Nearly two years later, in 1833, the unlucky Dreck was published "piecemeal," in ten parts of ten pages each, in Fraser's Magazine, beginning with November and running until August, 1834. With the shrewdness of his tribe, Fraser, fearing failure, paid only twelve guineas a sheet for the work, though he had been paying its author twenty guineas a sheet, five guineas more than he paid to any other contributor. It turned out, however, that he was wise, for the great essay was not a success, even in the magazine.
"'Magazine Fraser' writes that 'Teufelsdröckh' excites the most unqualified disapprobation—à la bonne heure," said Carlyle; and again: "—Literature still all a mystery; nothing 'paying;' 'Teufelsdröckh' beyond measure unpopular; an oldest subscriber came into him and said, 'If there is any more of that d——d stuff, I will,' &c., &c.; on the other hand an order from America (Boston or Philadelphia) to send a copy of the magazine 'so long as there was anything of Carlyle's in it.' 'One spake up and the other spake down.'"
After the work had run its course in the magazine, about fifty copies were struck off from the types and stitched together for distribution among friends.
It remained to the honor of America, to print the book in 1836, through the energetic efforts of Dr. LeBaron Russell. Emerson furnished the copy and a preface; and before the end of the year he was able to announce to Carlyle the sale of the whole edition. Another edition of over a thousand copies was sold before the first English edition, "a dingy, ill-managed edition" of a thousand copies, was published anonymously by Saunders and Otley in 1838.
Octavo.
Collation: 1 l., 107 pp.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
(1803-1882)
80. Nature. | [Quotation] Boston: | James Munroe And Company. | MDCCCXXXVI.