Camilla
, 1796), was published in 1814.
"I am indescribably occupied," she writes to Dr. Burney, October 12, 1813, "in giving more and more last touches to my work, about which I begin to grow very anxious. I am to receive merely £500 upon delivery of the MS.; the two following £500 by instalments from nine months to nine months, that is, in a year and a half from the day of publication. If all goes well, the whole will be £3000, but only at the end of the sale of eight thousand copies."
The book failed; but rumour magnified the sum received by the writer. Mrs. Piozzi, shortly after the publication of
The Wanderer
and of Byron's lines, "Weep, daughter of a royal line," writes to Samuel Lysons, February 17, 1814:
"Come now, do send me a kind letter and tell me if Madame d'Arblaye gets £3000 for her book or no, and if Lord Byron is to be called over about some verses he has written, as the papers hint."
(
Autobiography, Letters, and Literary Remains
, vol. ii. p. 246).