FACSIMILE OF A PAGE OF THE MS. OF “WAVERLEY”
Shortly after their publication many of the Waverley Novels were pirated in Germany. A copy of one, picked up at a bookstall in Edinburgh some years ago, bears the title: “The Monastery, a Romance. By the Author of ‘Waverley.’ In Four Volumes. Zwickau, printed for the Brothers Schumann. 1824.” It is actually in two volumes—1 and 2 being together, but each of the four has separate title and steel frontispiece. There was also published, in 1825, a German romance called “Walladmor,” which was impudently ascribed to Sir Walter Scott. Presumably the long-continued anonymity regarding the authorship of the Waverley Novels encouraged the publisher of this book to hope for a successful sale.[32]
CHAPTER VIII
COMMERCIAL TROUBLES AND SUCCESSES—“THE WEEKLY JOURNAL”
Sir Walter Scott in his eagerness to purchase land for his Abbotsford estate, and to fill the mansion with antiquarian and historical curios, brought together with persevering industry and at great cost, was continually in need of money to carry out his plans. Abbotsford eventually became a show-place, and at the same time a kind of hotel, where the greatest men of Europe were proud to be received and to partake of his hospitality. In 1820 Scott received the baronetcy for which he longed, as an aristocratic badge for the new Border family he had the desire to found; and soon after he figured as director of the pageantry in welcoming George IV. to Scotland. The sums which he spent in these ways were great; nor could he have reconciled himself to such outlays, except from the conviction that his genius was a mine upon which he could draw whenever he pleased. For much of this expenditure he resorted to Constable, who, acting as a sort of literary broker, took the author’s genius and popularity in pledge for advances to him. It would have been better for all concerned had Constable, as well as the Ballantynes, been less accommodating on these occasions, for it was, no doubt, the command of ready money that induced Scott to launch out into extravagant schemes. His purchases of land were the talk of the whole district around Melrose and Selkirk, and it was a common saying among the rustics, “that they would wish for no ampler fortune than just the length and breadth of themselves in land within half a mile of the Shirra’s house.” Some in the neighbourhood shook their heads doubtfully over it all, and one adjacent proprietor, whose property Scott envied, told him that “he wouldna be surprised if he lived to see the craws bigging in the braw lum-heads.” But author, printer, and publisher seemed alike intoxicated with the success of the Waverley Novels, and the nature of their dealings was perhaps without parallel in literary commerce. Not to speak of the extravagant remuneration for books already before the public, and of advances for books in progress, it afterwards appeared that large sums were drawn for works which, if contemplated, were at least not begun. To add to all these difficulties, Scott was led by a feeling of gratitude to grant Constable counter-acceptances, in order to relieve him from those embarrassments of which he himself was the chief cause. The complications of all these transactions, precipitated by a commercial panic, brought on at last a complete crash. At the end of January 1826, the firm of Archibald Constable & Co. was declared bankrupt; shortly after, the failure of James Ballantyne & Co. was announced; and with these houses that of Hurst, Robinson & Co., of London, was hopelessly involved. The market was stocked with the dishonoured bills of the firms, and confidence in the great publishing houses was ended. Scott himself was involved in something like £130,000, between publishers and printers.
In all this Scott, not James Ballantyne, played the leading part. In a letter of October 15, 1815, referring to the failure of his brother’s bookselling business, and equally applicable to this new imbroglio, the printer writes to Scott: “I am singularly and hopelessly ignorant in these matters; but I fancy the truth is that, owing to the bad success of the bookselling speculation, and the injudicious drafts so long made on the business that throve, I am, de jure et de facto, wholly dependent on you.” It would appear that James Ballantyne was right in this—that the trouble arose not through any incompetence on the printer’s part, but mainly through the setting up of the firm of John Ballantyne & Co., and the speculations of the publishing firms.
“Scott was always incurring expenses, often heavy expenses, for other people. Thus, when Mr. Terry, the actor, became lessee and manager of the Adelphi Theatre, London, Scott became his surety for £1250, while James Ballantyne became his surety for £500 more, and both these sums had to be paid by Scott after Terry’s failure in 1828. Such obligations as these, however, would have been nothing when compared with Sir Walter’s means, had all his bills on Constable been duly honoured, and had not the printing firm of Ballantyne & Co. been so deeply involved with Constable’s house, that it necessarily became insolvent when he stopped.”[33]
Scott’s share of the large sum involved by the failure was ultimately paid in full by himself and his representatives, while the other firms paid their creditors about ten per cent. of the amount due. It must be kept in mind, however, so far as Constable’s house was concerned, that their property appears to have been foolishly sacrificed by forced sales of copyrights and stock.
The printing-office at Paul’s Work in those days was as complete in all its arrangements as any one of the inimitable volumes which issued from it; and no printed book was put into the binder’s hands till the sheets were thoroughly dry and the ink was fully “ripened.” The business was vigorous, and, as we have seen, in 1822 no fewer than 145,000 volumes issued from the Ballantyne Press, all from the pen of Scott—an extraordinary number of volumes in those days of hand-presses; and this leaves out of reckoning work done for other authors and publishers.
The manager of the working departments—Mr. Hughes being now more in connection with the counting-room—was Daniel M’Corkindale. He never spoke above a whisper, nor stirred out of his quiet manner, and yet, under his control, every man and boy performed his task with despatch and the regularity of clockwork. M’Corkindale was part and parcel of that office—visit it at what hour of the day or night you pleased, there you found him; and even on a Sunday he would take the key and flit noiselessly among the untenanted case-frames and silent presses. James Hogg called him the honest and indefatigable M’Corkindale. After thirty years of faithful service, he died in March 1833, two months after his master.