Beginning in March, Edwards had written some more nickel novels for Harte & Perkins—not the old Five-Cent Weekly, for that he was never to do again—but various stories, in odd lots, to help out with a particular series. On July 14 he was switched to another line of half-dime fiction, and this work he kept throughout the remainder of the year.
For the two years the Factory's showing stands as follows:
| 1907: | |
| 18 nickel novels @ $50 each | $ 900.00 |
| Royalties on book, Dillingham | 10.20 |
| "The World's Wonder," | 300.00 |
| "A Romance of the Earthquake," | 250.00 |
| "The Sheriff Who Lost and Won," | 300.00 |
| "The Reporter's Scoop," | 60.00 |
| "The Deputy Sheriff," | 40.00 |
| "The Red Light at Rawlin's," | 350.00 |
| "Cast Away by Contract,". | 75.00 |
| "Special One-Five-Three," | 350.00 |
| "The Disputed Claim," | 500.00 |
| "Fencing with Foes," | 450.00 |
| "The Billionaire's Dilemma,". | 200.00 |
| ———— | |
| Total | $3785.20 |
| 1907: | |
| "Under Sealed Orders," | $ 250.00 |
| "The Pacific Pearlers," | 450.00 |
| "Call of the West," | 200.00 |
| "Wilderness Gold-Hunter," | 500.00 |
| "Dupes of Destiny," | 75.00 |
| "On the Stroke of Four," | 400.00 |
| "The Hero of the Car," | 300.00 |
| "An Aerial Romance," | 200.00 |
| "West-Indies Mix-Up," | 60.00 |
| 33 nickel novels @ $50 each | 1650.00 |
| ———— | |
| Total | $4085.00 |
In that remarkable group of authors who made the dime novel famous, the late Col. Prentiss Ingraham was one of the giants. These "ready writers" thought nothing of turning out a thousand words of original matter in an hour, in the days when the click of the typewriter was unknown, and of keeping it up until a novel of 70,000 words was easily finished in a week. But to Col. Ingraham belongs the unique distinction of having composed and written out a complete story of 35,000 words with a fountain pen, between breakfast and breakfast. His equipment as a writer of stories for boys was most varied and valuable, garnered from his experience as an officer in the Confederate army, his service both on shore and sea in the Cuban war for independence, and in travels in Mexico, Austria, Greece and Africa. But he is best known and will be most loyally remembered for his Buffalo Bill tales, the number of which he himself scarcely knew, and which possessed peculiar value from his intimate personal friendship with Col. Cody.
[XXI.]
A WRITER'S
READING
That old Egyptian who put above the door of his library these words, "Books are the Medicines of the Soul," was wise indeed. But the Wise, ever since books have been made, have harped on the advantage of good literature, and have said all there is to be said on the subject a thousand times over. If one has any doubts on this point let him consult a dictionary of quotations. No intelligent person disputes the value of books; and it should be self-evident that no writer, whose business is the making of books, will do so. To the writer books are not only "medicines for the soul" but tonics for his technique, febrifuges for his rhetorical fevers and prophylactics for the thousand and one ills that beset his calling. A wide course of general reading—the wider the better—is part of the fictionist's necessary equipment; and of even more importance is a specializing along the lines of his craft.