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AUTHORS AND PUBLISHERS
A MANUAL OF SUGGESTIONS FOR BEGINNERS
IN LITERATURE
COMPRISING A DESCRIPTION OF PUBLISHING METHODS AND ARRANGEMENTS, DIREC-
TIONS FOR THE PREPARATION OF Mss. FOR THE PRESS, EXPLAINATIONS OF THE
DETAILS OF Book-MANUFACTURING, INSTRUCTIONS FOR PRO OF-READING,
SPECIMIENS OF TYPOGRAPHY, THE TEXT OF THE UNITED STATES
COPYRIGHT LAW AND INFORMATION CONCERNING IN- -
TERNATIONAL COPYRIGHTS, TOGETHER witH
GENERAL HINTS FOR AUTHORS
NEW YORK
G. P. PU T N A M'S SONS
27 & 29 WEST 23D STREET
I883 .
CopyRIGHT BY
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS.
I883
Press of
G. P. Putnam's Sons
AVezw York
CONTENTS.
ATUTHORS AND Plj BLISHERS
PUBLISHING ARRANGEMENTS
SECURING COPYRIGHT e º
EDITORS AND THE PERIODICAL PRESS
ADVERTISING e
THE MAIKING OF BOOKS
VARIOUS SIZES OF BOOKS
GIVING OUT COPY .
TYPE-SETTING
OFFICE PROOF
AUTHOR’s PROOF
CORRECTING PROOF
SPECIMIEN OF CORRECTED PROOF
CORRECTIONS OF THE PRESS e
SPECIMEN OF PROOF AFTER CORRECTION .
EXTRA CORRECTIONS
LOCKING UP & e ſe
ELECTROTYPING AND STEREOTYPING
LETTER-PRESS PRINTING
AUTHORs' ESTIMATES
STEREOTYPING º d o
ELECTROTYPING e e º
PRINTING-PRESSES . g o
THE CYLINDER PRESS © ſº
MAKING READY & e tº º
HYDRAULIC PRESSING © g ©
BOOK-BINDING º º e º
LIBRARY BINDINGS .
ILLUSTRATIONS
PHOTO-ENGRAVING . © y
WOOD-CUTS ſe e
PHOTO-LITHOGRAPHS AND HELIOTYPES
LITHOGRAPHS e
COPPER AND STEEL PLATES
PAGE.
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27
44
50
62
62
74
74
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75
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77
78 .
79
79
8O
8 I
8 I
8 I
83
8.4
88
90
QO
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Q4
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95
AUTHORS AND PUBLISHERS.
T has been a popular assumption that between authors
and publishers little sympathy existed. The story of
Campbell, at a literary dinner, proposing the health of
Napoleon, because he “once shot a publisher,” has often
been quoted as a fair expression of the feeling with which
they regard each other, and if there is any truth in the
picture which represents the publisher as a sort of ogre,
whose den is strewn with the bones of authors, and who
quaffs his wine out of their skulls, this assumption is cer-
tainly natural enough, as between the eater and the eaten
there can be little love lost.
It must be admitted that the reminiscences of authors
do contain not a few instances which might serve to justify
this vulgar impression as to the practical and profit-absorb-
ing tendencies of publishers. Milton, Johnson, Goldsmith,
Voltaire, Balzac, Heine, Byron, Thackeray, and many others,
including even Cicero, might be cited in support of this
view. In deciding, however, how much weight ought to
be given to such quotations, it is proper to bear in mind
several considerations. In the first place, the reports of
such differences as have arisen between authors and pub-
lishers always appear in an ea Żarſe shape. We hear only
the authors’ opinions of the questions at issue, while the
statements of the other parties, the publishers, do not get
‘Johann Phillip Palm, of Nuremberg, shot in 1806, for publishing a pamphlet
against the rule of the French in Germany.
I
2 A 24//eozºs azza! A 'zzó/7s/hers.
before the public at all. Secondly, these ea: Žarte opinions
come to us from members of a grezzzz's 2777tabzle, whose per-
ceptions of the facts and equities of business transactions
must in any case be taken with much allowance, and of
whom some, at least, such as Voltaire, Balzac, Heine, etc.,
can hardly be trusted to tell straight stories of matters in
which their own vanity or interests were involved.
It is further to be borne in mind that, while the transac-
tions between authors and publishers would now aggregate
a very considerable number (equal, of course, to the total
number of books published), the public has its attention
called to those instances only in which the authors imagine
they had grounds for complaint or texts or pretexts for
satire; and in reading of these it is easy to forget how very
inconsiderable a proportion they must bear to the long list
of transactions concerning which the authors had no criti-
cisms to make.
The hundreds of thousands of cases in which the
authors have, through the successful co-operation of their
publishers, received from the public a satisfactory return for
their labors, give no texts for satirical chapters in fiction, no
themes for fierce onslaughts in reminiscences;–they remain
naturally and of necessity uncommemorated.
And, finally, it is proper to remember that publishers are
the only class of business men whose sins, real or imaginary,
come into literature. Their clients have the ear of the
public, and sometimes of posterity, and are likely enough to
assume that the details of their personal concerns and griev-
ances are as interesting to their readers as they may be
important to themselves. If the complaints against mer-
chants, bankers, lawyers, physicians, etc., on the part of their
respective clients, could, in like manner, be put into literary
form, the sins of publishers would, in comparison, sink into.
absolute insignificance.
Azz//hors and A'zzó/is/hers. 3
It must also be said that the relations of authors and
publishers have, as literature has developed in commercial
importance, and has established its commercial status, under-
gone material modifications, and that occurrences which
gave rise to some of the bitter passages in authors' reminis-
cences of a century back, would, under the conditions of to-
day, be impossible. Grub Street exists no more, and with
Grub Street have disappeared the patron and the publisher
of old-time literary history and literary hatred. The last
appearance of the latter is, we believe, in “ Pendennis,”
where Warrington and young Pen are described as going
down to Fleet Street to sell Pen's poem, and Pen becomes
acquainted with the manner in which the rivals of the pub-
lishing fraternity, Bungay and Bacon, bully, on the one hand,
their hardly paid hacks, while ever ready, on the other, to
toady to their aristocratic clients. i
This picture in “Pendennis,” by the way, could not
have been given as a personal experience, for it is on record
that Thackeray's personal relations with his own publishers
(Smith, Elder, & Co.) were both pleasant and profitable.
It is certainly the case to-day that authors who can pro-
duce wares possessing commercial value, find little difficulty
in securing for them such value. Publishers are always on
the look-out for real material, that is, for material possessing
that indescribable quality which secures popular appreciation,
and they can be trusted, on the ground of their competition
with each other, if for no other reason, to pay for such
material its market value. It may, therefore, safely be con-
cluded, that it is chiefly the feebler sort of authors who make
any attempt to keep up the “ogre’’ theory or to represent
publishers as “bulldozers.”
The fledgeling whose first venture has been entered
upon with large expectations, may often be ready to imagine
that the profits upon which he had fondly calculated, and
4. Azz//hors and Pu//ishers.
which he has failed to realize, have been absorbed by the
publishers. But an author who has any experience in lit-
erature or knowledge of business, can readily recognize that
the interests of authors and publishers, of producers and
distributors, are practically identical, and that all transactions
between them must be regulated by the same inexorable
laws of supply and demand, and under the same pressure
of competition, which control all buying and selling.
In connection with this matter of the relations of authors
and publishers, it may be worth while to quote a few words
from a writer whose experience was, on the whole, not un-
satisfactory :
“I have dealt with a good many publishers,” says Mr.
Frederick B. Perkins, “ and while I have found some few of
them arrogant, discourteous, Oppressive, and generally abom-
inable in both personal and business intercourse, I desire
to record my testimony that as a class they are courteous
and honorable gentlemen ; fair and liberal in views, inten-
tions, and actions, and pleasant and intelligent in mind and
intercourse. For my own part, after having examined in
detail a good many transactions with publishers for other
people, and after having a good many dealings with them
for myself, I should be satisfied that what my publisher
told me about the sale of my book was true ; that he had
done his best to sell it, and that what he had paid me (for
my share of the proceeds) was right.”
In a recent article on “The Publisher's Vocation,” the
text for which was the cordially appreciative memoir by
Thomas Hughes of the publisher Daniel Macmillan, the
Rev. Julius H. Ward says :
“The reading public is ready enough to acknowledge its
obligations to authors, and seldom thinks of the party named
at the foot of the title-page, through whose agency a book
is brought out. The traditions of books give every ad-
Azz//hors and Pºzó/is/hers. 5
vantage to the author and printer, and place the publisher
midway between heaven and earth, where he is likely to
suffer abuse from everybody. Yet he has a relation to the
literary public the importance of which can hardly be exag-
gerated, and without which literature would almost cease to
prosper. The author creates, the publisher simply puts his
wares on the market ; but between the publishing of books
that deprave the public taste and those that elevate it, no
one stands in a more responsible position than the man who
puts them on the market. The quarrels of authors with pub-
lishers would make a long story, and, on the other hand,
the encouragement which publishers have given to authors
has often been the making of them, and has given direction
to the development of a generation of readers.
“Their business has its mechanical and secular side, but it
also has its moral and educational side. They can much
more easily degrade than they can elevate the public taste,
and where a publisher has chosen to bring out only good
books, and has put conscience into his business, he has al-
ways risen through his work to a position of commanding
influence. Qne does not hesitate a moment to buy the
books issued by the leading English and American houses
on the score of their morality, and hardly on the score of
literary merit. The reputation of the best houses is so
jealously guarded in this respect that no inducements can
prevail on them to bring out a work of questionable char-
acter, especially with an eye to the making of money out of
it, while their pecuniary interests are sufficiently at stake to
prevent the publication of works that are only fit for the
waste-basket. And the securing of the reputation of a high-
toned publisher has been the aim, as it is also the present
aim, of nearly all the publishers who have been connected
with our literature.
“One recalls the names of several Americans who have
stood in such relations to authors and readers that their im-
print carried immense influence, making them not only
benefactors to authors, but the purveyors of the best books
to those for whom they were written. Eminent among
these was George P. Putnam, who brought a sensitive
conscience and excellent literary taste to the business of a
6 A 24//hors azed A*246/7s/hers.
bookseller and publisher, and is always to be named as one
of the best friends American authors have ever had.
“He published books on their merits, and drew around
him the men who had something to say to the public ; and
the magazine which he started in 1853 is still remembered,
although long ago discontinued, for the noble character and
excellent quality of the contents. He filled out the idea of
what the public needed, and had the largeness of concep-
tion requisite to the undertaking and the proper business
capacity to make it a success. No man knew better how
to help authors forward, or how to furnish the public with
readable books of the best character.
“The late James Brown, who lifted the house of Little,
Brown, & Co. into its present high rank, was the first
American to import the best English books at reasonable
prices. Greater as a bookseller than as a publisher, he was
eminent in both directions, and from 1837 to 1855 did more
than any other man to bring the best thought of Europe
into contact with the best minds of America. He had
the power to ascertain the contents of a book by glancing
through its uncut pages, which is said to have been the
secret of the poet Percival's wonderful acquisitions while
leaning over the counters of George Howe's book-store in
New Haven fifty years ago. His word about a book had
the weight of the best critical judgment. He developed a
taste for the best editions, and was the publisher of Ban-
croft's, Palfrey's, Everett's, and Winthrop's works, in a
style that was an honor to our literature.
. “The old house of Ticknor & Fields must be mentioned
in this connection. Mr. Fields rendered excellent and
peculiar services to our literature, but the character of the
house had been established before he became a member of
it. His persistency and literary enthusiasm had an influ-
ence in the right direction, but the cool, clear judgment of
Mr. Ticknor gave the house its proper weight and charac-
ter. There are many instances of the highest type of the
publisher in Boston to-day, where business capacity is allied
with literary instinct, and where the publisher is forgotten
in the scholar and the gentleman, the business by which
one lives being almost forgotten in the enthusiasm for good
Authors and Publishers. 7
books and in the desire to keep our literature at its highest
and best. This ideal is so steadily aimed at, and in many
instances so largely realized, that it may be said that our
best publishers have lifted their business up to the dignity
of the great professions. g -
“But, perhaps, no better type of the bookseller and
publisher has ever been known than is disclosed in Thomas
Hughes's ‘Memoirs of Daniel Macmillan.’ The house of
Macmillan & Co. now ranks with that of John Murray and
the Longmans in point of honor and influence in English
literature, and here the story of the way in which it was
founded is told by an accomplished and sympathetic writer.
“No man,’ says Mr. Hughes, who ever sold books for a
livelihood was more conscious of a vocation ; more im-
pressed with the dignity of his craft and of its value to hu-
manity ; more anxious that it should suffer no shame or
diminution through him.' Bound out as a bookbinder's
apprentice in his eleventh year; carrying the burdens of a
large business as if he were a man, before he was well out
of his boyhood; thirsting, like a hundred other Scotch peas-
ant boys of his time, for the freedom of a large career; im-
proving every leisure moment for the education which his
poverty denied him, at the University of Glasgow, he was
in Cambridge, in a university book-store, in his twentieth
year, and at the end of a twelvemonth's service there was
not a book on the shelves of the shop with whose contents
he was not familiar.
“Ten years later, through the generosity of Archdeacon
Hare, whose friendship had been won because the young
Scotchman had been built up into a higher type of man-
hood by studying his “Guesses at Truth,' and whose loan
of £500 enabled the Macmillan brothers, Daniel and Alex-
ander, to start in business on their own account as univer-
sity booksellers and publishers, he returned to Cambridge
to develop a career as noble as it was honest and sincere.
Mr. F. J. Furnivall, in the Academy for August 12th, con-
fesses himself among the young men who owed to him
‘the best of such teachings as they got from the univer-
sity.’ ‘The man who taught us to think, to read books that
made us think, and opened our minds,’ he says, “was
s Authors and Publishers.
Daniel Macmillan, along with our college friends. As long
as his health lasted, and he was able to stir up under-
graduates and graduates by his talk, he was a real power
in the university.’ -
“Mr. Hughes, in the memoir, the reading of which is
so thrilling that one's heart leaps into his throat half a hun-
dred times while going through it, brings out his university
work, carried on while looking death in the face almost
weekly for the last twelve years of his life, in even stronger
light than Mr. Furnivall does ; but this work was really
only incidental to his great purposes, the overflow of the
mind and heart of a deeply religious and earnest man who
knew the power of good books to enlarge men's souls.
. . . . . There was so much of live substance in this
man, and he had put his heart and soul so truly into the
great publishing house that he founded, that he could not
be forgotten, and the new generation of to-day has de-
manded that the story of the way in which he illustrated
the possibilities of the publisher's vocation should be known
to the world.”
In this connection the editor of the present volume, at
the risk of being thought personal, thinks it may be con-
sidered of interest to quote a letter from Washington Irving
to the founder of the firm whose imprint this volume bears.
Az///hors and Puáſis/hers. 9
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The writer once heard of a publisher who, ambitious to
cast a poetic halo over his calling, tried his hand at a para-
phrase of the well-known lines on Franklin,
“Ariſuzº coe/o fulmen sceptrumgue flyranzis,”
and suggested, as expressing what he would like to have
accomplished :
“Arºzziº Zoetes azezmama azerum/zle populo.”
I 2 A 24//hors and /º/ö/is/hers.
“From the authors he seized brains and from the public
gold.”
Certainly a most desirable result, and the picture of our
publisher, in the guise of a prestidigitateur, exercising an
infallible King-Midas touch on the material submitted to
him, is a very fascinating one. But brains, the proceeds of
which can be converted into a satisfactory cash equivalent,
are scarcer and more difficult to secure than the youthful
writer or the average critic is apt to imagine, and a large
majority of the productions submitted to publishers as the
offspring of brains, bear very slight traces of their supposed
origin, and are no more convertible into current coin of the
realm than are the notes of the late Confederacy.
It is also to be remembered that literary material may pos-
sess literary value, but may, for One cause or another, lack
commercial “availability.” The question that the publisher
must consider in deciding upon it is whether enough readers
and buyers can be secured for it to render the publication
remunerative to himself and the author. And the decision
must often be unfavorable, even for work of no little intrinsic
merit. It may be a scientific treatise, whose teachings,
while important to science, would be directly serviceable to
but a few hundred readers; or an historical study, on a sub-
ject recently treated by some other writer whose name pos-
sessed greater authority, and whose book had therefore
supplied the demand ; or essays, possessing originality but
lacking literary form and therefore readability; or a vol-
ume of travel, on some part of the world already so fully
be-written as to render further description unnecessary and
therefore unprofitable ; or a volume of fiction, pleasantly
and gracefully written, but not characterized by any distinc-
tive power or originality, and likely, therefore, to fail to
secure any marked attention from the critics, or any con-
siderable sale with the public.
Azz//hors and Puá/is/hers. I3
The difficulty in the way of a favorable decision may
also sometimes be due to some particular circumstances in
the state of the “market” for literary wares.
It may, in any case, safely be concluded that the judg-
ment of the publisher, who comes into direct contact with
the reading public, and who has the advantage as well of
his own personal experience as of a knowledge of the his-
tory of publishing ventures generally, possesses many more
chances of being correct as to the probable availability and
popularity of literary material, than that of the author, who
usually lacks any such knowledge, and whose calculations
must be more or less colored by the paternal relation he
bears to the article whose value is in question.
It is true, however, that a publisher avoids, as a rule,
passing judgment upon the general value of a manuscript,
and restricts himself to deciding whether or not it is avail-
able for his own list; and it happens not infrequently that
undertakings concerning which one firm is doubtful are
promptly entered upon and successfully carried out by an-
other. This difference of opinion is, of course, sometimes
due to a difference in clearness of perception; but it is more
frequently the case that the manuscript has, in the first in-
stance, been offered to a house with whose particular line
of publications, or with whose position on the questions
discussed in it, it did not happen to be in accord.
It is important, therefore, for the author, before submit-
ting his manuscript, to inform himself, as far as may be in
his power, as to which publisher's catalogue it is most likely
to be in harmony with. He may, through this precaution,
often save time for both himself and the publishing offices.
As, however, it may often be difficult, at least for a begin-
ner in literature, to obtain trustworthy information as to the
idiosyncrasies of the different publishing houses, he should
guard himself from being unduly discouraged at receiving
I4 A 24//hors and A 'zzó/is/hers.
one or more declinations of his wares, and should continue
to submit his manuscript to one house after another until
it has been the rounds of all the firms whose imprints are
worth securing.
If the work is declined by all, the writer may be pretty
well satisfied that, whatever its merits, it is not of such a
character as to secure a popular appreciation or a remunera-
tive sale.
The confident author, possessing a mens conscia inflat,
dºwzzzz, may still console himself with the reflection that
perhaps all the publishers are mistaken, and that if his vol-
ume could only overleap the barriers which publishing stu-
pidity has placed between it and the public, the latter would
eagerly accord the appreciation and the fame.
The history of literature does present instances of obtuse
publishers refusing to recognize literary gems which later
have brought fame to their authors and profits and pres-
tige to more clear-sighted and enterprising firms. But the
number of such instances is, for all the centuries of pub-
lishing, at best but inconsiderable ; and literary history
fails to give record of the discouragingly long yearly list of
undertakings, in which the publisher's enterprise, influenced
possibly by the sanguineness of the author, has outstrip-
ped his clear-sightedness and judgment, and which have
brought loss instead of profit.
It has, in fact, been estimated that one half of the books
published each year in the United States have failed to re-
turn their cost, and that one half of the remainder have
brought no profit, thus leaving the cost of supporting the
publishing machinery of the country to be borne by the
publishers' share of the profits of one fourth of the books
issued. If these figures can be trusted, and while it is
impossible to verify them with precision, they are proba-
bly not far from the truth, it is not want of enterprise or
Azz//hors and Puč/is/hers. I 5
lack of faith with which American publishers should be
charged. t
In submitting a manuscript, there is, as a rule, nothing
to be gained by the author in securing a personal interview
with the publisher. Of course, there may be many con-
siderations which will render it desirable for authors and
publishers at some time to come together, but it is very
seldom that anything is gained by such personal word at the
time the manuscript is first handed in. A literary work, in
the few minutes' time that it is proper to allow for a call in
a business office, can not receive such attention as authors
usually expect for their productions. It is not, like a Chat-
ham-Street hat, to be cared for “while the owner waits.”
There is also no advantage in taking time to point out to
a publisher the particular merits or peculiarities of a work.
If the purpose and value of the work can not be made clear
to the examiner of the manuscript without a personal expla-
nation from the author, it is not likely that the volume is in
shape to be of much service to the general public. It is
probable that there are to-day but few writers so unsophis-
ticated as to undertake themselves to read their manuscripts
to the publishers to whom they submit them. Any such
would, of course, promptly be told that there is no time in
a business office for any thing of this kind, and it might also
be explained to him that, irrespective of the question of
time, a publisher's mind is not apt to be, during business
hours, in a sufficiently free and receptive state to render
him appreciative of the beauties of literature; and such con-
sideration as he might be induced to give, would, under the
circumstances, be most likely to prove unfavorable.
In fact, as is now very generally understood, with all
the larger publishing houses the business of making a first
examination and analysis of the manuscripts submitted is in
the hands of assistants, who are called “readers.”
I6 A 24//hors azed. Auð/is/hers.
The production of manuscripts for publication is being
actively carried on by thousands of literary aspirants
throughout the country : from Maine to Texas, from
Florida to Alaska, the cacoèthes scribendi, accompanied by
a greater or smaller amount of inspiration, is keeping in
motion thousands of earnest pens; while the manuscripts
which are the results of all this hopeful scribbling are, with
the exception of a small portion finding their way to Chi-
cago, poured into the publishing offices of three cities :
New York, Boston, and Philadelphia. These three cities
thus form the literary sifters and the literary clearing-
houses of the continent. As a result of such concentra-
tion, the leading publishing houses receive each (exclusive
of magazine material) from one hundred to several hun-
dred manuscripts per month. The task of taking care of
this mass of material is quite a considerable one, and in-
volves no little outlay of time and money. The cash value
of the manuscripts, if calculated on the basis of the authors'
estimates, would be enormous, and even with such con-
siderable discount as it might be proper to make on these
estimates, is still quite large, and the labor of keeping the
records of the manuscripts, of the correspondence connected
with them, and of safely returning to the owners the greater
portion of them, calls for the services of a large number of
“manuscript clerks.” --
The manuscripts, when recorded and numbered, are sent
out to the examiners, being usually divided among these
according to their subjects, fiction going to One class of
readers, science to another, theology to a third, etc. The
written reports which come back from the examiners refer
to the manuscripts by their numbers, and it may often be
the case that the examiners have no knowledge of the
names of the authors whose material they are reporting
upon. The publishers then give to the returned manuscripts
Azz//hors and Pºzó/is/hers. I7
such further consideration as is warranted by the reports
of their examiners; but while a favorable report secures for
a work careful attention, a decidedly unfavorable one is
usually accepted as final.
It will be seen that under such a system a work has
every opportunity of securing the thorough examination
and the impartial consideration upon which writers (not
unnaturally) lay so much stress, and that in connection
with such an examination of manuscripts identified by their
numbers, much less weight can be given to personal in-
troductions and recommendations accompanying manu-
scripts than writers are apt to imagine.
As we have before said, publishers are always on the
look-out for good material, and for the first efforts of the
young writers who are to become the leading authors of
the next decade; and each day's supply of manuscripts is
carefully, if not hopefully, scanned in the chance that it
may include a “Jane Eyre" or an “Uncle Tom.”
With a few further words of suggestion to those sub-
mitting for the press their first productions, we will bring
this introductory chapter to a close.
Do not, in a publisher's office, quote the opinions of
friends as “having induced you to offer your work for publi-
cation,” or speak of your friends as being themselves “ready
to purchase a first edition.” Publishers have learned to
attach little weight to “opinions of friends " as to the
literary merit of a work, and such merit must, in any
case, if it exist, be open to demonstration ; and sad experi-
ence has further taught publishers to place still less faith
On the general promises made by “friends" before the
publication of a book, to purchase a large number of copies
when it is ready. If an author is fortunate enough to be
in a position to further the sales of his book, it is wiser for
him to refrain from arousing the publisher's expectations
I 8 Authors and Pub/ishers.
(or his scepticism) at the outset, and to let such co-opera-
tion come as a pleasant surprise afterward.
It is also not likely to be of service, to lay stress upon
the fact that your “acquaintance with the press" will ensure
for your volume favorable consideration at the hands of the
literary critics, as publishers are fully aware, that the re-
views in journals whose opinions carry weight and effect
sales, cannot easily be influenced by personal relations or
by suggestions from authors.
Finally, before submitting a manuscript at all, it may
often be worth while to take the opinion of judicious
friends as to whether it is in satisfactory shape for pub-
lication. Hundreds of manuscripts have to go through
the grist-mill of publishing offices, the writers of which
have never mastered the first principles of English gram-
mar and could not stand an examination in Webster's
Primary Speller. Hundreds more, which are smoothly
written and which show a due regard for the English lan-
guage, are absolutely devoid of ideas. The writers had
nothing to say to the public, and yet expect fame and
profit for saying it. Much loss of time, and much bitter-
ness of hope deferred and of expectations disappointed,
could be spared to these writers if they had, in the first
place, taken counsel of some of those about them who were
in a position to judge whether the material had any value
and was in decent form. In country towns, the librarian of
the town library, the bookseller, the minister of the parish,
or some other neighbor of education or experience would,
in most cases, be willing and able to give wise counsel, and
counsel which, if followed, would save much waste of effort.
Finally, if you are planning to become an author, it will
be wise to remember the advice of Ahazech to the young
man contemplating marriage: “Don't.” That is, don't, if
you can avoid it. Don't, unless the pressure is so strong
Authors and Puč/ishers. IQ-
upon you that you can recognize yourself as really being
“called,” and that literature is to be the “calling.” Books
must be written out of that which is in you, not made up ;
and if without such calling a man sits down, and says to
himself: “Go to, let us make a book,” so surely will the
end of that book and of that man (or woman) be disappoint-
ment and emptiness.
PUBLISHING ARRANGEMENTS.
HEN the author and the publisher have agreed be-
tween them that a work is to be published, it re-
mains to be decided under which of the several publishing
arrangements the publication shall be undertaken. The
following are the methods most generally in use in this
country.
First, the author sells his manuscript outright for a
fixed sum, the publisher becoming the absolute owner of
the copyright of the work, and being at liberty to print,
without any further remuneration to the author, as many
editions of it as he may find demand for. Under such a
purchase, unless there is special provision to the contrary,
the publisher is also at liberty to transfer the copyright and
the right to publish to any other publisher, the author re-
taining no control over the publishing arrangements or the
form of the editions printed.
This ownership, on the part of the publisher or his as-
signee, is, of course, limited by the term of the copyright he
has purchased—twenty-eight years, at the end of which
term the author, or, if the author be dead, his widow or
child, regains the right to publish the material, and by se-
curing a renewal of the copyright for the renewal term of
fourteen years, regains also the exclusive control of it, and
is again at liberty to make what publishing arrangements
may seem desirable. (For details concerning the law of
copyright, see a later chapter.)
Under the second method the author retains the copy-
2O
Azz//hors and A’zó/is/hers. 2 I
right of the work, and receives from the publisher, as roy-
alty, a certain percentage of the retail price of the copies sold.
In this, as in the first case, the publisher assumes the
expenses of manufacture and publication, and in considera-
tion of this outlay, which can, as a rule, not be reimbursed
from a sale of less than one thousand copies, the first thou-
sand copies sold are frequently exempted from copyright.
In other words, the publisher and the author begin to make
money out of the book at the same time.
The royalty is paid simply as a commutation of profits,
and it is in order, therefore, for the payments not to begin
until the profits begin. If less than one thousand copies
are sold of a work of current literature, there is, as a rule,
a deficiency on the publisher's investment.
This deficiency would, of course, be increased if the au-
thor received a royalty on all the copies sold, and it seems
reasonable that, if the publisher has consented to assume
the risk and investment of bringing a work before the pub-
lic, he should not, if the venture bring loss instead of profit,
be called upon to swell such loss by a compensation to the
author. However much labor may have been invested in a
work, it seems equitable that if it does not prove itself
capable of earning any thing, the author shall receive noth-
ing for it. -
The limit of one thousand copies to be excepted from
copyright became customary when a sale of that number
would, as a rule, return the first investment. It is the case
to-day, however, that with novels and other works of light
literature, the very low prices at which they are published
necessitate a sale of several thousand copies to return the
first cost.
The percentage of the retail price paid as royalty
varies somewhat, according to the nature of the work and
the probable extent of its sale. It is made smaller for
22 Authors and Pub/ishers.
books sold through canvassers and for books for children
than for current publications, for the reason that for those
the wholesale prices are lower and the margin of profit out
of which the royalty is paid is less.
A customary royalty for a work of current literature is
ten per cent., which for a book published at $1.5o brings to
the author fifteen cents a copy, or $150 per thousand copies.
It has sometimes been rather hastily imagined that un-
der such a copyright arrangement the share of the pub-
lisher was a dollar and thirty-five cents as against the fif-
teen cents conceded to the author.
A moment's calculation will, however, show how far this
is from being the case.
The publisher receives from the wholesale dealer for a
book published at $1.5o, not $1.50, but 90 cts., and some-
times (on special arrangement for works of fiction and
books for young people) only 75 cts.
After deducting from this the cost of manufacturing the
volume, and the proportion belonging to each copy sold of
the cost of the copies printed and not sold, and of the stereo-
typing, press copies, advertising, etc., there would rarely
remain as much net profit as 3O cts., and of this, I 5 cts.
would go to the author.
In fact, the customary royalty of ten per cent. has ap-
parently been calculated on the basis of securing for the
author about half the net profits.
Under a third publishing arrangement the above
method is practically reversed. The author assumes for
himself the cost of manufacturing the work, remaining the
owner not only of the copyright, but also of the stereotype
plates, if any have been made, and of the copies printed.
Instead of receiving a royalty of ten per cent., he pays the
publisher a royalty of ten per cent. as a commission for
taking charge of the publication and the sale of the book.
Azz/ors and /º/ö/is/hers. 23
The first step in such an arrangement, after the publisher
has decided that he would be ready to associate his imprint
with the work, is to have estimates prepared showing the
cost of printing the book in the model selected.
When the author has accepted the publisher's estimate,
it is customary for him to advance one half of the amount
calculated as the cost of the first edition, the remaining half
being payable when the printing is completed and the book
is ready for publication. The stereotype plates and the
edition printed are then the property of the author, the
books being consigned to the publisher for sale. The pub-
lisher usually renders account to the author for copies sold,
at fifty per cent. of the published price. He sells the book
to the wholesale (distributing) dealers at sixty per cent. of
this price, and reserves ten per cent. as his commission for
taking charge of the sales. Thus, for a book published at
$1.5o, the publisher will receive from the wholesale dealer
90 cts., or $900 per I,000 copies, and will pay to the au-
thor 75 cts., or $750 per 1,000 copies, reserving 15 cts. per
copy, or $150 per I,000, as his commission. The author's
profit is the difference between the $750 he receives and
the cost of manufacturing his 1,000 copies. This cost will,
it must be borne in mind, be considerably less for a second
and for subsequent lots of 1,000 copies than for the first
edition, as with this must be included the first cost of the
composition, the stereotyping, the illustrations, etc. Such
further editions are printed as the demand may justify and
the author may agree to. As a rule, no further payment
for these is required from the author, as in the event of the
first edition having been disposed of, and the accounts for
it not having been closed, the publisher will have in his
hands more than sufficient proceeds from its sale to provide
for the cost of further supplies.
º It is customary with authors' books for the publisher to
24 A 24/hors and A’zzó/is/hers.
make such outlay for advertising as the author may have
authorized, the amount of the same being charged against
the author and deducted from the proceeds paid him for
sales.
The books usually published under this commission
arrangement are books possessing literary or scientific in-
terest, and with which the publisher is therefore ready to
associate his imprint, but concerning the probable demand
for which he finds reason to be doubtful. It is possible
enough, of course, for his judgment to be at fault on this
point, and it has occurred often enough that “authors’
books” have secured a more remunerative sale than many
of the popularity of which their publishers were very con-
fident. The history of literature also presents many in-
stances of authors whose books afterward became famous
and profitable, being obliged to advance the cost of print-
ing their first books. The modest little volume bearing
on its title-page the names of A. and C. Tennyson, published
in 1827 (copies of which are now exceedingly rare and
valuable), was paid for by the two young poets, while Alfred
Tennyson is now reputed to receive from his copyrights
not less than $50,000 a year. -
A fourth arrangement is a combination of the second
and the third. Under this, the author assumes the cost and
retains the ownership of the stereotype plates of his volume
(including the illustrations, if there are any), while the outlay
for the paper, printing, binding, etc., is borne by the pub-
lisher. The cost of ordinary advertising and that of the
copies given to the press for review is, under this method,
usually met by the publisher, but if any special advertising
outlay is planned, it is either charged to the author, or pro-
vided for under some special arrangement.
The author, owning his stereotype plates, receives from
the publisher for their use, a royalty in addition to that
Azz/ors and A’zzó/is/hers. 25,
which he receives for his copyright, and usually equal to
the latter. Thus, if the copyright were calculated at ten
per cent., the royalty for plates and copyright would be
twenty per cent., or for a book published at $1.5o, thirty
cents per copy, or $300 per thousand.
There are certain conveniences in retaining the owner-
ship of the plates of a book, which cause many authors to
prefer this method. If any changes, corrections, or addi-
tions are considered by the author essential or desirable
before the printing of further editions, it is much easier for
the author to arrange for these to his satisfaction if he is
the owner of the plates, than if it is first necessary to de-
cide with the publisher how the cost of such alterations
ought to be divided. It is also a convenience for an author
who, at the close of a contract with one publisher, desires
to transfer his works to some other house, to be in a posi-
tion to transfer his plates at the same time, instead of being
obliged first to arrange for the purchase of them, and pos-
sibly to combat some difference of opinion as to their mar-
ket value. In the event of a publishing firm becoming
bankrupt, the stereotype plates belonging to them are of
necessity disposed of to the highest bidder, and an author,
not owning his plates, might undergo the annoyance of
seeing his books transferred to some firm whom he would
never of his own option have selected as his publishers.
And finally, an author who owns his plates as well as
his copyrights, feels that his literary property is more fully
under his control, as part of his estate, to devise and be-
queath as seems best to him.
A fifth publishing method, which is not often employed
in this country, is what is called the half-profit arrangement.
The author contributes the book, in which he has invested
his labor, and the publisher invests the capital needed to
manufacture the book, and the machinery and business con-
26 A 2///ors and Pºzó/is/hers.
nection needed to bring it before the public, and the profits,
if any accrue, are divided equally between them. The prin-
cipal objection to this method is the many occasions to
which it gives rise for differences of opinion between author
and publisher. It is not easy, in connection with the some-
what complicated machinery for publishing, advertising, and
distributing books, to determine with perfect equity and
precision just what proportion of the general expenditure
properly belongs to any one book; that is to say, just what
is the actual cost of publication, and, of course, until this
can be determined, it is not practicable to arrive at the sum
of the net profits which are to be divided. The proper
amount to be expended in advertising and in “pushing ”
(to use a business term) any one book may also easily be a
cause of an honest difference of opinion, the publisher being
naturally averse to investing any dollars that do not seem
likely to be repaid, while the author is disposed to consider
every dollar wisely invested that serves to bring his writings
more widely to the attention of the public.
Publishing contracts under all the above methods, ex-
cepting the first, are usually drawn for terms of years, rang-
ing from two to ten. These contracts usually provide,
among other things, that the author, or the representative
of the author who comes to treat with the publishers, is
the absolute owner of the copyright of the work in ques-
tion, and of the right to publish the same, and that he will
assume the cost of any lawsuits or other measures which
his publisher may be obliged to undertake to defend such
copyright or publishing right against infringement. They
provide, further, that the work contains nothing libellous, or
in any way defamatory, and that the author will make good
to the publisher any loss or expense to which he may be
put in the event of any thing libellous being found in or
charged against the work.
O
must I take to secure my copyright?”
SECURING COPYRIGHT.
NE of the questions frequently asked by an author in
connection with his first work is : “What steps
For the purpose of
supplying this information, the text of the United States
Copyright Laws, as included in the Revised Statutes, is
here
given.
THE COPYRIGHT LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES.
(These form a part of the Act relating to Patents, and
the numbering of the sections is consecutive to that of the
sections relating to Patents.)
Sec.
4948.
4949.
495O.
495.I.
4952.
4952A.
4953.
4954.
4955.
4956.
4957.
4958.
4958A.
4959.
496O.
Copyrights to be under charge of
librarian of Congress.
Seal of office.
Bond of librarian.
Annual report.
What publications may be entered
for copyright.
Registration of prints and labels.
Term of copyrights.
Continuance of term.
Assignment of copyrights and re-
cording.
Deposit of title and published
copies. .
Record of entry and attested copy.
Fees.
Fee for recording and certifying
assignments.
Copies of copyright works to be
furnished to librarian of Con-
gress.
Penalty for omission.
27
Sec.
4961.
4962.
4963.
4964.
4965.
4966.
4967.
4968.
4969.
4970.
497I.
Postmasters to give receipts.
Publication of notice of entry for
copyright prescribed.
Penalty for false publication of
notice of entry.
Damages for violation of copy-
right of books.
For violating copyright of maps,
charts, prints, etc.
For violating copyright of dra-
matic compositions.
Damages for printing or publish-
ing any manuscript without con-
sent of author, etc.
Limitation of action in copyright
Ca. SéS.
Defenses to action in copyright
CalSCS.
Injunctions in copyright cases.
Aliens and non-residents not priv-
ileged.
28 Authors and Puč/ishers.
SEC. 4948. All records and other things relating to copy-
rights and required by law to be preserved, shall be under the
control of the librarian of Congress, and kept and preserved in
the library of Congress; and the librarian of Congress shall have
the immediate care and supervision thereof, and, under the
supervision of the joint committee of Congress on the library,
shall perform all acts and duties required by law touching copy-
rights. -
SEC. 4949. The seal provided for the office of the librarian
of Congress shall be the seal thereof, and by it all records and
papers issued from the office and to be used in evidence shall be
authenticated.
SEC. 4950. The librarian of Congress shall give a bond, with
Sureties, to the treasurer of the United States, in the sum of five
thousand dollars, with the condition that he will render to the
proper officers of the treasury a true account of all moneys
received by virtue of his office.
SEC. 495 I. The librarian of Congress shall make an annual
report to Congress of the number and description of copyright
publications for which entries have been made during the year.
SEC. 4952. Any citizen of the United States or resident
therein, who shall be the author, inventor, designer, or proprietor
of any book, map, chart, dramatic or musical composition, en-
graving, cut, print, or photograph, or negative thereof, or of a
painting, drawing, chromo, statue, statuary, or of models or de-
signs intended to be perfected as works of the fine arts, and the
executors, administrators, or assigns of any such person shall,
upon complying with the provisions of this chapter, have the
sole liberty of printing, reprinting, publishing, completing, copy-
ing, executing, finishing, and vending the same ; and, in the case
of a dramatic composition, of publicly performing or representing
it, or causing it to be performed or represented by others. And
authors may reserve the right to dramatize or to translate their
own works.
SEC. 4952A. (Act of June 18, 1874, ch. 3OI, § 3, 18 Stat. 79.)
That in the construction of this act the words “engraving,”
“cut,” and “print” shall be applied only to pictorial illustrations
Authors and Pub/ishers. 29
or works connected with the fine arts, and no prints or labels de-
signed to be used for any other articles of manufacture shall be
entered under the copyright law, but may be registered in the
patent office. And the commissioner of patents is hereby
charged with the supervision and control of the entry or registry
of such prints or labels, in conformity with the regulations pro-
vided by law as to copyright of prints, except that there shall be
paid for recording the title of any print or label not a trade-
mark, six dollars, which shall cover the expense of furnishing a
copy of the record under the seal of the commissioner of patents,
to the party entering the same.
SEC. 4953. Copyrights shall be granted for the term of twenty-
eight years from the time of recording the title thereof, in the
manner hereinafter directed.
SEC. 4954. The author, inventor, or designer, if he be still
living and a citizen of the United States or resident therein, or
his widow or children, if he be dead, shall have the same exclu-
sive right continued for the further term of fourteen years, upon
recording the title of the work or description of the article so
secured a second time, and complying with all other regulations in
regard to original copyrights, within six months before the expira-
tion of the first term. And such person shall, within two months
from the date of said renewal, cause a copy of the record thereof
to be published in one or more newspapers, printed in the United
States, for the space of four weeks.
SEC. 4955. Copyrights shall be assignable in law, by any in-
strument of writing, and such assignment shall be recorded in
the office of the librarian of Congress within sixty days after its
execution ; in default of which it shall be void as against any
subsequent purchaser or mortgagee for a valuable consideration,
without notice.
SEC. 4956. No person shall be entitled to a copyright unless
he shall, before publication, deliver at the office of the librarian
of Congress, or deposit in the mail addressed to the librarian of
Congress, at Washington, District of Columbia, a printed copy
of the title of the book or other article, or a description of the
painting, drawing, chromo, statue, statuary, or a model or design
for a work of the fine arts, for which he desires a copyright, nor
3O A 2///oz's azed. A 'zzó/?s/hers.
unless he shall also, within ten days from the publication thereof,
deliver at the office of the librarian of Congress or deposit in
the mail addressed to the librarian of Congress, at Washington,
District of Columbia, two copies of such copyright book or other
article, or in case of a painting, drawing, statue, statuary, model
or design for a work of the fine arts, a photograph of the same.
SEC. 4957. The librarian of Congress shall record the name
of such copyright book or other article, forthwith, in a book to
be kept for that purpose, in the words following: “Library of
Congress, to wit: be it remembered that on the day of 3.
A. B., of , hath deposited in this office the title of a
book [map, chart or otherwise, as the case may be, or descrip-
tion of the article], the title or description of which is in the
following words, to wit: [here insert the title or description,]
the right whereof he claims as author [originator or proprietor,
as the case may be], in conformity with the laws of the United
States respecting copyrights. C. D., librarian of Congress.”
And he shall give a copy of the title or description, under the
seal of the librarian of Congress, to the proprietor, whenever he
shall require it.
SEC. 4958. The librarian of Congress shall receive, from the
persons to whom the services designated are rendered, the fol-
lowing fees : *
First. For recording the title or description of any copyright
book or other article, fifty cents.
Second. For every copy under seal of such record actually
given to the person claiming the copyright, or his assigns, fifty
CentS.
Third. For recording any instrument of writing for the assign-
ment of a copyright, fifteen cents for every one hundred words.
Fourth. For every copy of an assignment, ten cents for every
one hundred words.
All fees so received shall be paid into the treasury of the
United States.
SEC. 4958A. (Act of June 18, 1874, ch. 3OI, § 2, 18 Stat. 79.)
That for recording and certifying any instrument of writing for -
the assignment of a copyright, the librarian of Congress shall
receive from the persons to whom the service is rendered, one
Authors and Pub/is/hers. 3 I
dollar; and for every copy of an assignment, one dollar: said fee
to cover, in either case, a certificate of the record, under seal of
the librarian of Congress; and all fees so received shall be paid
into the treasury of the United States.
SEC. 4959. The proprietor of every copyright book or other
article shall deliver at the office of the librarian of Congress, or
deposit in the mail addressed to the librarian of Congress at
Washington, District of Columbia, within ten days after its
publication, two complete printed copies thereof, of the best
edition issued, or description or photograph of such article as
hereinbefore required, and a copy of every subsequent edition
wherein any substantial changes shall be made.
SEC. 4960. For every failure on the part of the proprietor of
any copyright to deliver or deposit in the mail either of the
published copies, or description or photograph, required by
sections four thousand nine hundred and fifty-six, and four
thousand nine hundred and fifty-nine, the proprietor of the copy-
right shall be liable to a penalty of twenty-five dollars, to be
recovered by the librarian of Congress, in the name of the United
States, in an action in the nature of an action of debt, in any
district court of the United States, within the jurisdiction of
which the delinquent may reside or be found.
SEC. 4961. The postmaster to whom such copyright book,
title, or other article is delivered, shall, if requested, give a receipt
therefor; and when so delivered he shall mail it to its destination.
SEC. 4962. (Act of June 18, 1874, ch. 3OI, § 1, 18 Stat. 78.)
That no person shall maintain an action for the infringement of
his copyright unless he shall give notice thereof by inserting in
the several copies of every edition published, on the title-page
or the page immediately following, if it be a book; or if a map,
chart, musical composition, print, cut, engraving, photograph,
painting, drawing, chromo, statue, statuary, or model or design,
intended to be perfected and completed as a work of the fine
arts, by inscribing upon some visible portion thereof, or of the
substance on which the same shall be mounted, the following
words, viz.: “Entered according to act of Congress, in the year
, by A. B., in the office of the librarian of Congress, at
Washington’’; or, at his option, the word “copyright,” to-
32 A 24//hors azed. Auð/is/hers.
gether with the year the copyright was entered, and the name of
the party by whom it was taken out ; thus: “Copyright, I8—,
by A. B.”
SEC. 4963. Every person who shall insert or impress such
notice, or words of the same purport, in or upon any book, map,
chart, musical composition, print, cut, engraving, or photograph,
or other article, for which he has not obtained a copyright, shall
be liable to a penalty of one hundred dollars, recoverable one
half for the person who shall sue for such penalty, and one half
to the use of the United States. -
SEC. 4964. Every person who, after the recording of the title of
any book as provided by this chapter, shall within the term limited,
and without the consent of the proprietor of the copyright first
obtained in writing, signed in presence of two or more witnesses,
print, publish, or import, or, knowing the same to be so printed,
published, or imported, shall sell or expose for sale any copy of
such book, shall forfeit every copy thereof to such proprietor, and
shall also forfeit and pay such damages as may be recovered in a
civil action by such proprietor in any court of competent juris-
diction.
SEC. 4965. If any person, after the recording of the title of
any map, chart, musical composition, print, cut, engraving, or
photograph, or chromo, or of the description of any painting,
drawing, statue, statuary, or model or design intended to be per-
fected and executed as a work of the fine arts, as provided by
this chapter, shall, within the term limited, and without the con-
sent of the proprietor of the copyright first obtained in writing,
signed in presence of two or more witnesses, engrave, etch, work,
copy, print, publish, or import, either in whole or in part, or by
varying the main design with intent to evade the law, or,
knowing the same to be so printed, published, or imported, shall
sell or expose for sale any copy of such map or other article, as
aforesaid, he shall forfeit to the proprietor all the plates on which
the same shall be copied, and every sheet thereof, either copied
or printed, and shall further forfeit one dollar for every sheet of
the same found in his possession, either printing, printed, copied,
published, imported, or exposed for sale; and in case of a painting,
statue, or statuary, he shall forfeit ten dollars for every copy of
Authors and Pub/ishers. 33.
the same in his possession, or by him sold or exposed for sale ;
one half thereof to the proprietor and the other half to the use
of the United States.
SEC. 4966. Any person publicly performing or representing
any dramatic composition for which a copyright has been ob-
tained, without the consent of the proprietor thereof, or his heirs
or assigns, shall be liable for damages therefor, such damages in all
cases to be assessed at such sum, not less than one hundred dol-
lars for the first, and fifty dollars for every subsequent perform-
ance, as to the court shall appear to be just. -
SEC. 4967. Every person who shall print or publish any manu-
script whatever, without the consent of the author or proprietor
first obtained, if such author or proprietor is a citizen of the
United States, or resident therein, shall be liable to the author
or proprietor for all damages occasioned by such injury.
SEC. 4968. No action shall be maintained in any case of for-
feiture or penalty under the copyright laws, unless the same is
commenced within two years after the cause of action has arisen.
SEC. 4969. In all actions arising under the laws respecting
copyrights, the defendant may plead the general issue, and give
the special matter in evidence.
SEC. 4970. The circuit courts, and district courts having the
jurisdiction of circuit courts, shall have power, upon bill in equity,
filed by any party aggrieved, to grant injunctions to pre-
vent the violation of any right secured by the laws respecting
Copyrights, according to the course and principles of courts of
equity, on such terms as the court may deem reasonable.
SEC. 497 I. Nothing in this chapter shall be construed to pro-
hibit the printing, publishing, importation, or sale of any book,
map, chart, dramatic or musical composition, print, cut, engraving,
or photograph, written, composed, or made by any person not a
citizen of the United States nor resident therein.
It will be seen that the essential points to be considered
2.1 e –
Aºrst. The placing with the librarian of Congress, before
the publication of the volume, one copy of the printed title-
34 r Azz//hors azed. Auð/is/hers.
page, and within ten days of such publication, two copies
of the work. The title-page should be accompanied by the
amount of the fee required, one dollar, in return for which
the author receives his certificate, showing that the work
has been entered for copyright. This certificate and the
receipt of the librarian of Congress for the two copies of
the book deposited, constitute the evidence upon which is
based any legal defence of the copyright that may prove.
necessary.
In case the originals of these papers are lost, duplicates
will at any time be furnished from the office of the librarian
of Congress, on receipt of a fee of fifty cents.
Second. The copyright is granted for the term of twenty-
eight years, but the author, if living, or his widow or chil-
dren, if he be dead, can, under certain regulations, secure a
renewal for a futher term of fourteen years.
It is also the case that if an author chooses to revise,
modify, or add to his material, he can obtain a fresh copy-
right for such revised material; but this fresh copyright will
not protect the unrevised material of the first edition from
being reprinted at the expiration of its own term.
7%ird. The privilege of securing copyright is limited to
authors who are either citizens or residents of the United
States, and the courts have held that the term resident can
not be interpreted to cover one who makes but a temporary
Sojourn, such as a visit for a season, or a stay of a few weeks.
or months. -
Aourth. The details of securing the entries and the cer-
tificates of copyright are, as a rule, attended to by the pub-
lishers, and even when the author retains the ownership
of his copyright, it is quite customary for the certificate to
be made out in the name of the publisher. The agreement
for publication, and the annual or semi-annual statements
of amounts due for copyright, make clear enough in whom.
Azz//hors and /ºu//is/hers. 35
the ownership is actually vested. There is also nothing to
prevent the certificate being transferred to the name of the
author, if such additional precaution be deemed advisable.
If an author, while considering arrangements for publi-
cation, is anxious to secure the control of a title which
seems to him to be especially desirable, he can have a title-
page put into type, and by forwarding this, as above, with
the fee of one dollar, can secure his certificate of entry,
leaving the copyright to be perfected later by the forwarding
of the two copies of his book.
Afth. The protection of copyright is extended not only
to material which is in itself original, but also to any
originality of method or arrangement in the combination or
classification of material. Under this principle, copyrights
are secured for dictionaries, in which of course the majority
of the definitions must be identical with those given in
similar works ; for tables of arithmetic, chronology, natural
history, etc., etc., in which of necessity the facts are always
the same. We may mention, as an example, a recent de-
cision of the courts to the effect that a certain arrangement
of the names of bones, grouped in more or less arbitrary
figures designed to assist the student in memorizing, was
entitled to copyright, although the same lists of names were
of course repeated in every work on anatomy.
Szacſ/. Any measures which may become necessary for
the protection of an author's copyright against infringements
are usually undertaken through the publisher, who acts as the
representative of the author, but the expense of such meas-
ures has to be borne by the author whose property is being
defended. In like manner, any suit which may be instituted
against a publication alleged to be an infringement, is usually
brought against the publisher of the work; but whether or
not it may be established that the work does constitute or
contain an infringement, all expenses, penalties, and outlays
36 Authors and Pub/ishers.
that may for this cause have been incurred, are chargeable
to the author or editor with whom the publisher's contract
has been made. Such contract contains the provision that
the author or editor with whom the publisher has to do, and
who claims to be the owner of the copyright of the work, shall
make good to the publisher any expense incurred in defend-
ing such copyright, and shall also guarantee to the publisher
that the work contains no infringement of any other copy-
right and no libels of any kind. If, therefore, such infringe-
ment or libel be afterward discovered, the responsibility
and the cost of making good the same must be borne by
the author.
Seventh. Contracts for publication usually contain some
provision concerning the division, between publisher and au-
thor, of such profits as may accrue through the sale in foreign
countries of editions of the work, or of duplicates of the
stereotype-plates, or of advance sheets. It is customary to
divide these receipts from sales abroad on the same basis as
that which has been arranged for the division of the net
proceeds of the American editions.
As a matter of fact, it is very seldom that with a first
book there are any foreign sales, so that the question of the
division of the profits on these need not arise.
An author may also prefer to provide in his publishing
agreement that the control of the arrangements for the for-
eign editions of his work shall be left in his own hands. In
most cases, however, his American publisher, having a
knowledge of the methods of publishing in England (practi-
cally the only country in which American works are ever
purchased), and of the English publishing houses, can secure
a much better arrangement for an English edition than the
author can, provided any arrangement at all is possible.
A:ighth. The question is often asked whether an Ameri-
can author can secure a copyright in foreign countries, and
Azz//hors and A’aé/is/hers. 37
it is not easy to give an explicit answer to it. The United
States have at present (1883) no international copyright
arrangements with other countries, and except in Great
Britain, American works can be reprinted (in the original
or in translations) without restriction. The amount of such
reprinting of American books on the Continent is still incon-
siderable, but it is from year to year increasing, and in some
instances, such as those of the French and German editions
of Irving, Cooper, Mrs. Stowe, etc., the number of volumes
sold has been very large, and the amount that would have
been realized by the authors, if there had been a copyright
arrangement, would have been important.
In Great Britain, also, American writers can claim no
copyright protection on the strength of international arrange-
ments, for the various attempts that have been made between
1851 and 1882 to secure a copyright treaty between the
United States and England have thus far resulted in
nothing. * # -
The British Government has, however, as a rule, been
ready to give a more elastic interpretation to the term “resi-
dent’’ than that insisted upon by the American authorities,
and in a number of instances a stay of a few weeks in some
portion of the British dominions, such as Canada, has been
sufficient to enable an American writer to secure a copy-
right entry in London for a work published simultaneously
in England and the United States.
The validity of copyrights so obtained has, however,
often been contested in the English courts, and the decis-
ions concerning them have been so conflicting that it is at this
time considered hardly advisable to place any special reliance
upon British copyrights secured through temporary resi-
dence. Canada has a copyright law of its own, and under
this law the American rather than the English definition of
the word resident is followed, and a temporary sojourn by
38 Azz//hors and /ºu//is/hers.
the author can not be made serviceable to prevent the
reprinting within the Dominion of an American work.
The commission appointed by the British Parliament in
1876 to investigate into the working of the present law of
copyright, and to make suggestions as to its improvement,
have presented an elaborate report, the recommendations
of which are likely to be adopted. Among these is one to
the effect that all writers, without regard to citizenship or
residence, can secure copyright in Great Britain by duly
entering their works in the London copyright office, and by
making the first publication of them in Great Britain. If
simultaneous publication in Great Britain and the United
States can be accepted as answering the requirements of
“first publication,” the passage of the British act in the
form recommended by the commission will, of course, prove
of great importance and material service to all American
writers who succeed in obtaining a trans-Atlantic reputation
and circle of readers.
Such a measure ought to be followed at an early date
by the completion of a treaty, or the passage of an act of
Congress, under which a similar recognition should be made
in this country of the rights of British authors.
We should understand that the new British copyright
law would, if enacted, apply to all portions of the British
dominions, excepting such of the colonies as possessed in-
dependent colonial legislatures, and as saw fit to pass enact-
ments nullifying or limiting in any way the imperial act.
Meanwhile, until the British act has been passed, and in
the absence of any international arrangement, American
writers have to take their chance as to obtaining, through
temporary residence, a defensible British copyright, or as to
securing (usually through their American publishers) some
honorarium payment from British publishers. Several of
the leading London firms can be depended upon to make
Az///ozºs azaſ A'zzó/is/hers. 39
such payments, when they can be persuaded to undertake
American books at all, while other houses, in good standing
and doing a large and important business, will neither them-
selves make payments, nor will they respect the arrange-
ments of their neighbors who have done so ; so that if an
American work makes any success in England, a number
of competing editions, bearing reputable publishing imprints,
appear almost at Once, and the publisher of the single issue
that is authorized, finds his margin of profit, out of which
the author's payment is to come, reduced to a minimum.
AVämth. The foregoing will make clear the nature of the
direct interest of American writers in the question of inter-
national copyright. The authors who have already secured
a trans-Atlantic reputation and are obtaining some pay-
ments for their European editions, would find their receipts
very largely increased, while for those who are beginning
their literary career it will be much easier to effect publish-
ing arrangements in Great Britain, when their British pub-
lishers can be protected in their undertakings against the
competition of unauthorized rivals. The indirect gain to
American writers through the establishment of international
copyright would, however, be still more important.
The lack of such copyright has rendered possible the
publication and wide circulation of cheap series of reprints
of English works, principally in the department of fiction,
but including also works of travel and not a little popular
biography and light literature. -
The competition of these series, absorbing as they do
so large a proportion of the book-reading and book-buy-
ing that is done, renders it very much more difficult to
secure a remunerative sale for a copyright-paying American
work of fiction or light literature.
As a consequence, the books of authors who have estab-
Jished their reputation secure much smaller sales and smaller
4.O Azz//hors and /ºu//is/hers.
profits than properly belong to them, while the works of
new writers find an increasing difficulty in obtaining favor-
able consideration, or, in fact, any consideration from the
publishers. American writers are practically handicapped
in their literary competition with their English rivals, and
they have not even the consolation of knowing that said
rivals can themselves gain in this contest any material re-
sults that would offset their own loss. With the exception
of the Franklin Square series, the “ Libraries,” as a rule,
make no payments for their foreign material, while the
payments made by the publishers of the “Franklin Square”
are of necessity much smaller than those which were possi-
ble before the beginning of this cutthroat competition.
It may be mentioned here that, with the exception of
the publishers of these Libraries, it is the uniform practice
of reputable American publishers to pay British authors for
their material, notwithstanding that, in the absence of an
international copyright, they can secure through such pay-
ments no protection against competition ; and the amount of
such payments is often very considerable, often equalling
and sometimes exceeding the amount of the author's receipts
from his English editions. Under an international copy-
right, however, such payments would doubtless be materi-
ally increased, especially for the younger and less known
authors. -
In addition to the direct and indirect business interests
of American writers in this matter, it should possess for
them, as members of the great guild of authors, a strong
and active ethical interest. Believing, as they unquestion-
ably do, that the work of a man's brain is his property as
certainly as is the work of his hands, they can but be ready
to do what is in their power to secure a full recognition of
an author's property-rights throughout the civilized world.
The people of the United States are the only nation, itself
A 24//hors and Publishers. 4. K.
possessing a great and growing literature, and making a
wide use of the literature of the world, which has done
nothing to secure a proper protection for the rights abroad
of its own writers, and to recognize the rights in its own
territory of the foreign authors whose creations it utilizes
and enjoys.
At the time of this writing (February 1883), a tariff bill
is under consideration in Congress, which has for its
avowed purpose the protection of American industries and
American producers against foreign competition.
In such a measure a clause for the more effective protec-
tion of the literary laborer, who produces one of the highest
classes of products, and One which is of the greatest impor-
tance to the community, might very properly find place.
Curiously enough, however, the protectionists, who have for
the past twenty years controlled the national policy, have
been the most persistent and successful opponents of any
measures for international copyright, which would, as we
have pointed out, constitute the most effective protection
and stimulant for American literature. -
American authors should feel that upon them now rests,
a special responsibility in the work of so educating pub-
lic and legislative opinion that this grievous national stigma.
may speedily be removed, that American writers may be
free to sell their works throughout the world, that foreign
writers may be free to receive from their American readers,
a just return for benefits conferred, and that American read-
ers may be free to buy what has been paid for, and may not
be free to buy what has been stolen.
It appears, however, that the possibility of international
copyright has brought to the minds of the protectionists two
apprehensions : first, that it would entail the payment to
certain foreign producers (of literature), of American earnings.
that ought to be kept at home ; and second, that under such
42 Azz/ors and A'zzó/is/hers.
a measure, some American publishers, for the purpose of
decreasing the cost, to themselves and the readers, of an
English work, might be unpatriotic enough to arrange to
purchase duplicates of English stereotype-plates, instead of
permitting American compositors to do the type-setting over
again.
The dislike to paying American money to foreign pro-
ducers, and the desire to retain work (even though it were
unnecessary work) for American compositors, have been per-
mitted, therefore, to outweigh the principles of common justice
and the rightful claims of American authors. While pro-
ducers and manufacturers of nearly all classes are besieging
Congress for help and bounties of various kinds, to make
good their losses or to swell their profits at the expense of
the community at large, the literary laborer, who asks no help
from the taxpayer, and calls for no bounties from the
treasury, can properly enough demand from our legislators
the simple justice of protection against the ruinous competi-
tion of the books stolen from his British rivals.
The author has this further interest, which, though less
direct, is still important, in the pending tariff questions. Any
thing which lessens the cost of the production of books,
serves to increase their circulation, and therefore to increase
the amount of profits out of which copyrights are paid,
while it also helps the publishers to consider favorably
literary undertakings which have before seemed doubtful or
unpromising.
A tariff reform in the interest of literature, therefore,
bringing service alike to the writers, readers, and sellers of
books, should remove all the taxes upon the materials that
enter into the manufacture of books, such as paper, binders'
cloth, type-metal, etc., etc. Public attention has recently
been called to the absurdity of continuing the import duty
On books, and it is difficult to find grounds for defending any
A 24//hors and /ºu//is/hers. 43
such tax on higher education. But the removal of this duty
would affect the cost of but that small portion (less than one
twentieth) of the books which are imported, while the re-
moval of the duties on the articles which directly or indirectly
enter into the manufacture of American books, would
render cheaper the whole mass of our literature, American
and reprinted.
We commend to American writers, who are properly the
teachers of the community, the task of inducing our voters
and legislators to remove these mediaeval tariff burdens on
education, and when this has been accomplished, and, through
the establishment of international copyright, American books
are given a fair chance in the struggle for existence, the
libraries of our people will represent a literature honestly
acquired, effectively developed, and, in the best sense of the
word, free. º
The most comprehensive work on copyright is ZXrone’s “Treatise on the Law of
Property in Intellectual Productions in the United States and Great Britain,”—price $5.
}errold’s “English and Foreign Copyrights” selling at $1.25, is a good compendium
of European copyright arrangements. Putnam’s “International Copyright,” a pamphlet
selling at 25cts., gives a convenient summary of the history of the subject.
EDITORS AND THE PERIODICAL PRESS.
EXT to a publisher, there is no person who has so evil
a reputation among literary aspirants as an editor.
It is for his general imbecility, however, rather than for any
moral turpitude that he is pilloried. He is usually looked upon
by that grand army of rejected contributors, who are well
known to constitute the real brain-power of the country, as
a weak-minded blockhead, constantly engaged in refusing
the most brilliant intellectual efforts from sheer incapacity
for appreciating them, while allowing himself to accept the
crudest offerings of his friends and relations—especially of
his grandmother.
Editors are, as a class, fully capable of taking care of
themselves, but it may be worth while to present here
some of the considerations which must guide them in
arriving at their decisions and in shaping their work,
and to do what we can toward vindicating a worthy body
of men from unmerited obloquy. In the first place, an
editor is, as a rule, a man of good purpose, who con-
scientiously strives to do his duty. This duty is simply to
cater to the public, to provide it with that kind of intel-
lectual pabulum for which it craves. Further, he is a man
of culture and ability, or he would never have fought his
way to such a position, and—what is even more to the
point—his training and experience have so fitted him to
judge of the public appetite that he knows at a glance
whether an article would suit his customers—just as a
cheese-monger knows cheese. Bear in mind that, with
44
Aziz/hors and Puá/is/hers. 45
editor as with cheese-monger, it is not his own taste he
seeks to gratify, but that of his customer. The cheese-
monger may not like either Stilton or Roquefort, he may
even have his doubts as to the absolute wholesomeness of
the more athletic brands of Limburger, but so long as the
public craves food and not poison he is bound by an implied
contract to supply it with the best of that kind of food
which it prefers. Therefore in rejecting an article an
editor does not imply that it is not good, but merely that it
is not available. As the public taste, however, is, in the
main, a healthy one, if he were continually finding good ar-
ticles unavailable and bad ones available, he would himself
soon cease to be available as an editor.
With regard to the charge of favoritism, there is no
doubt that an editor who is in friendly relations with a
band of known and tried contributors would prefer, other
things being equal, to accept an article from one of them
rather than from a stranger. Again, there are certain
contributors to the periodical press whose names carry
so much weight with the public that any thing they may
write is sure to attract attention, and there is no doubt that,
other things being equal again, the editor would rather
have an article from a famous, than one from an unknown,
writer. These disadvantages, then, the beginner has to
struggle against: wherever his work comes into competition
with that of a famous man or a literary acquaintance of the
editor's he must show that he can write better than either
in order to gain admittance. Still, a direct competition of
this sort is not very likely to Occur ; a magazine can always
find room, not only for the contributor who is known to the
public, and for the contributor who is known to the editor, but
also for the brilliant unknown who is to be the famous con-
tributor of the future. “If you write any thing remarka-
ble" says Dr. Holmes “the magazines will find you out, as
46 - Azz//hors azed. Auð/is/hers.
the school-boys find out where the ripe apples and pears
are. Produce any thing really good, and an intelligent
editor will jump at it. Don't flatter yourself that any arti-
cle of yours is rejected because you are unknown to fame.
Nothing pleases an editor more than to get any thing worth
having from a new hand. There is always a dearth of
really fine articles for a first-rate journal; for, of a hundred
pieces received, ninety are at or below the sea-level: some
have water enough, but no head ; some head enough, but no
water ; only two or three are from full reservoirs, high up
that hill which is so hard to climb.”
The periodical press, at the stage of development which
it has reached in these days, is really the greatest assistance
to the struggling young author that has ever been tendered
him in the history of literature. It provides him with a
pulpit to preach from, and an audience already gathered to
listen to him. Our two most popular monthlies have about
one hundred and fifty thousand subscribers apiece, and prob-
ably more than a million readers. A man speaking out
from between the covers of these magazines, is speaking to
the world. If there is any thing in him, he cannot remain
unknown long. Look around among the famous writers of
to-day, and you will find that, with only one or two exceptions,
they began their career and won their first fame as jour-
nalists or as magazinists. The poet who is not financially
able to bring out a volume at his own expense, can reach the
public through no other medium than the periodicals—for
poetry as a merchantable commodity has fallen into such
disrepute with publishers that no member of the fraternity
would be willing to invest his money in a book of that kind,
unless the author were very well and widely known. Pub-
lishers are also prejudiced against collections of essays and
short stories, and the writer could only hope to dispose of
them to magazines. The only form of literature, in fact,
Azz//hors azed. A 'zzó/is/hers. 47
from the pen of an unknown author, that has a better chance
with publishers than with editors, is the novel. Editors re-
quire that their serial stories shall be written by men of note.
The reason is obvious. The bare announcement that such
and such an author is to contribute a serial to one of the
magazines, will draw the admirers of the author to that
magazine. But “a charming new story " by Mr. Jones or
Mr. Smith would have no attractions for the prospective
subscriber, because he has not learned to look upon either
name as a guarantee of excellence, and the story, con-
sequently, might run its full course through the magazine
before the public discovered what a charming thing it really
"W2.S.
Of the four leading magazines, //a/er's and the Cenſatzºy
have much the largest circulation. The former, whose
existence dates from 1850, is probably still the better known
of the two in the more remote regions, and on that account
its monthly receipts of manuscripts submitted are doubtless
the more considerable, while with both magazines the ever-
increasing mass of such material must involve no little labor
for its proper consideration and disposal. In its early years
Aſarºer's devoted a large proportion of its space to foreign
authors, but its later volumes give evidence of a keen
perception for and full appreciation of native talent, and
since the practice was abandoned of making all its articles
anonymous, its table of contents has presented a large
share of the best material of American contributors.
The Century, in its egotistic moods, likes to crow a
little over the latent talent that it has brought to the
surface, and it may do so with justice, for many of the most
promising of our younger authors owe to this magazine
their introduction to the public. The Atlantic Monthly is
quoted as one of the most difficult for the tyro to enter, not
because its conductors are less alive to literary excellence
48 Azz//hors azaſ A'zzó/is/hers.
when coming from an obscure source, but because its circle
of regular contributors is very large, and the space it can
devote to new-comers is correspondingly limited.
Z2//ºzzcoff's Magazine, being less burdened with great
names than any of the others, is always ready to accord a
generous reception to any new contributors of merit.
The price paid for articles by any of the magazines is
usually calculated by the page, the rate varying according
to the editor's estimate of the value of the material, which
includes a consideration of the popular appreciation of the
name of the author. In some cases, the better-known authors
receive a round sum in place of any schedule price per page.
The number of first-class magazinists, though increasing,
is still small, and there is often among the editors an active
competition for their work. A few authors have been able,
in consequence, almost to dictate their terms. Longfellow,
for instance, used to receive as much as two hundred
dollars for a short poem, and Bret Harte is said to have
been paid one thousand dollars for his short story, “The
Episode of Fiddletown.”
The Atlantic and /ø//ºncoſł's usually wait to pay for an
article until it has been published, while //a2%er's and the
Century make a custom of sending checks for contributions
as soon as they are accepted. The same practice prevails
with the S., AWicholas, the magazine for young people
published by the Century Company. -º-
Besides the above-named periodicals, there are many
monthly and weekly journals which are glad to receive con-
tributions of merit from outsiders, and which make it a rule
to pay for every thing they accept and publish. Here is a
list of papers whose rates of payment are quoted as ranging
from $6 to $10 per thousand words :
NEW YORK.—Harper’s Weekly, Bazar, and Young People ;
£es/ie's Lady's 9 ournal, Sunday Magazine, etc.; Demorest's
Authors and Pub/isſers. 4.9
Monthly; Independent ; Christian Weekly; Christian Onion ;
Ledger, Wezw York Weekly.
PHILADELPHIA.—Godey's Zady's Book ; Arthur's Home Maga-
22me, Pezerson's Magazine, 7%e Sunday-Schoo/ Times ; Our Con-
Žiment.
BOSTON.—The Youth's Companion ; Wide Awake , The Con-
gregationalist.
A number of other periodicals pay smaller amounts for
accepted contributions, but with some of these it may be
necessary to state beforehand that payment is expected, or
after your article has appeared in print you may be politely
informed that “it is not the custom of this paper to pay for
contributions unless arrangements to that effect have been
made in advance.” A good custom in dealing with the
minor papers, is for an author to put at the head of his
article, the price for which he will dispose of it.
Many of the sensational or “blood-and-thunder” papers
used to pay good prices for accepted contributions, but at
present this class of journals are on the decline, and the
sums they pay have correspondingly dwindled.
The principal daily papers of New York and other large
cities, are always glad to receive articles of timely interest,
summer-resort correspondence, etc., where their own body
of regular attachés have not already covered the ground.
The rate of payment varies from $5.OO to $8.OO a column, and
although the more important papers pay for everything they
publish as a matter of course, and without needing any
prompting, it may be just as well for the writer to take the
preliminary precaution of requesting payment in case his
article is accepted.
Literary and critical journals like the Wation, the Critic,
and the Literary World, usually employ outsiders to review
books for them, but these are always men whose reputation
is known to the editor; and the editor applies to them, they
do not apply to the editor. This field, therefore, cannot
be looked upon as open to the literary tyro.
ADVERTISING.
HE question as to the most effective methods for making
known to the public that a book has been published,
and for keeping before the public the fact of its existence, is
one of the most perplexing problems in the publisher's busi-
ness, and One the difficulties of which are often not realized
by authors. Advertising may be divided into direct and
indirect. Under the former heading would be included the
printing of the descriptive title of the book in the catalogue
and special lists of the publisher, the purchase of advertis-
ing space in the journals or magazines, and the distribution
among booksellers and book-buyers of show-bills and
descriptive circulars. Under the latter would come the
distribution of copies for review, and the consigning of
specimen copies to booksellers for sale.
If a work is published at the expense of the author, the
cost of all advertising, except that of printing the title in the
publisher's lists, is charged to him, and only such outlay is
incurred as he may have authorized. If, on the other hand,
the investment in the publication is borne by the publisher,
the cost of the advertising has to be paid by him, and the
decision as to the amount which will be likely to prove re-
munerative, must rest with his judgment.
The leading publishing houses issue general classified
catalogues of their publications, which are revised and re-
shaped about once in two years. It is further customary to
print, usually in the spring and fall of each year, separate
lists of the publications of the season ; and from these lists
5O
Azz//ozºs azza! /º/ö/is/hers. 5 I
the titles of those works which seem likely to remain in con-
tinued demand are afterward transferred to the general
catalogue. These lists of the season's issues, and from time
to time the complete catalogues, are mailed to the principal
libraries throughout the country, to the leading booksellers,
and to lists of book-buyers, as far as the publishers succeed
in collecting the names of such. The quantities regularly
distributed through these channels are quite considerable.
According to the records used, there are in the United States
some 2,400 public libraries, and about 6,000 booksellers,
and perhaps 900 of the former and 1,2OO of the latter are
usually considered of sufficient importance to be placed on
the regular mailing lists for the spring and fall catalogues of
new publications. In addition to such distribution, publishers
receive daily applications for book-lists and catalogues from .
different parts of the country, and often have occasion to
mail in this way, in the course of a season, some thousands
of copies. A still further channel of distribution is through
the booksellers, who obtain from the publisher supplies of
from 250 to 1,000 copies of the book-lists of the season,
bearing their several local imprints.
If a work is of a special character, or One requiring a
detailed description, a separate descriptive circular can some-
times be used to advantage for mailing to some particular
circle of readers likely to be interested. Excepting for some
such special purpose, descriptive circulars are not as a rule
serviceable, as it is difficult to secure attention for them from
the general public.
Show-bills of new books are placed by booksellers on
the boards in front of their stores, and authors are accus-
tomed to lay stress upon seeing their books so posted. The
matter is not, however, of so much importance as it is often
considered, and in any case the printing of the show-bill
does not necessarily secure its being posted by any great
52 Azz//hors and A’zzó/is/hers.
number of booksellers. Every dealer receives a great many
more show-bills than he has room for on his boards, and he
selects for use those of the books in most active demand,
rather than of the books most needing such advertisement.
The cost of separate circulars and of show-bills is
chargeable to the author, if he is the owner of the edition
of his book.
The value of advertising space in the journals in which
book-advertising is usually done, varies from ten cents to
fifty cents a line. The line of type on which such price is
based, is not that usually used in the advertisements, but
represents the space that would be covered by a line of
agate type, measuring fourteen lines to the inch. An ad-
vertisement of say 56 lines, or four inches, which would
make a good display of the title and description of a book,
and would enable representative quotations to be made from
the reviews, would cost in the New York ZDaily 77mes about
$16.8o, in the Zvezzzzzg. Absº, $5.6O, and in the AWazzozz
(weekly), about $7.50. - -
Advertising space in the leading magazines is expensive,
costing in Aſanºer's, about $2OO, and in the Century, about
$15o a page. It is not usually considered desirable to make
any very considerable investment in advertising until the
notices of the book-reviewers have begun to appear. Unless
for the work of some writer well known through previous
successful books, the repeated announcement of the title and
the name of the author will not of themselves attract
sufficient attention to induce sales.
When such announcement can be followed by extracts
from favorite reviews, quoted from journals possessing liter-
ary authority, advertisements are much more likely to be
serviceable and to repay their cost. How great such ser-
vice and how considerable such repayment is, is very diffi-
cult to estimate. If a work has any claim upon the interest
Azz//hors and A’zzó/is/hers. 53
of the public, continued descriptive advertising can nearly
always be depended upon to produce an increase in the
sales, but it is often enough the case that such increase is
not sufficient to repay the cost of the advertising. If an in-
vestment of $50 in advertising brought an additional
sale for a dollar book of 50 copies, there would be a net
loss on the transaction of from $30 to $35. That kind of
“pushing” and “enterprise ’’ publishers are, notwithstand-
ing the criticisms of authors, naturally averse to, nor can they
honestly recommend it to authors who pay their own pub-
lishing expenses. It is, as a rule, pretty easy to tell, after
a few experiments in advertising, whether a book possesses
what may be called elasticity, that is, responds readily and
remuneratively to advertising and “pushing.” If such an
elasticity be there, and a public interest can be felt to have
been awakened, a great deal can be accomplished by judi-
ciously planned advertising to extend and keep active such
interest. If, however, no such interest appears, and the first
advertising outlay produces no returns, or but trifling returns,
further outlays will, at that time at least, be money thrown
away. It only remains to wait for some more favorable re-
views or some turn in public opinion, before attempting
further effort, or before, perhaps, deciding that the venture
has, at least from a commercial point of view, been a mis-
take. If a work fails to show such elasticity, if the reviews
are slighting and inconsiderate, or even if favorable, fail to
attract public attention, no amount of advertising will, as a
rule, help the matter. It is very seldom indeed that a book
can be crammed down the throat of the public like Wºzas/ozy's
Soothing Syrup. If it has once fallen flat, it is, with a rare
exception, as impracticable for the publisher to put life into
it by advertising, as it would be for him to lift himself over
the fence by the straps of his boots. *
In this connection, however, it is proper to remember
54 Azz//hors azza! /*zzó/is/hers.
!”
that publishing management can sometimes put renewed life
into material which has apparently fallen out of relations to the
literature of its time, and the demand for which has ceased.
In 1848, when the late George P. Putnam undertook the
publication of such of the works of Washington Irving as
had at that time been written, these had for three years been
out of print, and no publishing house had had sufficient faith
in their continued vitality to make propositions for re-issuing
them. Irving himself began to believe that his day as a
writer had gone by, and told his nephews that he thought
his literary life was finished. Yet during the next decade
his publisher paid him more money for copyrights than he
had received during all the preceding years of his life ; and
encouraged by this renewed popularity, Irving completed dur-
ing those ten years some of his most important productions.
Of course no amount of publishing management could
have produced such a result if the works had not themselves
possessed the essential qualities which constitute classics;
but no one admitted more frankly than Irving himself, how
large a part the skill and enterprise of his publisher had
played in securing from a new generation of readers the
recognition of his works as classics of permanent value, and
how great had been his discouragement at the time the co-
operation of this publisher was placed at his disposal.
We have referred to the importance of attention from
the reviewers. There are instances of very considerable
sales having been obtained by books which had received
no mention, or but very slighting mention, in the literary
columns of the leading journals. But these are the excep-
tions. As a rule, it is almost impossible for a new writer
to obtain a hearing before the public, unless the reviewers
will give some space to his books. While it is desirable,
of course, that such notices should be favorable, it has not
infrequently happened that sales have been facilitated by
Azz//hors and /ºu//is/hers. 55
fiercely unfavorable reviews, when these have only given
sufficient space to the material, and have presented some
analysis and description of it. While reviews are important,
and without them success is very difficult, it is also easy to
overestimate their direct influence on sales. It occasionally
happens that a work which attracts very considerable and
favorable attention from the reviewers, fails to find favor
with the general public; and the young author who has, after
the appearance of some pleasant notice, hurried up to the
publisher's office to inquire how soon a new edition will be
required, is met by a discouraging report. Such a result is
usually due to the fact that the reviewers, while writing for,
and on behalf of, the reading public, do not themselves form
a fair representation of the average opinion of such public.
They will naturally emphasize that which has a personal in-
terest for themselves, and this may very easily be material
which, for one reason or another, happens to be out of the
range of the interests of the public at large.
The suggestion sometimes comes to the publisher that
the author can, through his personal acquaintance, influence
favorable reviews in this or that quarter, but it is a sugges-
tion to which, as the publisher's experience tells him, he can
attach little weight, as he knows that the journals whose
opinions are of any value, conduct their literary columns
without reference to personal influences, and in fact often
arrange to secure their reviews from different specialists
outside of their own office. -
The number of copies of a new book which can to advan-
tage be distributed for review, varies of course according to
the character and costliness of the work, the number printed,
etc., etc. Of a novel, from 150 to 250 copies are usually
used in this way; of a work of standard literature, from
IOO to 200 ; and of a work of special character, a much
smaller number.
56 A 24//hors and/ Pu//ishers.
There has been of late a very large increase throughout
the country of journals in which competent and able re-
views appear, an increase out of proportion to the growth
of booksellers and of book-buyers, but however excellent its
reviews may be, it does not usually pay a publisher to add
a journal to his list, unless the town where it is published
contains at least one active bookseller who can be depended
upon to fill orders for the books reviewed.
When after all preliminary difficulties have been over-
come, his book is at last fairly published, the author not
unnaturally expects that copies of it will at Once appear on
the counters of all the book-stores throughout the country.
In this expectation he is likely to be more or less disap-
pointed, and the complaint that “friends have inquired for
a book in this place or that, and have not found it,” is one
of the most frequent that comes to the publisher.
It is not always easy to make clear, at least in connection
with a first book, why it is that publishing machinery does
not and cannot provide for any such general distribution 27.
advance of the Žuć/ic demand. The first edition of a first
book does not usually consist of more than I,OOO copies, and
of these from 150 to 200 copies are required for the press.
But such general distribution of copies among the leading
book-stores (even if there were no other reasons rendering
it impracticable) would require not I,000 but from 5,000 to
IO,OOO copies, a larger edition than either the publisher or
the author (if the venture be his) is usually willing to risk
with a first enterprise. *
If, however, some such number of copies were sent out,
and one half of them (a large proportion) found buyers, the ex-
tra cost of manufacturing the copies not sold and the expense
of the freight on these when returned, would considerably
more than absorb the profits on the sales, so that with quite
a considerable sale, the net result of the transaction might
Au//hors and Publishers. 57
be a considerable loss. It is, however, also the case that
the better class of booksellers object to receiving unsolicited
consignments of untried books, and when such consign-
ments come to hand they are very likely to put them to one
side, or sometimes even to promptly express them back to
the publisher at his cost. They reason that the space on
their counters represents a considerable Outlay for rent, and
that they prefer to use their own judgment as to how such
space shall be occupied, and to select for it such stock as
may be most likely to prove remunerative. And if they
have in their stores a certain amount of stock that belongs
to them and other stock that they have the privilege of re-
turning, it is naturally to their interest to give their special
attention to the former, even to the extent of putting the
latter to one side altogether.
In consideration of this class of objections on the part of
the booksellers, and also of the fact that if a house is in the
habit of making consignments of its books, it finds much
greater difficulty in securing any orders for them, the lead-
ing publishers have practically given up the custom of
making consignments, although they occasionally find it ad-
visable to concede to regular customers the privilege of re-
turning for exchange unsold stock. The leading booksellers
usually place with the publishers standing orders for speci-
men copies of new books as published, and from these
specimen copies, in connection with such demand as may
arise through the notices of the press-copies sent with them,
they make up their orders for such further supplies as they
judge will be required. Such orders are, however, accom-
panied by lists of certain classes of books which are not to
be sent ; one dealer, for instance, wanting no religious
works, another no fiction, a third no works on special
scientific subjects, and nearly all ruling out from such
advance orders poetry by new authors. The book does
58 A 24//hors azed. A 'ºff/is/hers.
not, therefore, as the author often imagines, come into
demand because it is in the book-stores, but gets into the
book-stores because it has come into demand.
An author frequently suggests that if the publisher will
only take pains to place his book on the railroad stands,
it will certainly find sale. This, also, is, however, something
that depends, in the first place, upon the book. The busi-
ness of selling books on the railroads is in the hands of a few
large companies; that of the roads running out of New York,
for instance, being controlled by three concerns. The space
on the stands is limited and is considered valuable, and the
salesmen who sell books through the trains earn good
wages. The managers are therefore naturally unwilling
that their space and the time of their men be devoted to
any books that are not what they call “sure things.” They
do not want to try any experiments, but plan to give atten-
tion only to works that have already “made a sensation.”
When a book has made a mark, it is well to talk to the rail-
road men about it, but not before.
The principal sales of the railroad dealers are for books
in paper covers, and copies of these, if not sold promptly,
easily become, through exposure on the stands and the
handling on the trains, shopworn and unsalable. A large
part of the loss on the unsold and damaged books must, as
as a rule, be borne by the publishers, and it is important
therefore for them that only such works be placed on the
railroads as are reasonably sure of finding prompt and
remunerative sale.
A very large proportion of the sale of paper-bound books
must be effected through the railroads and news companies;
and as an edition of considerable size is required to place a
book at all effectively in these special channels, it is not, as
a rule, considered advisable to use paper covers for first
editions of first books, or for any books which cannot be
depended upon to secure a wide popular demand.
A 24//hors azed. A 'ºff/is/hers. 59
The author may be disposed, after going Over this sum-
mary of the methods of bringing a book before the public,
to conclude that, after all, his success will depend upon the
character of his work, and that if his book must, so to speak,
sell itself, the publisher's co-operation in the undertaking
amounts to nothing. Leaving, for the moment, Out of the
question the all-important cases in which the co-operation of
the publisher includes the providing of the capital required
for the undertaking, we will point out some other con-
siderations which make such co-operation important, con-
siderations which any author who has attempted to place a
book before a public with the aid only of a printer, or
through an authors' association, will be ready to appreciate.
In the first place, the imprint of any reputable publishing
house is of essential service in securing for a book early
attention, which would otherwise come to it either not at
all or very slowly. Publishing imprints differ of course in
value, not merely in connection with the general reputation
of the several firms, but also on the ground of their special
association with different classes of literature—scientific,
denominational, sensational, etc., etc.
Secondly, the association on a publisher's catalogue of
the work of a new author with the writings of authors whose
volumes are in steady demand, is of no little importance.
We have before referred to the large number of copies of
catalogues and book-lists which are continually being dis-
tributed by publishers. The book-buyer who sends for a
catalogue containing the works of the well-known authors,
A, B, and C, finds in it also the titles of books of the new
writers, X, Y, and Z, and thus has the opportunity pre-
sented to him of interesting himself also in these last.
A third and most indispensable service rendered by the
publisher, is in supplying the machinery through which, if
a book is called for, it can be supplied. As before explained,
6O A 24//hors azza Azzó/is/hers.
it is not in his power to create a demand or to force a book
into a sale, but he should be able to satisfy promptly any
demand which may arise, and to see that any public interest
that may have been awakened be duly fostered and kept
as active as possible. If a review in a paper in Peoria has
attracted attention to a book, the reader who inquires for it
at the local book-store may or may not find a copy on the
counter, but he ought in any case to be able to obtain infor-
mation as to price, etc., and if the work is on the list of any
regular publisher, the bookseller can fill orders for it at once.
If, on the other hand, the book has been issued without im-
print and is not on any of the book-lists of the month, the
intending buyer is likely to leave the store unsatisfied, and
may very easily be diverted from his intention.
And it may be remarked that the buying of books is by
no means so confirmed a habit among the public at large
that any legitimate means to encourage it can safely be
neglected. -
In bringing to a close these few suggestions, which have
been penned to facilitate, as far as practicable, the work of
the author in obtaining information and in effecting his pub-
lishing arrangements, we have only to repeat, first, that they
are addressed particularly to writers whose experience is
still to come ; authors who have already seen their names
on various title-pages, who have become hardened, so
to speak, to publishers and critics, may find in these pages
some statements that do not entirely accord with their own
experience. We can merely claim for Our papers that
they have been carefully considered and are as substantially
accurate as any general statements can be, while admitting
that, like all general statements, they are subject to excep-
tions. g - *
It is our opinion that in one way or another all literary
work that deserves to live (in addition to a good deal that
A 24//hors and Pu//s/ers. 6 I
does not), succeeds in making its way into print, and in get-
ting itself placed before the public. We do not believe that
our American prairies conceal any Charlotte Brontés to whom
the opportunity for expression and fame has been denied, or
that a careful search through American villages would develop
any “mute, inglorious Miltons” rusting away their unde-
veloped lives. Opportunity for expression can, with a little
patience and persistence, be secured by every writer who
has any thing to say to his fellow-men (and also, unfortu-
nately, by a good many who have nothing); and every
literary aspirant can safely indulge in the hope that if
posterity has need of his impressions, the particular “sands 2
of time” on which these have been placed will become stone
to preserve them.
THE MAKING OF BOOKS.
Various Sizes of Books.-There are Iew matters con-
nected with bookmaking of which the novice has so hazy an
impression as in regard to the amount of matter in a given
MS. When questioned by the publisher or printer as to
this, the usual reply is that it will “make an ordinary-sized
book’’; and the probabilities are that the idea of estimating
the number of words in his MS. has never entered the
author's mind.
In this connection the following suggestions are offered
to authors :
I. Write on small sheets of paper—commercial note
or letter size is preferable to a larger sheet. Write ſegå/y,
and on one side of sheet only. Copy is frequently brought
to the printer in such an illegible condition that it becomes
necessary to have it re-written in the office before it can be
placed in the compositor's hands.
2. All the sheets of MS. should be of the same size, and
should contain as nearly as possible the same number of
lines; this facilitates the work of estimating the amount of
matter and cost of printing. - f
3. The MS. should be paged consecutively throughout.
If the “copy” is prepared with uniformity, as noted above,
it is a comparatively simple matter to count the words in it,
and it is very desirable that the author should be aware of
this in talking with publisher or printer, as upon the size
often depends, in a large measure, the availability of the MS. .
With the knowledge of the number of thousand words in
62
Azz//hors and Pºzó/is/hers. 63
a given MS., the next question to be decided, in the course
of book-manufacturing, is as to the style of volume it is de-
sirable to make. Is the material planned for popular sale P
If so, a careful selection should be made of type, page,
paper, binding, etc., that the cost may be kept at a moderate
figure, and thus admit of a low publication price. If on the
other hand the material is addressed to a more limited class
of readers, it will probably be desirable to plan the volume
upon an entirely different basis, making a larger and hand-
somer book at a higher retail price. g
The expressions “quarto,” “ octavo,” etc., which informer
times designated, with tolerable accuracy, the size of the
printed book, are now, unfortunately, by no means to be de-
pended upon. This is due to the greatly increased variety
of sizes of paper now manufactured, almost every publishing
house having special sizes made for its own use. The terms
“quarto,” “ octavo,” etc., refer to the number of times the
flat sheet of paper is folded. If therefore, a common size
of paper were used, as was formerly the case, the dimensions
of the folded sheet, and of the book, could readily be es-
timated.
The sizes of printing paper commonly used in England
21 62 : —
Imperial, 22 × 3O inches. Demy, I7; X 22; inches.
Superroyal, 204 × 27; “ Double crown, 20 × 3o { %
Royal, 2OX 25 “ Post, I5; X 19% “
Medium, I9 × 24 “ Foolscap I5; XI? & 4
Much larger paper is generally used in the United States,
owing to the greater size of American book printing-presses.
For ordinary purposes the dimensions of the paper
planned for the two principal sizes of books are :-
24×38 inches, or double medium, for Octavo or sixteenmo.
23 ×4I “ for twelvemo, or duodecimo.
64 Azz//ors and A’zzó/is/hers.
As before mentioned, these sizes are varied greatly by
the requirements of the various publishers and printers.
A sheet of paper folded once forms a ſolzo, and gives
four folio pages (counting both sides of the sheet).

Follo page.
The sheet folded twice forms a 72&arto, and gives eight
quartO pages. -

i
Authors and Pub/ishers. 65
The sheet folded thrice forms an octavo, and gives sºarſeezz
octavo pages. As explained before, it is more customary
to print an octavo from Zouble Medium paper, and this will,
of course, give ſhºrty-two Octavo pages.

Octavo
page.
The sheet folded four times forms a zómo, and gives
*/.27%)-ſwo pages.

i
#
66
Azz//hors azaſ A'zzó/is/hers.
The sheet folded/ive times forms a 32mo, and gives sixty-
four pages.

32m O
page.
Hitherto each successive fold has bisected the superficies
of the page. But there is also the size I 2 mo to explain.
If a sheet be trisected, and then bisected, as in the annexed
diagram, it gives by the four folds &venty-four pages, and is
called a 12mo or duodeczmeo.

#
#
As before explained, it is now customary among American
A 24/ºors azed. Auð/is/hers. 67
publishers to use double-sized paper, and this, of course,
doubles the number of pages printed upon a sheet. Thus
A sheet printed 16mo contains (both sides) 64 pages.
A twelvemo contains 48 “
An octavo & 4 32 “
Generally speaking, the dimensions of the four principal
sizes of books are as follows:
Quarto 9; X 12 inches.
Octavo 6 × 9 & 4
Twelvemo 5; X 7# “
Sixteenmo 4 × 64 “
When a decision has been arrived at in regard to the
general dimensions of the proposed volume, the next ques-
tion is as to the size of type and character of printed
page. -
The amount of material to be printed will, of course, in a
large measure, decide the kind of type to be used, and, as a
rule, the greater the number of words the smaller the type
selected.
It is not our purpose to enter into the general techni-
calities of book-manufacturing, but we may mention and
give examples of the sizes of type most frequently used in
book and pamphlet work.
68 Authors and /*zz//is/hers.
Specimen Page of Pica Type :
Washington Irving was born in the city of New York,
April 3, 1783. He was the eighth son of William and
Sarah Irving and the youngest of eleven children, three of
whom died in infancy. He had four brothers and three
sisters who lived to mature age, and whom, as I shall have
Occasion to speak of them in the course of my narrative, I
here name in the Order of birth : William, Ann, Peter,
Catharine, Ebenezer, John, Sarah.
The parents of Washington came from the opposite ends
of Great Britain : his father from the Orkneys; his mother
from Cornwall. The father was the son of Magnus Irving
and Catharine Williamson, and his ancestors bore on their
seals the three holly leaves, which are the arms of the Ir-
vines of Drum, one of the oldest and most respectable fam-
ilies of Scotland, which dates its origin from the days of
Robert Bruce.
According to a received tradition, in his secret and pre-
cipitate flight from Scotland from the court of Edward I,
Bruce sought shelter in the tower of Woodhouse, the dwell-
ing of an Irving of Bonshaw, who was chief of the name.
Here he was harbored for some time, and on leaving, he
took with him the eldest son of his host, whom he made his
Secretary and armor-bearer. The son accompanied him
through all his varying fortunes, was with him when he was
surprised and routed at Methven, in June, 1306, shared all
his subsequent dangers and hardships, and was one of seven
who lay concealed with him in a copse of holly when his
pursuers passed by. In memory of his escape in this ex-
tremity of peril, Bruce assumed the holly as a device, and
afterward gave it to his faithful secretary, with the motto,
Suð sole sub zemzóra værens. The motto and the evergreen
leaves, both having relation to his unchanging fidelity to his
king in prosperity and adversity, in sunshine and in shade,
have been the arms of the family ever since. Sir William
Irvine, as he is styled in Nisbet’s “Heraldry,” was subse-
quently Master of the Rolls, and the charter is still extant,
dated 4th October, 1324, by which the king conveyed to
his faithful and beloved William de Irwyn, in free barony,
Azz/ors and Pºzó/is/hers. 69
Specimen Page of Small Pica Type:
Washington Irving was born in the city of New York, April 3,
1783. He was the eighth son of William and Sarah Irving and
the youngest of eleven children, three of whom died in infancy.
He had four brothers and three sisters who lived to mature age,
and whom, as I shall have occasion to speak of them in the course
of my narrative, I here name in the order of birth : William, Ann,
Peter, Catharine, Ebenezer, John, Sarah.
The parents of Washington came from the opposite ends of
Great Britain : his father from the Orkneys; his mother from
Cornwall. The father was the son of Magnus Irving and Cath-
arine Williamson, and his ancesters bore on their seals the three
holly leaves, which are the arms of the Irvines of Drum, one of
the oldest and most respectable families of Scotland, which dates
its origin from the days of Robert Bruce.
According to a received tradition, in his secret and precipitate
flight for Scotland from the court of Edward I, Bruce sought
shelter in the tower of Woodhouse, the dwelling of an Irving of
Bonshaw, who was chief of the name. Here he was harbored for
some time, and on leaving, he took with him the eldest son of his
host, whom he made his secretary and armor-bearer. The son
accompanied him through all his varying fortunes, was with him
when he was surprised and routed at Methven, in June, I 3O6,
shared all his subsequent dangers and hardships, and was one of
seven who lay concealed with him in a copse of holly when his
pursuers passed by. In memory of his escape in this extremity
of peril, Bruce assumed the holly as a device, and afterward gave
it to his faithful secretary, with the motto, Suð sole sub zºnóra
virens. The motto and the evergreen leaves, both having relation
to his unchanging fidelity to his king in prosperity and adversity,
in sunshine and in shade, have been the arms of the family ever
since. Sir William Irvine, as he is styled in Nisbet’s “Heraldry,”
was subsequently Master of the Rolls, and the charter is still
extant, dated 4th October, I 324, by which the king conveyed to
his faithful and beloved William de Irwyn, in free barony, the
lands of Drum, a hunting-seat of the kings of Scotland, situated
on the north bank of the river Dee, about ten miles from Aber-
deen. The tower of Drum, with its walls of solid masonry, still
stands as sound and unimpaired as when the estate was conveyed,
and is still occupied by the Irvings, and lays claim to the distinc-
tion of being the oldest inhabited dwelling in Scotland.
William de Irwyn married Mariota, the daughter of Sir Robert
Keith, Great Mareschal of Scotland, who led the horse at Ban-
nockburn, and was killed at the battle of Duplin in I 332.
Of this family, says Dr. Christopher Irvine, historiographer of
Charles II, in an ancient document quoted in Playfair's “ British
7o A 24//hozºs azzaſ A'zzó/is/hers.
Specimen Page of Long Primer Type :
Washington Irving was born in the city of New York, April 3, 1783.
He was the eighth son of William and Sarah Irving and the youngest of
eleven children, three of whom died in infancy. He had four brothèrs
and three sisters who lived to mature age, and whom, as I shall have oc-
casion to speak of them in the course of my narrative, I here name in
the order of birth : William, Ann, Peter, Catharine, Ebenezer, John,
Sarah. e -
The parents of Washington came from the opposite ends of Great
Britain : his father from the Orkneys ; his mother from Cornwall. The
father was the son of Magnus Irving and Catharine Williamson, and his
ancestors bore on their seals the three holly leaves, which are the arms
of the Irvines of Drum, one of the oldest and most respectable families
of Scotland, which dates its origin from the days of Robert Bruce.
According to a received tradition, in his secret and precipitate flight
for Scotland from the court of Edward I, Bruce sought shelter in the
tower of Woodhouse, the dwelling of an Irving of Bonshaw, who was
chief of the name. Here he was harbored for some time, and on leav-
ing, he took with him the eldest son of his host, whom he made his sec-
retary and armor-bearer. The son accompanied him through all his
varying fortunes, was with him when he was surprised and routed at
Methven, in June, 13 oé, shared all his subsequent dangers and hard-
ships, and was one of seven who lay concealed with him in a copse of
holly when his pursuers passed by. In memory of his escape in this
extremity of peril, Bruce assumed the holly as a device, and afterward
gave it to his faithful secretary, with the motto, Suð sole szzó zamóra zárezas.
The motto and the evergreen leaves, both having relation to his un-
changing fidelity to his king in prosperity and adversity, in sunshine and
in shade, have been the arms of the family ever since. Sir William Ir-
vine, as he is styled in Nisbet’s “Heraldry,” was subsequently Master
Of the Rolls, and the charter is still extant, dated 4th October, 1324, by
which the king conveyed to his faithful and beloved William de Irwyn,
in free barony, the lands of Drum, a hunting-seat of the kings of Scot-
land, situated on the north bank of the river Dee, about ten miles from
Aberdeen. The tower of Drum, with its walls of solid masonry, still
stands as sound and unimpaired as when the estate was conveyed, and
is still occupied by the Irvings, and lays claim to the distinction of be-
ing the oldest inhabited dwelling in Scotland.
William de Irwyn married Mariota, the daughter of Sir Robert Keith,
Great Mareschal of Scotland, who led the horse at Bannockburn, and
was killed at the battle of Duplin in 1332. -
Of this family, says Dr. Christopher Irvine, historiographer of Charles
II, in an ancient document quoted in Playfair’s “British Family An-
tiquity,” are the Irvines of Orkney. But at what time his branch of the
family was transplanted to that locality, the author has no information
other than a family tradition, that it was during some troubles in Scot-
land prior to the reign of Charles II. A few years previous to his death,
some legal controversy arising in England on the subject of the copyright
of his works, a London publisher was led to apply to Kirkwall for docu-
Azz//ors and A’azó/is/hers. 7 I
Specimen Page of Brevier Type : -
Washington Irving was born in the city of New York, April 3, 1783. He was
the eighth son of William and Sarah Irving and the youngest of eleven children, three
of whom died in infancy. He had four brothers and three sisters who lived to mature
age, and whom, as I shall have occasion to speak of them in the course of my narra-
tive, I here name in the order of birth ; William, Ann, Peter, Catharine, Ebenezer,
John, Sarah.
The parents of Washington came from the opposite ends of Great Britain : his father
from the Orkneys; his mother from Cornwall. The father was the son of Magnus
Irving and Catharine Williamson, and his ancestors bore on their seals the three holly
leaves, which are the arms of the Irvines of Drum, one of the oldest and most respect-
able families of Scotland, which dates its origin from the days of Robert Bruce.
According to a received tradition, in his secret and precipitate flight for Scotland
from the court of Edward I, Bruce sought shelter in the tower of Woodhouse, the
dwelling of an Irving of Bonshaw, who was chief of the name. Here he was harbored
for some time, and on leaving, he took with him the eldest son of his host, whom he
made his secretary and armor-bearer. The son accompanied him through all his vary-
ing fortunes, was with him when he was surprised and routed at Methven, in June,
1306, shared all his subequent dangers and hardships, and was one of seven who lay
concealed with him in a copse of holly when his pursuers passed by. In memory of
his escape in this extremity of peril, Bruce assumed the holly as a device, and after-
ward gave it to his faithful secretary, with the motto, Suð sole szló zºmbra zirezzs.
The motto and the evergreen leaves, both having relation to his unchanging fidelity
to his king in prosperity and adversity, in sunshine and in shade, have been the
arms of the family ever since. Sir William Irvine, as he is styled in Nisbet’s “Her-
aldry,” was subsequently Master of the Rolls, and the charter is still extant, dated
4th October, 1324, by which the king conveyed to his faithful and beloved William
de Irwyn, in free barony, the lands of Drum, a hunting-seat of the kings of Scotland,
situated on the north bank of the river Dee, about ten miles from Aberdeen. The
tower of Drum, with its walls of solid masonry, still stands as sound and unimpaired
as when the estate was conveyed, and is still occupied by the Irvings, and lays claim
to the distinction of being the oldest inhabited dwelling in Scotland.
William de Irwyn married Mariota, the daughter of Sir Robert Keith, Great Mare-
schal of Scotland, who led the horse at Bannockburn, and was killed at the battle of
Duplin in I332. -
Of this family, says Dr. Christopher Irvine, historiographer of Charles II, in an ancient
document quoted in Playfair's “ British Family Antiquity,” are the Irvines of Orkney.
But at what time his branch of the family was transplanted to that locality, the author
had no information other than a family tradition, that it was during some troubles
in Scotland prior to the reign of Charles II. A few years previous to his death, some
legal controversy arising in England on the subject of the copyright of his works, a
London publisher was led to apply to Kirkwall for documentary proof of his father's
place of birth. In making the necessary researches, the Clerk of the Records was
induced to trace his descent as far back as possible, and it is a curious fact that he was
enabled to do it through four centuries, from a facility afforded by the ancient “Udal”
laws of that region, which required that lands, on the death of the owner, should be
divided equally among the sons and daughters; a peculiarity which led in the partition,
to the mention of the names and relationships of all the parties who were to draw a
share. The result of these researches showed that ‘‘William De Erwin,” the first
Orkney Irvine and earliest cadet of Drum, was an inhabitant of Kirkwall, the metrop-
olis of the island, group, I 369, the same year in which Thomas, the eldest son and
successor of the armor-bearer, is mentioned among the barons of the Scottish Parlia-
ment ; that the Irvings held landed possessions in Pomona, the island in which Kirkwall
is situated, up to I597, when Magnus, eldest son of James, the “Lawman’’ or chief
judge of the Orkneys, sold his share of his father's property in the neighborhood of
Kirkwall to a younger brother, and removed to the contiguous island of Shapinsha,
where, in I73 I, was born William, the father of the author.
On the death of his mother, who had always opposed his wishes on this point,
William yielded to the long-cherished desire of his boyhood, and went to sea. During
the war between Trance and Frigland he engaged on board of an armed packet-ship of
72 A 24//oz's azed Publishers.
Specimen Page of Nonpareil Type :
Washington Irving was born in the city of New York, April 3, 1783. He was the eighth son of
William and Sarah Irving and the youngest of eleven children, three of whom died in infancy.
He had four brothers and three sisters who lived to mature age, and whom, as I shall have occa-
sion to speak of them in the course of my narrative, I here name in the order of birth : Wllliam,
Ann, Peter, Catharine, Ebenezer, John. Sarah.
The parents of Washington came from the opposite ends of Great Britain : his father from
the Orkneys; his mother from Cornwall. The father was the son of Magnus Irving and Catharine
Williamson, and his ancestors bore on their seals the three holly leaves, which are the arms of the
Irvines of Drum, one of the oldest and most respectable families of Scotland, which dates its
origin from the days of Robert Bruce.
According to a received tradition, in his secret and precipitate flight for Scotland from the court
of Edward I, Bruce sought shelter in the tower of Woodhouse, the dwelling of an Irving of Bon—
shaw, who was chief of the name. Here he was harbored for some time, and on leaving, he took
with him the eldest son of his host, whom he made his secretary and armor-bearer. The son ac-
companied him through all his varying fortunes, was with him when he was surprised and routed
at Methven, in June, 1306, shared all his subsequent dangers and hardships, and was one of seven
who lay concealed with him in a copse of holly when his pursuers passed by. In memory of his
escape in this extremity of peril, Bruce assumed the holly as a device, and afterward gave it to his
faithful secretary, with the motto, Sztó sole sub zezzzóra zyżrezzs. The motto and the evergreen
leaves, both having relation to his unchanging fidelity to his king in prosperity and adversity, in
sunshine and in shade, have been the arms of the family ever since. Sir William Irvine, as he is.
styled in Nisbet’s “ Heraldry,” was subsequently Master of the Rolls, and the charter is still ex-
tant, dated 4th October, 1324, by which the king conveyed to his faithful and beloved William de
Irwyn, in free barony, the lands of Drum, a hunting-seat of the kings of Scotland, situated on the
north bank of the river Dee, about ten miles from Aberdeen. The tower of Drum, with its walls
of solid masonry, still stands as sound and unimpaired as when the sestate was conveyed, and is
still occupied by the 1rvings, and lays claim to the distinction of being the oldest inhabited dwell-
ing in Scotland.
William de Irwyn married Mariota, the daughter of Sir Robert Reith, Great Mareschal of Scot–
land, who led the horse at Bannockburn, and was killed at the battle of Duplin in 1332.
Of this family, says Dr. Christopher Irvine, historiographer of Charles II, in an ancient docu-
ment quoted in Playfair’s “ British Family Antiquity,” are the Irvines of Orkney. But at what.
time his branch of the family was transplanted to that locality, the author had no information other
than a family tradition, that it was during some troubles in Scotland prior to the reign of Charles
II. A few years previous to his death, some legal controversy arising in England on the subject
of the copyright of his works, a London publisher was led to apply to Kirkwall for documentary
proof of his father's place of birth. In making the necessary researches, the Clerk of the Records
was induced to trace his descent as far back as possible, and it is a curious fact that he was enabled
to do it through four centuries, from a facility afforded by the ancient “ Udal” laws of that region,
which required that lands, on the death of the owner, should be divided equally among the sons,
and daughters; a peculiarity which led in the partition, to the mention of the names and relation-
ships of all the parties who were to draw a share. The result of these researches showed that
* William De Irwyn,” the first Orkney livine, and earliest cadet of Drum, was an inhabitant of
Kirkwall, the metropolis of the island group, in 1369, the same year in which Thomas, the eldest
son and successor of the armor-bearer, is mentioned among the barons of the Scottish Parliament ;.
that the Irvings held landed possessions in Pomona, the island in which Kirkwall is situated, up to
1597, when Magnus, eldest son of James, the “Lawman’’ or chief judge of the Orkneys, sold his
share of his father’s property 1n the neighborhood of Kirkwall to a younger brother, and removed
to the contiguous island of Shapinsha, where, in 1731, was born William, the father of the author.
On the death of his mother, who had always opposed his wishes on this point, William yielded
to the long-cherished desire of his boyhood, and went to sea. During the war between France and
England he engaged on board an armed packet-ship of his British Majesty plying between Fal-
mouth and New York, and was a petty officer in this service when he met with Sarah Sanders,
the only child of John and Anna Sanders, and granddaughter of an English curate whose name:
was Kent. Their marriage took place on the 18th of May, 1761, and two years thereafter, on the
return of peace, the youthful pair embarked for New York, where they landed on the 18th of
July, 1763, having buried their first child on the shores of England.
Mr. Irving took up his residence in the city not far from “ The old Walton House,” as it now.
proclaims itself with boastful longevity, then recently erected, which with the Middle Dutch
Church, still resisting at that time the language of England in spite of a century of British dom-
ination, now shorn of its honors and transformed into a post-office, are almost the only relics left.
of the contracted and half-rural city of that day.
On settling in New York, the father of the author entered into mercantile business. He was:
getting on successfully, when the Revolution broke out ; and he found his quiet dwelling under
the guns of one of the English ships in the harbor at the the time when, in consequence of General
Lee's measures, it was apprehended they would fire upon the town. A general panic prevailed;
many of the inhabitants fled to the country, and among the number Mr. Irving and his little flock,
with whom he took refuge at Rahway in New Jersey. . Here he was not much better off : busi-
ness was at an end ; his children suffered from fever and ague, and finally, when the British made
an incursion into the Jerseys, he returned to New York, after an absence of nearly two years,
during which almost half of the city had been destroyed by fire. e º º
Throughout the revolutionary contest, he and his wife exerted themselves without ceasing, in:
alleviating the sufferings of American prisoners. The mother of the author, who possessed a
character of rare generosity and benevolence, was especially zealous in this charitable ministry.
Prisoners were supplied with food from her own table; and she often went in person to visit them
when ill, furnishing them with clothes, blankets, and other necessaries. Cunningham, so noted
for his brutality, always softened at her appearance. “I’d rather you'd send them a rope, Mrs.
A 24//hors and Pºzó/is/hers.
73
The foregoing specimens of type are given as ordinarily
set, without spacing or “leads " between the lines. The
appearance of a page, however, is very materially changed by
the use of thin pieces of metal called “leads” placed
between the lines of type, and this gives to the page a more
This difference
open effect.
will be appreciated by com-
paring the two styles of small pica. -
Zeaded.
Archives of Medicine for 1883,
a bi-monthly journal, edited by
T)r. E. C. SEGUIN and Dr. R.
W. AMIDON, with the assistance
of many prominent physicians
in this country and abroad,
enters upon the fifth year of
its existence. The Archives of
Medicine will continue to be
published every two months.
Each number is handsomely
printed in large Octavo form, on
heavy paper, and contains from
IO4 to II 2 pages. Whenever
necessary, 2//ustražions of vari-
ous sorts will be freely inserted,
as in the past. The Archives
would make this special claim
upon the medical profession,
that it is made up solely of
original matter, in the shape of
Original Articles, Editorial Ar-
ticles, Reviews, and Records of
Original Cases.
So/za.
Archives of Medicine for 1883,
a bi-monthly journal, edited by
Dr. E. C. SEGUIN and Dr. R.
W. AMIDON, with the assistance
of many prominent physicians
in this country and abroad,
enters upon the fifth year of
its existence. The Archives v.
Medicine will continue to be
published every two months.
Each number is handsomely
printed in large octavo form, on
heavy paper, and contains from
IO4 to II 2 pages. Whenever
necessary, 2//ustrations of vari-
ous sorts will be freely.inserted,
as in the past. The Archives
would make this special claim
upon the medical profession,
that it is made up solely of
Original matter, in the shape of
. Original Articles, Editorial Ar-
ticles, Reviews, and Records of
Original Cases.
The sizes of type generally used for book work are
pica, small pica, long primer, bourgeois, and brevier.
Measuring Type-The standard of measure in type-
setting in the United States is the em, or the square of the
74 A uſ/lors and A’zzó/is/hers.
type used. In other words, the compositor is paid for the
number of emes he sets. Of course the smaller the type the
greater the number of emes in a given space.
This should be carefully borne in mind, for it not infres
quently occurs that after a work has been estimated to make
a given number of pages in a certain type, the author
decides to use smaller type, and he is then surprised that the
reduction in the number of pages does not make the cost
of his work correspondingly less. As a matter of fact there
will be the same number of ems whether the type be large
or small, and the compositor, justly, receives the same for
One hundred pages of long primer as for one hundred and
twenty pages of pica. When the type in a book is mixed,
each size is measured for itself.
Giving Out Copy.—In setting the type the MS. is divided
up by the foreman of the composing-room into small divi-
sions called “takes,” and these are handed out in rotation
to the compositors engaged upon the work.
Type-Setting.—The type is set up by the compositor in
what is called a “composing-stick,” this being held in the
left hand, while the right hand dexterously takes the type
from the case, and arranges the letters in accordance with
the “copy.” This “stick ’’ holds a number of lines of type,
and as it becomes filled, its contents are carefully lifted into
a long tray called a “galley.” When the copy contained in
the “take” is finished, the type is secured and placed upon
the proof press, and two impressions taken from it, the
compositor having first placed at the head of the “galley"
his office number, in order that he may receive proper credit
for the work done.
Office Proof.-One of these proofs is now sent to the
proof-reader with the copy, the other being retained by the
compositor as a voucher for his work. The reader now
goes carefully through the “office proof,” being assisted by
Azz//ors azed /º/ö/øs/ers. 75.
a subordinate who reads to him, word by word, the author's
MS. This proof is then returned to the compositor, who is
compelled to make in it all the corrections needed to make
the proof conform to the copy. As the compositor is not
allowed any thing extra for these corrections, it is manifestly
his interest to have his proof as “clean” or correct as pos-
sible.
Author's Proof.-After these corrections are made by
the compositor he then “pulls" another proof, and this,
marked “Revise,” or “Author's,” is sent to an assistant
reader, who compares it with the “office proof” to make
sure that all the compositor's errors have been properly
rectified. The proof is then stamped with the date and
despatched with the MS. copy to the author. -
Correcting Proof–On the two following pages is exhib-
ited a specimen page of proof before and after corrections
are made. This contains the principal corrections needed
in ordinary proof, and the method of marking the same
on the margin. If proof is properly marked, it is not neces-
sary that it should be accompanied by a letter to publisher or
printer reiterating these corrections. Indeed, such reitera-
tion is always confusing and troublesome.
In correcting proof use a pen in preference to a pencil,
and avoid all unnecessary marks on the margin of the proof.
General directions to the printer should in all cases be written
upon a separate sheet, and if they are sent by mail, they
should be placed in separate envelopes. If enclosed with
the proof, they subject this to the payment of letter postage.
76 Azz//hors and Pºzó/is/hers.
SPECIMEN OF CORRECTED PROOF, @
FABLE II,
--~º->
The Wolf and the Lamb.
ONE fiot, sultry day, a Wolf and a Lamb happened to come, just at the
same time, to quench their thirst in the stream of a clear silver brook,
that ran tumbling down the the side of a rocky mountain, The Wolf stood
upon the h£igher ground, and the Lamb at some distance from him down the
current. However, the Wölf, having as mind to pic; a quarrel with him, 9
asked him what he meant by disturbing the wafer, and making it so muddy c.
that he could not drink; and, at the same time, demanded satisfaction,
The Lamb, frightened' at this threatening Gharge, told him, inta tong as ri
mild tas, possible, that, with humble submission, he could Inot, conceive, how or
3-
:
that could be ; since the Yater which he drankºran down from the Wölf to
him, and therefore it could not be disturbed, so far, up the stream/A
- £: vºº iſ «TE: that as it will,” replies the Wolf, “you, are a rasca/, and I have been.
told that youtreated me with ill language behind my back, about half a year.
left ago.” Upon my yord,” says the Lamb, , the time you mention was be-f
fore I was born.” The Wölf, finding it toſſurpose) no to argue any longer
77 against télyth, fell into a great passion; Snarling and (foaming at the mouth,
.*
las if he had been mad; and drawing nearer to the ſamb, “Sirrah,” says
he, “if it was not you, it was your ; father, and that is all (the same.
Sö he seized the poor innocentertore it to pieces, and made a meal of it.
% %A AESOP'S FABLES,
CORRECTIONS OF THE PRESS.
are 9. (dele) Z2&lete, take out or expunge.
y
Turn a reversed letter.
%
A space, or more space, between words, letters, or lines.
Less space, or no space, between words or letters.
or — Carry a word further to the left or to the right.
Indent.
Elevate a letter, word, or character that is sunk below the proper level.
Sink or depress a letter, word, or letters raised above the proper level.
Shows that a portion of a paragraph projects laterally beyond the rest.
Directs attention to a quadrat or space which improperly appears.
or + Directs attention to a broken or imperfect type.
Bring a word or words to the beginning of a line ; also, make a new paragraph.


Azeffºors azed. Auð/is/hers. 77
SPECIMIEN OF PROOF AFTER CORRECTION.
“., FABLE II.
THE WOLF AND THE LAMIB,
NE hot, sultry day, a Wolf and a Lamb happened to come, just at the
same time, to quench their thirst in the stream of a clear silver brook,
that ran tumbling down the the side of a rocky mountain. The Wolf stood
upon the higher ground, and the Lamb at some distance from him down the
current. However, the Wolf, having a mind to pick a quarrel with him,
asked him what he meant by disturbing the water, and making it so muddy
that he could not drink ; and, at the same time, demanded satisfaction-
The Lamb, frightened at this threatening charge, told him, in a tone as
mild as possible, that, with humble submission, he could not conceive how
that could be ; since the water which he drank, ran down from the Wolf to
Thim, and therefore it could not be disturbed so far up the stream. “Be
that as it will,” replies the Wolf, “you are a rascal, and I have been
told that you treated me with ill language behind my back, about half a year
ago.” Upon my word,” says the Lamb, “the time you mention was be—
fore I was born.” The Wolf, finding it to no purpose to argue any longer
against truth, fell into a great passion, snarling and foaming at the mouth,
as if he had been mad ; and drawing nearer to the lamb, “Sirrah. ” says
he, “if it was not you, it was your father, and that is all one. So he
seized the poor innocent, helpless thing, tore it to pieces, and made a meal
of it.
Alsop's Fables.
CORRECTIONS OF THE PRESS (continue D).
* Make a new paragraph. -
- Change from Italic to Roman, or from Roman to Italic, as the case may be.
= Put in small Capitals.
E Put in Capitals.
ſº. The other marks are self-explanatory, but the following abbreviations, used
in correcting proof-sheets, require explanations:
w. f. Wrong font ; used when a letter is of a wrong size or style.
tr. Transpose. -
A. c. Lower case ; i. e., put in small or common letters a word or letter that has
been printed in capitals or small capitals.
Q y, or ? Query.
out, s. c. Words are wanting, see copy.
78 Azz/ors and Puff/is/hers.
Extra Corrections,—The preceding pages will help to
make clear to the novice the character of the printer's charge
for “extra corrections,” which charge generally appears, for
a greater or less amount, in almost every bill rendered for
book work. The printer's estimate for a piece of work
should, of course, include all the expense of making the
printed page agree with the copy. It would be impossible
for any estimate to go farther than this, as the number of
“changes " made by authors is so much of an unknown
quantity; some writers scarcely altering a word, others,
because of carelessness in the preparation of their MS., so
adding or cancelling material, that to make the changes not
infrequently costs as much as the first setting of the type.
There is no charge connected with the printing of a book
so unsatisfactory to both author and printer as this one of
“extra corrections,” and none which is usually so easy to
avoid by a little additional care in the proper preparation of
the MS. before it is placed in the hands of the printer. It
is very difficult to make an author comprehend how much
time is required to effect changes in proof which to him may
appear but trifling. For instance, a word or two eliminated
from the proof, zazzless other words are szöstituted of the same
length, will require the “overrunning ” of the entire para-
graph corrected, and not infrequently necessitates the re-
handling in the “stick" of several pages. This of course
applies equally to the addition of words not in the original
COpy. - -
Again, authors sometimes conclude in reading proof that
certain material will look better in smaller type than that
used for the body of their work. It is, of course, evident
that this change requires not only the double setting of the
particular matter in question, but in addition (if the proof be
in pages) the “overrunning” of all the pages “made up,” to
permit of the desired alteration in the size of type.
Authors and Puá/is/hers. 79
These changes require time, although to the author their
execution may appear a very trifling matter.
When proof is returned from the author, an assistant
proof-reader examines it and notes the “changes”—if any
—that are marked. These “changes "-z. e., alterations
from copy—are then made by what is known as a “time-
hand,” who reports to the foreman each day the time spent
in making such corrections, this time being duly checked
by the foreman by each day's proof.
Locking Up.–If the work is to be electrotyped, the pages
are now placed in iron frames called “chases,” and “ locked
up,” that is, made perfectly true and secure preparatory to
casting, and another proof, taken. This is again compared
with the author's last proof to see that all the corrections
marked have been properly made, another final reading is
given it, and the forms are then sent to the foundry to be
CaSt.
In works requiring great precision, or in those to con-
tain an index, an additional proof is usually taken from the
plates themselves and submitted to the author. Corrections
can be made in these by cutting Out words or letters and
inserting others in their place. This, however, is necessarily
expensive and should be avoided as far as possible.
Electrotyping and Stereotyping.—As this is not a trea–
tise on book-making, it is not necessary to enter into the
details of the different methods of making book-plates, but
a few words as to the relative advantages of printing from
type and plates will not, we think, be out of place.
If a work is issued for private circulation only, or is of
such a nature that the demand for it can be estimated in
advance with any degree of accuracy, then it is undesirable,
and indeed useless, to incur the expense of making plates.
In this case, after the author has passed upon the last
proof, the type is put upon the press, the desired number
8O Authors and Pub/shers.
of copies printed, after which the forms are broken up, and
the type “distributed '' into the compositors' cases ready for
the next work. -
Letter-press Printing.—By this method which is desig-
nated “letter-press printing,” it is customary to print three
or four forms at a time (a form comprising the number of
pages on one side of a sheet), and not to wait until the
whole book is set, for in this way the same type can
be utilized again and again until the work is completed.
The cost of electrotyping or stereotyping is thus avoided;
but it must be remembered that it is not possible to print
another edition of the work without the entire resetting of
the type. - º
If, on the other hand, no safe estimate can be formed of
the number of copies required to meet the probable demand
for a new work, then plates had better be made. While
by this plan the first cost is greater, it must be borne in mind
that the first edition of a work may be much reduced in size
if electrotype-plates are used, and then, if the demand
requires it, subsequent editions may be printed from the
plates with great promptness. Should the work be of such
a nature that, after the issue of the first edition, important
changes in the text may be needed, then it is advisable to
print from type, as the cost of correcting the plates may
often be more than the resetting of the whole material.
In a recent popular novel the author, through inadver-
tence, used for her characters the names of real persons, and
libel suits having on this account been instituted, it became
necessary to change, almost every proper name in the
volume. As these names appeared many times in almost
every page the cost of correcting the plates was no trifling
matter, while the substituted names, being in some cases
shorter than the originals, caused the pages of the corrected
edition to present a by no means workman-like appearance.
Azz/hors azed. Auð/is/hers. 8T
Authors' Estimates.—It may be said that when authors
themselves assume the risk of their work it is very unusual
for them to understand the probable demand for their
ventures, and they will rarely accept the publishers' sugges-
tions and confine themselves to a limited letter-press
edition. They are very apt to prefer to have their
books stereotyped, so that there may be no failure to
meet the great demand that the public is sure to make.
They therefore incur the expense of making plates when it
is often the case, as the publisher endeavors to make clear,
that the work is not of a nature likely to interest more than
a limited number of buyers. -
Stereotyping.—There are several methods of stereo-
typing : -
I. The Žafter-maché process, now generally used in this
country only for newspaper work. *
2. The clay process.
3. The Ž/asſer process.
These processes merely designate the material used
to make the moulds, or clichés, from the type. Upon these
clichés type-metal in liquid state is poured. The plaster
method is the one usually employed in the United States
for the better grade of book work.
Electrotyping is more expensive than stereotyping, but
the plates made in this way possess certain advantages over
stereotypes, and the process is now much more generally .
used in America for book work than heretofore. The
electrotype-plate is more effective for the better grade of
printing, for two reasons :
I. The face of the type is sharper and cleaner.
2. The surface of the plate being of copper, instead of
type-metal, it is much more durable. For books of which
large editions are expected to be printed this latter is of
great advantage. Wood-cuts are almost always electro-
82 Azz//hors azed. A 'ué/is/hers.
typed, because the delicate lines of the engraving can in this
way be much more effectively reproduced than by the
rougher methods of stereotyping.
The process of electrotyping may be briefly described as
follows: -
When the pages of type are properly “locked up " and
“planed,” 2. e., made perfectly level, they are carefully
washed and then covered with a layer of soft wax, and
subjected to a heavy pressure. This produces a perfect
impression of the type or cut in the wax. The wax,
having become hard, is now covered with finely pulverized
graphite and placed in an electric bath, and in a few hours
a coating of Copper is deposited upon it. The wax is now
separated from this shell of copper, and molten type-metal
poured upon the back of the latter until it has reached the
proper thickness. The plates, now in their rough state, are
then shaved to a uniform thickness, the edges bevelled to
facilitate the work of holding them securely on the press,
and they are then ready for “working ” or printing.
It may be said, in passing, that while in some departments
of book-making English manufacturers still excel their
American cousins, the work of plate-making is now done
much more effectively in the United States than in England ;
the improved machinery used here enabling the stereotyper
or electrotyper to turn out plates which are uniform and true,
and from them the pressman can produce much better work
at a less expenditure of labor than from those made by
English printers. Indeed, so much extra time is required to
“make ready" a form of English plates, that it is generally
found more economical in printing from them in this country
to run them through the shaving machine, that they may be
reduced to some degree of uniformity, before they are put
upon the press. *
When not in use, the plates, which are each a trifle larger
Azz//ors and Puáſis/hers.
83
than the printed page, and about 3-16ths of an inch thick, are
packed securely in boxes holding from forty-eight to ninety-
six plates each, and these boxes are usually stored in fire-
proof vaults.
Printing-Presses.—The limits of this little manual will not
admit of a detailed description of the various presses now in
use in book-printing.
We show herewith an old engraving of a sixteenth-
century press, and another of Franklin's press. From these
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to the present newspaper machines, turning out from a roll
of paper nearly four miles long 20,000 copies per hour of a
newspaper printed and folded, is a long step, and the com-
parison will convey some idea of the vast amount of study
which has been given by inventors in their attempts to per-
fect the modern press.
For ordinary book work in this country, the press










84 Azz//hors and A’zzó/is/hers.
FRANKLIN PRESS,
generally in use among printers is the Adams. In this press
(see cut), the bed upon which the form of type or plates is
placed has no horizontal motion in printing, the impression
being taken upon the entire sheet at one upward movement
of the bed and form. This press does not print with any
great rapidity, and its great advantage lies in the ease with
which forms can be “shifted '' for ordinary book work.
The Cylinder Press.--When large editions are required,
or the book contains wood-cuts, it is usual to employ a
cylinder press (see cut), of which there are now in use a
great variety.
In these presses, unlike the Adams, the “form " moves
horizontally, while the sheet to be printed revolves on the
cylinder under which the form of type or plates passes.
This cylinder, of course, touches but a small section of the
form at once, and by proper “making ready,” the highest
results in printing can be attained upon these presses, while
the rate of speed, for book work, is double or triple that of
the Adams press.
If it is desirable to still further increase the speed, this is

Azz//hors and /º/ö/is/hers. 85
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afterward by the family of his son-in-law Moretus. It is now owned by the corpora-
tion of Antwerp, and it presents a unique picture of a printing-office of the sixteenth
century, every thing connected with the operations of printing being leſt in a state of
readiness, as if work were to be resumed the next day.








86
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accomplished by the use of the double cylinder machine
which, through a most ingenious contrivance of the two
cylinders, admits of two sheets being printed at the same
time.
Making Ready.—This operation, to which reference has
already been made, is probably the most important part of
press work, as upon its proper execution largely depends
the appearance of the printed sheet. The pressman who is
able to “make ready '' and prepare the “overlays " for fine
illustrated work commands a high salary in any printing-
office where such work is executed.
All forms require more or less “making ready,” for even
with the utmost care in casting and finishing plates, it is
quite impossible to obtain a number of plates whose face and
thickness shall be absolutely true. There will be depressions
in the plates in some spots where the plate, in printing,
seems scarcely to touch the paper, and Corresponding
elevations in other places. The first impression taken from
a form is, therefore, more or less imperfect, and it is the
work of the pressman to overcome these irregularities, either
by “overlaying ” or “underlaying " as may depend upon
the character of the press. This process is a very nice One,
and it requires no slight amount of judgment upon the part
of a pressman to do it effectively. Small pieces of very thin
paper are cut and pasted over the low spots either upon the
cylinder, or (in the Adams press) underneath the plates.
When the impression is too heavy the soft covering of the
cylinder is cut away in the proper spot and the pressure
equalized throughout the entire form, thus giving an even
appearance to all the printed pages.
When, however, wood-cuts appear in the text, the diffi-
culties of “overlaying ” are greatly increased, and the expert
pressman must possess a good deal of artistic judgment to
prepare his form so as to produce effectively in the printed
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90 Azz//ors and A'zzó/is/hers.
sheet the design of the artist and engraver. Few people in
examining a finely illustrated book, realize the amount of
care required in the pressman to produce such work, and
they would be surprised to see the difference between the
first impression of the form of cuts and a printed sheet after
it is properly “made ready.” Indeed, no matter how
artistic the work of both designer and engraver, if the
pressman fail to understand his business, the result must
invariably prove disastrous.
The pressman may, perhaps, devote two or three days to
making the “Overlays " to a single form of cuts, building up
the “blacks,” toning down the “half tints,” or cutting away
entirely the “high lights” of the design. This is all done in
the general way already explained for the plain text, but of
course it requires a thousand times more delicate treatment.
Paper about the thickness of tissue is used in making these
overlays, and a form of cuts may require hundreds of these
small pieces of paper, of every conceivable shape, pasted
upon the cylinder before the press can be started for printing.
Hydraulic Pressing.—When the sheets come off the
press they are allowed to dry for a time, and are then placed
between very hard mill-board, and subjected, in an hydraulic
press, to an immense pressure. This does away with the
roughness existing on the sheet when it comes off the press;
but if a very glossy surface is desired, it becomes necessary
to run the printed sheets through hot steel rollers, called a
calendering machine. The book is now ready for the
bindery. -
Book-binding.—When the sheets have been duly pressed
in the “hydraulic,” they are passed into the bindery. Here
they are taken in hand by the folders—generally girls—for
the first operation in binding.
The folding consists of doubling the printed sheet so that
the folios lie one upon another with absolute precision.
Azz//ors and A’zó/is/hers. 9 I
Any deviation in this accuracy produces a very unsatis-
factory-looking book. The number of folds the sheet may
require is of course dependent upon the size of the printed
sheet, the sheet printed for an octavo book requiring more
folds than that for a quarto, and a sixteenmo more than
either.
The folded sheets are then piled in consecutive order
upon the collator's table, and the collator takes the sheets,
one at a time, in their regular order, beginning at the end
of the book and finishing with the title sheet.
The folded and collated books having been put through
the “mashing machine" to make them as compact as pos-
sible, are now taken to the “sawing machine " and several
shallow cuts are made by circular saws in the back of the
book. The “book-sewer’ now takes them, and seated be-
fore an upright frame, called a “sewing press,” she sews
each folded sheet to perpendicular cords on the press, these
being so arranged as to fit into the cuts made by the saw-
ing machine. When the frame is filled the books are cut
apart and the edges trimmed by a guillotine-cutting machine.
The book is now glued at the back and is then ready
for “rounding” and “backing.” The former operation is
performed by pounding the volume with a hammer so as to
produce the curved appearance to the back of the finished
book. After this, the book is placed between two iron
clamps, and a heavy roller is worked, backward and forward,
Over the back. The pressure of this roller forces a small
portion of the back over the clamps the entire length of the
book, thus producing the joints or grooves in which the
cover of the book fits.
The back of the book is now again glued, a piece of
muslin, about an inch wider than the back of the book, fast-
ened to it, a piece of very stout paper covers this, and the
book is then ready to be put into the cover or case.
92 A 24//hors azza Azzó/is/hers.
The general system of cloth-binding in England and the
United States differs in some essential particulars. In the
former the cloth-binding of a book is, as a rule, considered
as being merely a temporary covering, to be replaced very
shortly by the individual owner's rebinding it in leather or
“library’ binding to suit his special taste. In consequence
of this the English cloth-bound book is generally left with
the edges uncut (that the fullest possible margin may be left
for the prospective rebinding), while the work of sewing,
case-making, and putting into covers is rarely as substan-
tially or durably done as in the United States, where a well-
bound cloth book is expected to answer as a permanency
for the majority of readers.
The practice of ornamenting the covers of books with
elaborate designs stamped in gold, or in colored inks, has
grown to an alarming extent, and it cannot be said that
such attempts are always an artistic success, the only idea
in many cases apparently being to make the volume as
showy as possible. Happily, a reaction in this direction is
rapidly taking place, and publishers find that for a large
portion of standard works issued, a plain, unpretentious
cover is much more satisfactory to the buyer who possesses
any good judgment in such matters. If it be possible to in-
troduce, either upon the side or back of a volume, some
small characteristic design, so much the better, but the
elaborate and oftentimes meaningless stamps heretofore
placed upon the side of books are certainly not ornamental,
and the quicker such are banished from the better class of
books the better.
Library Bindings.-Until the last few years but little
taste was shown in the United States in what is known
among the trade as “extra binding.” Of late, however,
much care has been given to this class of work, and there is
no department of book-manufacturing showing a greater
A 24//hors and /ºu//is/hers. 93
advance over old methods than the present styles of leather
binding compared with the uncouth and badly-finished
“half-calf extra " and “half-calf antique " of ten or fifteen
years ago. While the half-calf extra style—generally con-
sisting of a light leather back and corners finished with gold
“tooling,” and marbled paper sides—is still used by publish-
ers for their regular trade bindings, those booksellers who
come in contact with the best class of buyers now find it to
their advantage to exercise some individual taste in these
library bindings, and a vast improvement in the character
and the originality of such work is the result.
Calf, morocco (both “turkey” and “levant”), seal, and alli-
gator leathers are now used in both “half,” “three-quarter,”
and “full " bindings, these designations expressing the
amount of leather used, the sides of the book in half and
three-quarter binding being covered with marble paper.
“Tree calf" binding was, a few years since, scarcely
done at all in this country, while now much of this work
executed in New York and Boston will compare very
favorably with the finest grade of imported bindings. It is,
however, in the general “finish" of the “extra bindings” and
in the good taste shown in the “tooling ” and lettering that
so marked an improvement may be perceived in this depart-
ment of book-manufacture. In this class of binding the
work is all done by hand, and much therefore depends upon
the skill and accuracy of the “finisher,” while in cloth-bind-
ing, after the general design of the book has been decided
upon, the execution of the work is mechanical.
Illustrations.—There are now a number of methods of
making book illustrations. These may be named—about
in the Order of their cost—as follows:
I. Photo-engraving.
2. Wood-cutting.
3. Photo-lithographic and Heliotype.
94. A 2///hors azed. Azzó/is/hers.
4. Lithographic.
5. Copper Plate.
6. Steel Plate.
Each of these methods has its own special advantages,
and to describe them in full would require a large volume.
We can only touch here upon the several peculiarities of
the different operations. -
Photo-engraving.—Illustrations made by this method
can, like wood-cuts, be printed at the same time as the text
of a book, a material advantage. The design, usually made
much larger than the prepared plate, is photographed to
the proper size upon a plate of type metal. The plate is
now immersed in a bath of acid which eats away all the
white of the design, the lines of the drawing being pro-
tected from the action of the acid by a preparation of var-
nish, and the design is thus left in relief. The plate is
now mounted upon a block so as to be “type high,” and it
can be inserted in the page and printed with the type.
For simple black-and-white drawings, diagrams, mechani-
cal work, such as buildings, machinery, etc., this process
is excellent, while the cost is materially less than that of
a wood-cut. The objections to it for book illustrations
are that it fails to produce either the strength or delicacy
of the wood-cut, while it cannot utilize an ordinary photo-
graph until it has been redrawn in plain black-and-white.
Wood-cuts.—Formerly it used to be the custom for the
artist to make his design with pencil or brush directly upon
the block to be engraved. Now, however, much greater
freedom to the artist is possible, for he can make his draw-
ing as large as he may please, and it is then photographed
upon the block to the proper size. This freedom, however,
of course necessitates a much more comprehensive treat-
ment on the part of the engraver, and its introduction has
brought about a higher grade of wood-engraving than was
Azz//hors and A’uá/is/hers, 95
possible under the old mechanical methods. In wood-
cutting, as in photo-engraving, everything that is to appear
white in the design is cut away, while the black and gray
lines are left in relief. It is not easy to make a comparison
in regard to the relative expense of the two methods,
because this greatly depends upon the character of the
design from which an illustration is to be made. With the
photo-plate it is of little consequence how great the detail
of the drawing may be so long as this appears in plain
black and white lines. In the wood-cut, however, the
expense is entirely dependent upon this matter of detail, an
intricate design of three inches square costing perhaps more
than another of three times the size but of more open
character.
Photo-lithographic and Heliotype processes both pro-
duce somewhat the effect of a photograph, and for a certain
class of illustration their use may be advantageous. The
objection to them, however, is that they must be printed
separately and not with the text of the book, and the ex-
pense of producing them is thus considerable, while the
cost of binding is increased by the necessity of pasting in
separate sheets of illustrations. The use of these methods
can only, as a rule, be recommended for books of limited
editions. -
Lithograph.-In lithography the illustration is engraved
and printed upon stone. For the finer description of medical
plates, and for colored designs of fruits, flowers, and foliage,
this method is most effective. The printing is, however,
very slow and expensive work, as the sheet has to pass
through the press separately for each color.
Copper and Steel Plate.—Books illustrated by means of
etchings on copper present, if the work be artistically done,
the most thoroughly satisfactory method of producing the
tone and feeling of the artist's design. In etching the copper
96 Azz//hors azed. Auð/is/hers.
plate is covered with a coating of thick, prepared varnish or
wax. The surface being now smoked, the artist draws his
design upon the blackened surface, after which the lines are
cut through the varnish with a sharp-pointed instrument.
The plate is then covered with acid, which eats away the
copper where the lines are drawn through the wax, leaving
the rest of the plate intact. Aside from the drawing, much
here depends, in the result, upon the good judgment of the
artist in the length of time he permits the acid to act ; if
the action is too long the plate may be entirely ruined.
The cost of making the Stee/ Plate is much greater than
that of the etching, the design in this case being cut upon
the steel with great labor and care with a tool called the
graver. This is the most expensive method of making a
book illustration, and is now rarely used except for por-
traltS. -
Both the etching and steel-engraving require much time
to print, and are thus expensive for ordinary book-illustra-
ting purposes. Moreover the same objection exists as to
their use as with the photo-lithographic engraving—the
printing having to be done by a separate process, and not
with the text of the book.
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