James Hogg
-JAMES HOGG-
A blight had fallen upon novels and their writers. The enormous success that Scott had achieved tempted hundreds to follow in his path, if that were possible. It was not possible; but this they could not know, because nothing seems so easy to write as a novel, and no man, of those destined to fail, can understand in what respects his own work falls short of Scott’s. That is the chief reason why he fails. Scott’s success, however, produced another effect. It greatly enlarged the number of novel readers, and caused them to buy up eagerly anything new, in the hope of finding another Scott. Thus, about the year 1826 there were produced as many as 250 three- and four-volume novels a year—that is to say, about as many as were published in 1886, when the area of readers has been multiplied by ten. We are also told that nearly all these novels could command a sale of 750 to 1,000 each, while anything above the average would have a sale of 1,500 to 2,000. The usual price given for these novels was, we are also told, from 200l. to 300l. In that case the publishers must have had a happy and a prosperous time, netting splendid hauls. But I think that we must take these figures with considerable deductions. There were, as yet, no circulating libraries of any importance; their place was supplied by book-clubs, to which the publishers chiefly looked for the purchase of their books. But one cannot believe that the book-clubs would take copies of all the rubbish that came out. Some of these novels I have read; some of them actually stand on my shelves; and I declare that anything more dreary and unprofitable it is difficult to imagine. At last there was a revolt: the public would stand this kind of stuff no longer. Down dropped the circulation of the novels. Instead of 2,000 copies subscribed, the dismayed publisher now read 50, and the whole host of novelists vanished like a swarm of midges. At the same time poetry went down too. The drop in poetry was even more terrible than that of novels. Suddenly, and without any warning, the people of Great Britain left off reading poetry. To be sure, they had been flooded with a prodigious quantity of trash. One anonymous ‘popular poet,’ whose name will never now be recovered, received 100l. for his last poem from a publisher who thought, no doubt, that the ‘boom’ was going to last. Of this popular poet’s work he sold exactly fifty copies. Another, a ‘humorous’ bard, who also received a large sum for his immortal poem, showed in the unhappy publisher’s books no more than eighteen copies sold. This was too ridiculous, and from that day to this the trade side of poetry has remained under a cloud. That of novelist has, fortunately for some, been redeemed from contempt by the enormous success of Dickens, Thackeray, George Eliot, and by the solid, though substantial, success of the lesser lights. Poets have now to pay for the publication of their own works, but novelists—some of them—command a price; those, namely, who do not have to pay for the production of their works.
SIR WALTER SCOTT
The popular taste, thus cloyed with novels and poetry, turned to books on popular science, on statistics, on health, and on travel. Barry Cornwall’s ‘Life of Kean,’ Campbell’s ‘Life of Siddons,’ the Lives of Sale, Sir Thomas Picton, and Lord Exmouth, for example, were all well received. So Ross’s ‘Arctic Seas,’ Lamartine’s ‘Pilgrimage,’ Macfarlane’s ‘Travels in the East,’ Holman’s ‘Round the World,’ and Quin’s ‘Voyage down the Danube,’ all commanded a sale of 1,000 copies each at least. Works of religion, of course, always succeed, if they are written with due regard to the religious leaning of the moment. It shows how religious fashions change when we find that the copyright of the works of Robert Hall realised 4,000l. and that of Charles Simeon’s books 5,000l.; while of the Rev. Alexander Fletcher’s ‘Book of Family Devotions,’ published at 24s., 2,000 copies were sold on the day of publication. I dare say the same thing would happen again to-day if another Mr. Fletcher were to hit upon another happy thought in the way of a religious book.
REGINA’S MAIDS OF HONOUR.
I think that one of the causes of the decay of trade as regards poetry and fiction may have been the badness of the annuals. You will find in any old-fashioned library copies of the ‘Keepsake,’ the ‘Forget-me-Not,’ the ‘Book of Beauty,’ ‘Flowers of Loveliness,’ Finden’s ‘Tableaux,’ ‘The Book of Gems,’ and others of that now extinct tribe. They were beautifully printed on the finest paper; they were illustrated with the most lovely steel engravings, the like of which could not now be had at any price; they were bound in brown and crimson watered silk, most fascinating to look upon; and they were published at a guinea. As for their contents, they were, to begin with, written almost entirely by ladies and gentlemen with handles to their names, each number containing in addition two or three papers by commoners—mere literary commoners—just to give a flavouring of style. In the early Thirties it was fashionable for lords and ladies to dash off these trifles. Byron was a gentleman; Shelley was a gentleman; nobody else, to be sure, among the poets and wits was a gentleman—yet if Byron and Shelley condescended to bid for fame and bays, why not Lord Reculver, Lady Juliet de Dagenham, or the Hon. Lara Clonsilla? I have before me the ‘Keepsake’ for the year 1831. Among the authors are Lord Morpeth, Lord Nugent, Lord Porchester, Lord John Russell, the Hon. George Agar Ellis, the Hon. Henry Liddell, the Hon. Charles Phipps, the Hon. Robert Craddock, and the Hon. Grantley Berkeley. Among the ladies are the Countess of Blessington, ‘L. E. L.,’ and Agnes Strickland. Theodore Hook supplies the professional part. The illustrations are engraved from pictures and drawings by Eastlake, Corbould, Westall, Turner, Smirke, Flaxman, and other great artists. The result, from the literary point of view, is a collection much lower in point of interest and ability than the worst number of the worst shilling magazine of the present day. I venture to extract certain immortal lines contributed by Lord John Russell, who is not generally known as a poet. They are ‘written at Kinneil, the residence of the late Mr. Dugald Stewart.’
