditto. | |
| Lay of the Last Minstrel | Sir W. Scott | Constable | 600l. | Ditto. |
| Marmion | Ditto | Ditto | 1050l. | Miss Seward. |
| Pleasures of Hope | Thos. Campbell | Mundell | 1050l. | R. Chambers. |
| Gertrude of Wyoming | Ditto | Ditto | 1500 guineas | Ditto. |
| Poems | Crabbe | Murray | 3000l. | Ditto. |
| Irish Melodies | Thomas Moore | 500l. a year | Ditto. | |
| Spelling Book | Vyse | 2200l. and 50l. a year | Ditto. | |
| Philosophy of Natural History | Smellie |
1050l., 1st edition and 50l. each after | Ditto | |
| Various (aggregate) | Göthe | 30,000 crowns | Ditto. | |
| Ditto (ditto) | Chateaubriand | 500,000 francs | Ditto. |
I perfectly agree with the suggestion of one of your correspondents, that, in a publication like yours, dealing with historic facts, the communications should not be anonymous, or made under noms de guerre. I therefore drop the initials with which I have signed previous communications, and append my name as suggested.
Alexander Andrews.