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Updated: May 31, 2025
Is it is it a cover for my writing-table? No, you do not sew. Tell me. And then I should say proudly. 'It is nothing of that kind. It is a book, and the people whom you think such good judges say it must be a success! I saw it again as I was coming down the stairs from the publisher's office.
for the note, in the publisher's own handwriting, said this, and more: "DEAR SIR, I shall be glad to send you fifteen guineas immediately, in return for your article on General Pope's Campaign, if the price will suit you." But I suppressed my enthusiasm. I spoke patronizingly to the young gentleman. Dr. Johnson, at the brewer's vendue, could not have been more learnedly sonorous.
Then a belated thought struck me. Perhaps I should ask the owner for the job, or at any rate inform him that I had taken it. From The Press I found the publisher's name was E. L. Senn. I learned that he owned a long string of proof sheets. A monopoly out here on the raw prairie. Folks said he was close as the bark on a tree and heartless as a Wall Street corporation.
In fact, after all those charges for composition, corrections, paper, printing, binding, advertising, and editorial copies, there was a most ingenious and wholly surprising charge of ten per cent. commission on sales, which reduced my half from pounds to shillings, and handsomely increased the publisher's half in proportion. I do not now dispute the justice of the charge.
Some one of them, keener-eyed than the rest, had seen that there was a meaning and virtue in this unsuccessful book, for which there was a new audience educated since it had tried to breathe before its time. Out of this had grown at last the publisher's proposal. It was too much: his heart swelled with joy, and his eyes filled with tears. How could he resist the temptation?
I thought I would prefer that to evils that I know not of. I have almost a terror of having to come into contact with new people. But my place was filled. I trudged home again. I went to the publisher's too; nothing yet. The three weeks were up to-day. May 12th. I dared not wait any more to-day. I had just three dollars and ten cents left. And my rent is due the day after to-morrow.
The book is fat with discussion by these and other eminent newspaper men, as to the motives, methods and ethics of their profession, disclosing high ideals and genuine seeking of good for all the world, but the whole of it at last rests upon primary motives and controlling principles in nowise different or better or worse than those of the Produce Exchange and the dry goods district, of Wall Street and Broadway, so that, taking publications in the lump, it is neither untrue nor ungenerous, nor, when fully considered, is it surprising, to say that the world's doing, fact and fancy are collected, reported, discussed, scandalized, condemned, commended, supported and turned back upon the world as the publisher's merchandise.
Some one of them, keener-eyed than the rest, had seen that there was a meaning and virtue in this unsuccessful book, for which there was a new audience educated since it had tried to breathe before its time. Out of this had grown at last the publisher's proposal. It was too much: his heart swelled with joy, and his eyes filled with tears. How could he resist the temptation?
Perhaps the most satisfactory evidence of his popularity was his publisher's enthusiasm. The publisher is an infallible contemporary barometer. It is worthy of note that an American should have captivated public attention at the moment when Scott and Byron were the idols of the English-reading world.
"You see, Tom," said he, when he found that his companion insisted upon knowing the cost of the books, "this is a publisher's secret; and I dare say they would not wish every one to know the cost of books. We sell them for a dollar apiece." "Humph! You needn't be so close about it. I'll bet I can find out."
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