CHAPTER XI.
NEW LITERARY PROJECT.
1839.
Thoughts for the Future—Doubts of old Serial Form—Suggestion for his Publishers—My Mediation with them—Proposed Weekly Publication—Design of it—Old Favorites to be revived—Subjects to be dealt with—Chapters on Chambers—Gog and Magog Relaxations—Savage Chronicles—Others as well as himself to write—Travels to Ireland and America in View—Stipulation as to Property and Payments—Great Hopes of Success—Assent of his Publishers—No Planned Story—Terms of Agreement—Notion for his Hero—A Name hit upon—Sanguine of the Issue.
The time was now come for him seriously to busy himself with a successor to Pickwick and Nickleby, which he had not, however, waited thus long before turning over thoroughly in his mind. Nickleby's success had so far outgone even the expectation raised by Pickwick's, that, without some handsome practical admission of this fact at the close, its publishers could hardly hope to retain him. This had been frequently discussed by us, and was well understood. But, apart from the question of his resuming with them at all, he had persuaded himself it might be unsafe to resume in the old way, believing the public likely to tire of the same twenty numbers over again. There was also another and more sufficient reason for change which naturally had great weight with him, and this was the hope that, by invention of a new mode as well as kind of serial publication, he might be able for a time to discontinue the writing of a long story with all its strain on his fancy, in any case to shorten and vary the length of the stories written by himself, and perhaps ultimately to retain all the profits of a continuous publication without necessarily himself contributing every line that was to be written for it. These considerations had been discussed still more anxiously; and for several months some such project had been taking form in his thoughts.
While he was at Petersham (July, 1839) he thus wrote to me: "I have been thinking that subject over. Indeed, I have been doing so to the great stoppage of Nickleby and the great worrying and fidgeting of myself. I have been thinking that if Chapman & Hall were to admit you into their confidence with respect to what they mean to do at the conclusion of Nickleby, without admitting me, it would help us very much. You know that I am well disposed towards them, and that if they do something handsome, even handsomer perhaps than they dreamt of doing, they will find it their interest, and will find me tractable. You know also that I have had straightforward offers from responsible men to publish anything for me at a percentage on the profits and take all the risk; but that I am unwilling to leave them, and have declared to you that if they behave with liberality to me I will not on any consideration, although to a certain extent I certainly and surely must gain by it. Knowing all this, I feel sure that if you were to put before them the glories of our new project, and, reminding them that when Barnaby is published I am clear of all engagements, were to tell them that if they wish to secure me and perpetuate our connection now is the time for them to step gallantly forward and make such proposals as will produce that result,—I feel quite sure that if this should be done by you, as you only can do it, the result will be of the most vital importance to me and mine, and that a very great deal may be effected, thus, to recompense your friend for very small profits and very large work as yet. I shall see you, please God, on Tuesday night; and if they wait upon you on Wednesday, I shall remain in town until that evening."
They came; and the tenor of the interview was so favorable that I wished him to put in writing what from time to time had been discussed in connection with the new project. This led to the very interesting letter I shall now quote, written also in the same month from Petersham. I did not remember, until I lately read it, that the notion of a possible visit to America had been in his thoughts so early.
"I should be willing to commence on the thirty-first of March, 1840, a new publication, consisting entirely of original matter, of which one number, price threepence, should be published every week, and of which a certain amount of numbers should form a volume, to be published at regular intervals. The best general idea of the plan of the work might be given, perhaps, by reference to the Spectator, the Tatler, and Goldsmith's Bee; but it would be far more popular both in the subjects of which it treats and its mode of treating them.
"I should propose to start, as the Spectator does, with some pleasant fiction relative to the origin of the publication; to introduce a little club or knot of characters and to carry their personal histories and proceedings through the work; to introduce fresh characters constantly; to reintroduce Mr. Pickwick and Sam Weller, the latter of whom might furnish an occasional communication with great effect; to write amusing essays on the various foibles of the day as they arise; to take advantage of all passing events; and to vary the form of the papers by throwing them into sketches, essays, tales, adventures, letters from imaginary correspondents, and so forth, so as to diversify the contents as much as possible.