Collation: vii, 64 pp., 2 ll.
SIR WALTER SCOTT
(1771-1832)
71. Ivanhoe; | A Romance. | By "The Author Of Waverley," &c. | [Quotation] In Three Volumes. | Vol. I. | Edinburgh: | Printed For Archibald Constable And Co. Edinburgh: | And Hurst, Robinson, And Co. 90, Cheapside, London. | 1820.
Constable offered "The Author of Waverley" £700 for its copyright; but was told that the sum was too little if the book succeeded, and too much if it failed. The success of the novel, when it appeared, July 7, 1814, was enormous. One thousand copies were sold in the first five weeks, and six editions were necessary within the year. The whole English-reading world waited for another book from the same pen. Ivanhoe appeared, December 18, 1819, and Mr. Leslie Stephen says that it was "Scott's culminating success in a book-selling sense, and marked the highest point both of his literary and social prosperity."
The "Waverley novels" had been issued in duodecimo, but this volume marked a change to a new size. The paper was finer than hitherto, and the press-work much better. The price, too, was raised from eight shillings the volume to ten. These changes were made, Lockhart tells us, to assist the impression, which it was thought best to create, that Ivanhoe was by a new hand; but "when the day of publication approached, [Constable] remonstrated against this experiment, and it was accordingly abandoned." The sale of the novel, in the early editions, amounted to 12,000 copies. Its popularity to-day is as great as ever.
Scott's persistence in keeping up his anonymity is well known. In agreements with Constable a clause was introduced making the publisher liable to a penalty of £2000 if the author's name were revealed.
A survey of Scott's publishing ventures would hardly be complete without a word concerning this publisher with whom his fortunes were so inseparably connected. Curwen says: "From 1790 to 1820 Edinburgh richly deserved the honorable title of 'Modern Athens.' Her University and her High School, directed by men preëminently fitted for their duties ... attracted and educated a set of young men, unrivalled, perhaps, in modern times for genius and energy, for wit and learning. Nothing, then, was wanting to their due encouragement but a liberal patron, and this position was speedily occupied by a publisher who, in his munificence and venturous spirit, soon outstripped his boldest English rival—whose one fault was, in fact, that of always being a Mæcenas, never a tradesman." By his liberality to writers, Constable transformed the publishing business, and practically put it upon a new basis. He made it possible for authors to do away with aristocratic patrons, and to stand upon their own merits. Scott had good reason to say, even after his disastrous participation in Constable and Co.'s failure, "Never did there exist so intelligent and so liberal an establishment."
Octavo.