Critical Studies

by Ouida

The number of volumes which pour annually from the English press is, at the present hour, appalling. One house alone produces, in number, enough volumes for the whole trade. Why are these volumes, usually worthless, ever produced? Why do the circulating libraries accept them? Who reads them? Who buys them? Why does one see in the lists of London 'remainders' the announcement of volumes originally published at six, eight, ten, twelve shillings, to be sold second-hand, perfectly new and uncut, at the miserable prices of two shillings, eighteen-pence, one shilling, and even sixpence? Amongst these is sometimes a work of real and scholarly worth, which it is painful to see thus sacrificed, but rarely; for it is rarely that such a work is now issued in London. Where is this to end? With whom does the fault of it lie? Someone, I suppose, must gain by such an insane method of over-production, but I cannot see who it can possibly be. One well-known publisher tells me that he must issue books thus, or starve. He is not in danger of bodily starvation, but the public is mentally starved by such a system.

When the three-volume novel was abolished (a course which I urged long before it was taken) great things were expected by many from its abolition. I myself hoped that London would adopt the Paris method, and issue novels and all other works, except éditions de luxe, at small prices and in paper covers; not the gaudy, hideous, pictorial, paper cover, but the pale smooth grey or cream-coloured paper, so easily obtainable, with the title of the book clearly printed on its flank. Instead of this result, some unwritten law, as violently despotic as that which used to compel the three-volume issue, has decreed that the London romance shall always appear in a cloth-bound volume at six shillings; the most foolish price that could be selected, too dear to be suitable for private purchase, too low to allow of a handsome edition being issued. There is something grotesquely ludicrous, as well as extremely painful, in seeing the lists of 'ten new six-shilling novels,' or 'a dozen new six-shilling novels,' whereby some publishers' advertisement lists are disfigured in the newspapers with every new season. It makes a commerce of fiction in a manner most injurious and deplorable.

Again, no sooner has the six-shilling novel been a year before the public, than the publisher issues the self-same book at two-and-sixpence. Why does he cut his own throat thus? It is to me as inexplicable as why the London drapers sell you a stuff at six shillings a yard in February, but, if you wait till June, sell it you at two-and-sixpence a yard at the clearance sales. Either the stuff is sold at a price unjust and unfair to the purchaser in February, or it is sold at a price unjust and unfair to the vendor in June. From this proposition there seems to me no escape.

It is the same with the six-shilling book as with the draper's stuffs. If the first price be correct, why alter it to the second in a year's time? If the second price be sufficient to pay expense of production, why not start with it.

The draper, moreover, has an advantage over the publisher. If I want a stuff whilst it is a novelty, and when its like has not been worn by shop girls and servant girls, I must buy it at its high price in February; but if I want to read a novel whilst it is at its highest price, I can read it in that form, taking it from the libraries, and wait for a year to buy it at its lower price, if I then care to do so, which it is improbable that I shall do.

Now, why not have from first to last, in London, an edition of a novel similar to that French form which is good enough for Pierre Loti, for Gyp, for Anatole France, for the brilliant Frères Margueritte? Why?

I suppose because our masters, the librarians, will not have it so; or because some other unwritten law lies like lead on the souls of London publishers.

I read few English books for pleasure myself, I prefer the literatures of other countries; but it pains me to see such a deluge of worthless verbosity pour from London lanes and London streets where printing presses of yore worked for Addison and Goldsmith, Thackeray and Arthur Helps.

If this stream of pseudo-literature be not stopped, it will carry away and swamp all true English literature under it, as a moving bog covers flocks and pastures, cottages and country seats.

I have asked several London publishers why it is allowed to go on; their answers are evasive and contradictory. They assert that most of the volumes published are paid for by the authors; that they themselves must publish something, or cease to exist as a trade; and that the public does not know good from bad, so it does not matter what is printed. Yet, surely to them, as to the drapers, the apparently insensate system must be lucrative, or it would not be pursued?