The first installment of "There and Back," Mr. White informed Edwards, had increased The Argosy's circulation seven thousand copies.[H]
On March 2 Harte & Perkins requested Edwards to continue work on the old Five-Cent Library. By taking up this work again he would be diminishing the Factory's serial output, but he reflected that his fertility in the matter of serials would soon have Mr. White over-supplied. Therefore Edwards decided to go on with the nickel weeklies.
In March, as Mr. MacLean of The Popular Magazine once put it, Edwards "came out in cloth," the Dillingham Company issuing "A Tale of Two Towns" on St. Patrick's Day.
What are the feelings of an author when he opens his first book for the first time? If you, dear reader, are yet to "get out in cloth" for the first time, then some day you will know. But, if you value your peace of mind, do not build too gorgeous an air castle on the foundation of this printed thing. Printed things are at the mercy of the reviewers and, in a larger sense, of the great reading public. The reviewers, in nearly every instance, were kind with "A Tale of Two Towns." In many quarters it was praised fulsomely, but the book did not strike that fickle sentiment called popular fancy. In six months, Mr. Cook, of the Dillingham Company, wrote Edwards that "A Tale of Two Towns" was "a dead duck." In the December settlement, however, the remains yielded royalties of $96.60. For two or three years the royalties trailed along, and finally the edition was wound up with a payment of $1.50. Sic transit gloria!
During January, 1903, a theatrical gentleman requested Edwards to dramatize a book which Messrs. Street & Smith had issued in paper covers. "You can change the title," the gentleman suggested, "and slightly change the incidents. In that way it won't be necessary to write Street & Smith for permission or, indeed, to let them know anything about it." Edwards knew, however, that nothing will so surely wreck a writer's prospects as playing fast and loose with editors and publishers. He refused to consider the theatrical gentleman's proposition. Instead, he forwarded his Argosy story, "The Desperado's Understudy," upon which Mr. White had given him dramatic rights, and offered to make a stage version of it. The offer was accepted and a play was built up from the story. The theatrical gentleman was pleased and said he would give $1,500 for the dramatization. Then, alas! the theatrical gentleman's company went on the rocks at the Alhambra Theatre, in Chicago, and Edwards had repeated his former playwriting experience.
The two years' work figured out in this wise:
| 1902: | ||
| 23 | Five-Cent Libraries @ $40 each | $ 920.00 |
| 8 | detective stories @ $40 each | 320.00 |
| 4 | juvenile serials @ $100 each | 400.00 |
| 1 | sketch for trade paper | 10.00 |
| "The Desperado's Understudy," | 250.00 | |
| "The Campaign at Topeka," | 200.00 | |
| Short stories | 67.00 | |
| ———— | ||
| Total | $2167.00 | |
| 1903: | ||
| 42 | Five-Cent Libraries @ $40 each | $1680.00 |
| 2 | detective stories @ $40 each | 80.00 |
| "Ninety, North," | 150.00 | |
| "There and Back," | 250.00 | |
| "A Sensational Affair," short story, | 15.00 | |
| "Grains of Gold," | 300.00 | |
| "Fate's Gamblers,"[I] | 100.00 | |
| "The Morning Star Race," short story, | 15.00 | |
| "A Game for Two," | 200.00 | |
| Royalties on book, "A Tale of Two Towns," | 96.60 | |
| "The Point of Honor," | 150.00 | |
| ———— | ||
| Total | $3036.60 | |
As several gentlemen in these times, by the wonderful force of genius only, without the least assistance of learning, perhaps without being able to read, have made a considerable figure in the republic of letters; the modern critics, I am told, have lately begun to assert, that all kind of learning is entirely useless to a writer, and indeed, no other than a kind of fetters on the natural sprightliness and activity of the imagination, which is thus weighed down, and prevented from soaring to those high flights which otherwise it would be able to reach.
This doctrine, I am afraid, is at present carried much too far; for why should writing differ so much from other arts? The nimbleness of a dancing-master is not at all prejudiced by being taught to move; nor doth any mechanic, I believe, excercise his tools the worse by having learnt to use them.—Fielding, "Tom Jones."