As through the business talents of the publishers, the printed works of Sir Walter Scott were reduced in price, so through the fame of the author did the autograph remains rise to a very wonderful fictitious value. Mr. Cadell made a remarkable collection of all the manuscripts he could purchase, and on the 9th of July, 1868, his collection was sold for £1073; while even a corrected proof of “Peveril of the Peak” realized £25.
The seventh edition of the “Encyclopædia Britannica” was finished, as we have previously stated, in 1842, and met with, not only an immediate, but also a continuous sale, but human knowledge refuses to be stereotyped, and at the close of 1852 the eighth edition was commenced, occupying nine years in the publication. The proprietors justly claim for it the proud title of “the largest literary enterprise ever undertaken by any single house in Great Britain.” The editorial charge was entrusted to Dr. Thomas Stewart Trail, professor of medical jurisprudence in the University of Edinburgh; and, among the more important new contributors, we may mention Archbishop Whately, Professor Blackie, and Dr. Forbes, the latter of whom contributed a new “Dissertation” to the introductory volume. Lord Macaulay contributed five of the leading biographies “as a token of friendship to the senior proprietor.” “Any article of any value in any preceding edition,” says the editor, “has been reprinted in this—in all cases with corrections, and frequently with considerable additions. Besides these, it has received so great an accession of original contributions, that nine-tenths of its contents may be said to be absolutely new,” and this will probably apply with the same force to the ninth edition, which is to be commenced next year.
Long before this date Mr. Adam Black was assisted in his business by his sons. He retired from the house in 1865, and now laden with honours in public, and successes in business, life, he may fairly claim to be the Nestor of publishers. He must have seen many changes in the literary world, and marked many vicissitudes in the “realms of print;” but the changes as far as they operated for him were for the better, and vicissitudes seem invariably to have kept outside his charmed circle.
In the year 1861, a very valuable work—the “Collected Writings of the late Thomas De Quincey”—came into the hands of Messrs. Black; but, as the public are almost entirely indebted to the laborious care and patient perseverance of another publisher, Mr. James Hogg, then of Edinburgh, for the production of this collection, which then consisted of fourteen volumes, we have thought it better that this account should form a kind of supplement to our present chapter.
For a period of about forty years De Quincey had been an extensive contributor to periodical literature, and it is scarcely surprising that, during such a length of time, the sources even where many of his contributions originally appeared had been forgotten, and that the very existence of a few had altogether escaped the author’s recollection. Various attempts had been made to induce De Quincey to draw together and revise a selection from the more important of his scattered writings, but from his varying state of health and, consequent on this, his inveterate habit of procrastination, the work was always postponed; and from his advanced years, all hope was given up of the collected works ever appearing under the superintendence of the author.
In the year 1845, the well-known periodical, Hogg’s Instructor, was started under the management and sole responsibility of Mr. Hogg. Sixteen volumes of the Instructor as a weekly serial were published, and among many other contributors of note was the “Opium-Eater,” and from the commencement of their intercourse De Quincey and Mr. Hogg became firm friends.
About this time several volumes of De Quincey’s writings had been collected and published by Messrs. Ticknor and Fields, of Boston, U.S., without, of course, the advantage of the author’s own revisal; and, as the papers had been originally hurriedly written for magazines, and as, during the lapse of time, many changes had become unavoidable, the author felt that, in justice to himself, extensive additions and, in some cases, suppressions were necessary. Arrangements were accordingly entered into for bringing out the collected works at home in a thoroughly revised and amended form, Mr. Hogg undertaking all the responsibility, and engaging to give his aid both in collecting the materials, and in generally seeing the volumes through the press. On the announcement of the publication it was confidently predicted by some of those who had been engaged in the previous attempts that not a single volume would ever appear. In order to afford ample time for the thorough revision of the work it was arranged that the publication should be spread over three years. The first volume appeared in 1853; but, instead of three years bringing the series to a close, eight years had elapsed before the thirteenth volume was completed, and then De Quincey died—the remainder of the thirteenth, and the whole of the fourteenth, being due to Mr. Hogg. During these eight years almost daily interviews or correspondence occurred between De Quincey and Mr. Hogg. To use the author’s words, “the joint labour and patient perseverance spent in the preparation of these volumes was something perfectly astounding.” In addition to the frequent and protracted interviews, the correspondence which passed during the progress of the work would fill a goodly volume.
In order to account for the delays which so frequently occurred, De Quincey remarks upon one occasion:—“I suffer from a most afflicting derangement of the nervous system, which at times makes it difficult for me to write at all, and always makes me impatient, in a degree not easily understood, of recasting what may seem insufficiently or even incoherently expressed.” But, while suffering under this cause, he laboured under a daily and more formidable bar to progress, as annoying and perplexing to himself as to others. For many years he had been in the habit of correcting manuscript or of jotting down on loose sheets, more frequently on small scraps of paper, any stray thoughts that occurred to him, intending to use them as occasion might afterwards offer. These papers, however, instead of being methodically arranged and preserved, were carelessly laid aside, and were soon mixed up with letters, proofs, old and new copy, newspapers, periodicals, and other confusing litter, and the numerous volumes he received from literary friends and admirers, all huddled together on chairs, tables, or wherever they at the moment might be stowed. Placing a high value on many things in this heterogeneous mass, and feeling assured in his own mind that strange hands would only render confusion worse confounded, he would allow no one to endeavour to put the things in order. Indeed, if anything could have ruffled his gentle nature into the use of an angry word it would have been the attempt to meddle with these papers. They very rapidly increased, and every search after missing copy or proofs made matters worse. When a dead block occurred his invariable practice was to build them up, as they lay, against the wall of the room, and, as a consequence, everything went astray. A few extracts from notes to Mr. Hogg will show the labour, suffering, and worry which this state of chaos entailed:—“My dear Sir,—It is useless to trouble you with the ins and outs of the process—the result is, that, working through most part of the night, I have not yet come to the missing copy. I am going on with the search, yet being walled up in so narrow an area (not larger than a postchaise as regards the free space), I work with difficulty, and the stooping kills me. I greatly fear that the entire day will be spent in the search.”
“Yesterday, suddenly, I missed the interleaved volume. I have been unrolling an immense heap of newspapers, &c., ever since six a.m. How so thick a vol. can have hidden itself, I am unable to explain.”
“The act of stooping has for many years caused me so much illness, that in this search, all applied to papers lying on the floor, entangled with innumerable newspapers, I have repeatedly been forced to pause. I fear that the seventeen or eighteen missing pages may have been burned suddenly lighting candles; and I am more surprised at finding so many than at missing so few.”