“We are already busied with the stir and bustle of departure, though the time is still distant; but poor dear Germany is not a land of despatch, and to obtain a packing-box you must wait for a tree to be felled, barked, sawed, and planed, with all the vicissitudes attendant on these several processes, and the inevitable interruptions of saints’ days and festivals in honour of every grand duke and grand duchess that ever were chronicled in the ‘Almanac de Gotha.’
“Speed, therefore, is out of the question, and my impatience has already more than once jeopardised my character for prudence and good sense among this, the easiest-going nation that ever smoked away existence. Still, I am sorry to leave them, and feel that the exchange to Italy is, in every respect save climate, for the worse. The Germans are peaceful, good-natured, homely, honest souls, docile as dogs, and never treacherous. The Italians are falsehood incarnated,—their whole lives a long practical lie. Still, not to see the land would be a sad disgrace, the more as we have stood so long on the threshold—or rather at the bottom of the stairs—i.e., at the foot of the Alps.
“I have written to John a long prosy narrative of our Splugen journey—which really, albeit a novelist par métier, I have not exaggerated.”
To Mr Alexander Spencer.
“Riedenburg, May 10, 1847.
“Except Orr and M’G., there are no others in the trade sufficiently cognisant of the profits of my books to undertake on a grand scale a reissue; and for this reason—because I was an Irish author, printed and published and mostly sold in Ireland, branded with the nationality of blunder in type as well as errors in thought,—and the same professional reputation hangs to me still. Now Orr and M’G. hang back. The invariable answer I meet from them is: ‘We are so much suspected by Curry, that from us he would not accept a fair sum, whereas from you he would be likely to be restricted in his demand, because he would thereby by implication be setting a value on what you might claim from him:
“Finally, the very qualified success of Dickens’s new and cheap issue for 1s. 1 1/2d. (and pub. 1s. 2d.)—the greatest trial of cheapness ever made in bookselling—has shown that the profits of a new edition cannot be reckoned on till after a considerable lapse of time. When an author’s popularity has lasted long enough to be more than a passing taste, and to stand the test of a new generation of readers, then—and only then—can successive editions be regarded as profitable [? experiments].
“I have received a letter from the Custom House, Portsmouth, stating that ‘a great number of your works in foreign editions (in English) pass through this Custom House, and as we received no notice of copyright subsisting thereon, we cannot prevent their entrance. We deem it only fair to let you know the fact for your information and guidance.’ Now Mr Curry ought at once, through the Custom House, London, to take the requisite steps against this nuisance, which I already foresaw would be the result of the much boasted International Copyright Treaty.
“I am in a fix about Italy. I have my house at Como for June 1, but three avalanches have fallen in the Splügen, and the road will not be practicable before the middle of July, so that I have been compelled to retain my present house for three months longer,—a piece of the most ill-timed bad luck, as I never was more anxious to economise a little.”
To Mr Alexander Spencer.