The so-called "Book War," which has been raging during the present autumn, is wholly to be regretted. The main issue, which was a comparatively simple one, has been confused and obscured by a host of irrelevant arguments and accusations which have led a large part of the public astray. The great reputation and prestige of the Times have been employed to circulate and to lend weight to inaccurate statements which would not have been credited on the authority of any individual, and a more or less bitter but utterly undeserved prejudice has been aroused in some quarters against publishers and booksellers.

The publishers have been accused, inter alia, of treating their craft as a mystery and endeavoring to foster this esoteric spirit. Never was there a more fictitious charge. I am sure I speak the mind of all the publishers of any position and reputation, when I say that they always welcome any enquiry on the part of an author into the processes by which books are produced and circulated, and greatly prefer to deal with any one who has some accurate knowledge on the subject. Whatever opinions may be held as to authors' agents, there can be no doubt as to the greater facility and satisfaction in dealing with them, than with an author who neither knows nor cares to enquire intothe circumstances governing the negotiations in which he is engaged.

The appeal of the Times is made to the instinct of greed: to the purchaser who desires to secure a bargain, regardless of whether it is offered at the expense of some one else or not. The estimates of production set forth by the Times are incomplete and inaccurate in almost every detail, but even as

suming them to be correct, their whole justification rests on such cheapness as sweated labor and inferior materials alone can produce. It does not enter into the purview of the writers to suppose that either an author or a publisher can take pride in turning a book out in a creditable manner and in spending on it more than the lowest "grinding" prices require, and yet such a pride does exist, and will continue to exist, in spite of all the efforts of the Times to eradicate it.

Having said so much in regard to controversial matters, it will be my endeavor in the following remarks to touch on them no more, but in response to a request from the Editor of the Contemporary Review, to show as briefly, but as clearly as I can in what the work of a publisher consists. The public is, or imagines itself to be, familiar with the publisher in his war paint and wielding his tomahawk; my desire is to present him to them on his peace establishment.

The foundation stone of the production of all literary work and of all books (the two words are not synonymous) is of course copyright. And here, at the outset, we find that much misapprehension prevails. If there be any right to which a man or woman has an indefeasible natural claim, it is the right to enjoy the benefits derived from the product of his or her own intellect. The law steps in, not to give this right, but to limit it; for recognizing the enormous value of good literature to the world at large, it says in effect: "We will see to it that in the end the public shall have unrestricted access to all that is best and permanent; but while the author lives, and for some time after his death, he and his heirs shall have the

fullest enjoyment of his work." This enactment is common to all civilized countries, but in England it is weighted by a condition which is unique both in principle and practice. In return for the protection he receives the author is compelled to give away five copies of every book he publishes, and that to five libraries which must inevitably have been purchasers of his work if it possess any value at all. In the case of cheap books the tax is a more or less trivial one, although irksome, but when expensive works, costing say £5, £10 or £20, are published, it becomes a severe impost and is greatly resented.

The idea held by some people that books are produced for the public good is a pure fiction. The public has no right to dictate to the author in what manner, or at what price his book is to be presented to it, so long as copyright lasts. The author has the entire ultimate control of such matters. The word monopoly does not sound well in English ears, but copyright is a monopoly: limited in time, and wholly justifiable in character, but still a monopoly, and therefore to be regarded and dealt with as such.

The author, then, commands the situation, subject to the usual considerations and laws which govern commercial matters; but there are certain broad principles which underlie the work of a publisher, and I will endeavor to explain these.

Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy," or "Clarissa Harlowe"? The first named sold by thousands annually for nearly a quarter of a century and is now forgotten. The others belong to the class of standard literature, and are still alive, but are read by comparatively very few people.

I. Readers may be divided into strata. At the top I would place the leading experts in the arts and sciences, who write and read books of the highest merit in their own departments. They also read a certain amount of lighter and more frivolous literature; but the books which appeal to them primarily cannot be expected to have a very large sale. As examples, I would name monographs on medical subjects, such books as "The Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia," Reports of the Proceedings of Scientific Bodies, etc.

II. Next comes the stratum of highlycultivated readers who appreciate the beauties of style and knowledge; they belong to all classes of society, and the books which appeal to their taste will have a considerable sale. In this class I would place such books as political biographies, the higher classes of essays and so forth.

III. Below these strata comes the omnivorous mass which reads mainly to be amused or excited, which has little or no taste for the higher qualities of style, but demands sensation; which has a voracious mental appetite but no digestion, and craves for food which may be stimulating and easily assimilated, but is not always nutritive, and which must be cheap. Fiction is the mainstay of this class, but it is also attracted by gossiping memoirs, Chroniques Scandaleuses, and the lightest kind of popular science and theology. A book which finds favor with this class is certain of securing an enormous sale. It is possible that it may be such as is approved by Classes I.

and II. or one of them, but this is the exception, not the rule.

If popularity then depend on sales it does not necessarily involve merit; if on merit then it does not necessarily connote sales.

I can of course only refer to books of to-day with reserve and much caution, for fear of giving offence in any quarter, or of revealing private information. The public knows when a book has achieved a notable success; it cannot know of all the failures, succès d'estime and moderate successes, and therefore can hardly possess the information requisite to the establishment and enunciation of general principles. A publisher must of necessity know much more, for he has intimate knowledge of the varying degrees of success and failure attendant upon hundreds of ventures.

A book becomes popular (in the sense of large sales) when it comes to be talked about in society, at the clubs and in general conversation everywhere. But how is this renown to be achieved? Not by advertising alone; not by reviews alone; not by the notice of any distinguished person alone; but by some subtle combination of all these forces, which no man can control.

It used to be said that Mr. Gladstone was able to secure the success of a book; but this is a case in which it is possible to prove a negative. He took the greatest pains to promote the success of three books published by my firm; the "Life and Letters of Daniel O'Connell," the "Life of Susan Dabney Smedes," and the "Life of Sidney Gilchrist Thomas." The two latter were published at his own suggestion, and he did his utmost by means of reviews, of speeches and of personal recommendation to increase the circulation of all three. "O'Connell's Life" resulted in a loss to us of between £500 and £600, and the other two yielded a

profit of something under £50 together.

It is a mere truism to say that advertising is a most powerful force in attaining a wide circulation; but it is a great mistake to suppose that it is infallible, and it is one of a publisher's most difficult tasks to know how much to spend on advertising in each case and in what quarters to advertise. If I bring out a large dictionary or encyclopædia, which has a more or less permanent value, and the profit on which, in the case of great sales, is disproportionately large, I can afford to lay out exceptional sums in advertising, with reasonable prospects of success; but I cannot do this in the case of a book of more ephemeral or limited interest, as I should very soon swamp, or more than swamp, all the profit which any possible sales could bring in.

Like every other publisher, I have had some bitter practical experiences of this risk. When a book is coming into notice, when the wave is rising, advertising will do wonders; when the wave is falling, it is a mere waste of money; and by the experience of hundreds of experiments a publisher can generally tell when the wave is rising or falling.

The probable demand for a forthcoming book can in some measure be gauged by three considerations: (1) the eminence of the writer; (2) the subject of the book and the known reputation of the author in relation to that subject; (3) the success of previous books by the same author. The last consideration alone can give any guide as to the number to be printed, or likely to be sold, and this is a very fallacious guide. I could point to many instances in which an author has been favored with a large circulation in respect of one book, has then written a second, better in literary merit than the first, and the sec

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ond has proved complete failure; has, in fact, barely sold in as many hundreds as its predecessor did in thousands. In short, this judging of what an author can do by what he has done, in the case of a first and second book, is liable to be very misleading. Darwin's "Origin of Species" is one of the greatest books of our generation; but the man who could assume thate.g., "The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication," because it was by the same author, could, by means of advertising or any other available force, be made to sell to any thing like the extent of the "Origin," would betray hopeless ignorance of possibilities.

There is no class of literature so difficult to push by ordinary methods as a pamphlet. Mr. Gladstone's worldwide reputation made his pamphlet on the "Vatican Decrees" sell by tens of thousands, but even his personal popularity could not make his translation of the "Odes of Horace" sell by hundreds. He thought that a cheap edition of this latter work would do well; it was tried, in response to his express wish, and proved an utter failure.

The cost of production is another vital consideration. This, of course, varies to an infinite extent: the number of pages, the character of illustrations, the quality of paper, the amount paid for corrections,' the sum spent on advertising, above all the number to be printed, all these items have an influence on it.

One may pick up at random at a bookseller's shop a dozen books of the same character, size and price, and it

I The man in the street finds it hard to believe that correction of proofs can form an appreciable item in the cost of producing a book, yet it is never wholly absent in a new work, and I have paid as much as £1,100 for proof corrections alone, in one Dictionary. It must be remembered, too, that this is an expense over which the publisher has little if any control.

is probable that no two of them are of the same value, regarding value as the actual price per copy which it has cost to produce them. It is true that 10,000 of any book must cost much less per copy than 1,000 or 2,000, but to the cost of production must be added at least 2d. or 21⁄2d. per copy for advertising. Moreover, we may assume that a writer whose book sells to the extent of 10,000 copies would receive a royalty of 1s. 6d. per copy, in some cases even more.

The estimates of amateur critics are based on the assumption that the whole edition is sold, neither more nor less; but how often is this the case? Not once in five hundred times, perhaps, and if the whole edition be sold out and a reprint made, the sale of the reprint may stop suddenly and leave a large supply, unsold, on hand, which means money out of pocket to the publisher.

But how many novelists' books sell to the extent of over 10,000? Probably not more than a score or two, all told; and the larger number of new novels do not sell beyond 1,000 or 2,000. In such cases the result is very different. To produce 1,000 copies of an ordinary novel costs about £85 (or 1s. 81⁄2d. per copy); add, say, £50 for advertising, and we have a total of £135. If the whole edition be sold, the gross yield is £148, leaving £13 for author and publisher; 2,000 in like manner would cost, with advertising, £160 or £170, and would yield just over £300.

Before a book can yield a profit, all the expenses of production and advertising must be recouped from sales; but when a book has to be reprinted from type already set, or stereotype plates already made, the cost of such a reprint is very much less than of the first edition, unless it has been altered or corrected meanwhile. It must be remembered that in any case the publisher's share of profit has to bear the entire

burden of his establishment expenses, as none of these are charged against the author or his book; and I calculate that establishment expenses, owing to various causes, are now nearly double what they were thirty years ago.

Before I pass on from general principles to practice, I must mention one more influence on the sale of books. Owing to the circulating library system, a peculiarly English institution, one copy has to serve the purpose of many, and this must inevitably tend to reduce the number of an edition of certain works and to enhance the price per copy. It is almost a platitude to refer to the advantages of the circulating libraries; but in these days of teeming production of books, no man, however wealthy, can aspire to buy and keep all that he desires to read, and a circulating library has become a necessity and will remain.

I now come from abstract to concrete. What is the position and function of the publisher in the face of the foregoing considerations, and many more of a similar or subordinate character?

Manuscripts are sent to him in large numbers, let us say to the extent of two or three per working day of the year; they are distributed among a number of readers, who form and express an opinion upon them. The larger part is at once rejected as useless; the rest are reported as being good or doubtful. In the case of important works involving technical knowledge, some are sent to specialists for a second opinion. The publisher himself generally reads the others and forms his own decision. This is an essential part of his business, for if the work be accepted and published he will, in many cases, be in almost daily communication with the author, reading his proofs, offering suggestions, helping to verify, references and generally acting as a sort of sub

editor. This last remark applies mainly to the work of new and inexperienced authors, as the experienced ones do not always require such assistance.

I have no wish to refer to my own personal work in an egotistic spirit, but, as I believe it is similar to that performed by all well-known brethren of the craft, I may mention that I have in this way edited, or in part edited, or read the proofs of over 200 books. In some cases the author has acknowledged this help, unasked, in his preface; in many more he has done so in private letters; in some cases he appears to regard it as a proceeding requiring no time or labor and not worth mentioning. I need hardly add that these services, such as they are, are rendered as part of a publisher's ordinary responsibility, and are never paid for.

When a MS. is accepted, it has to be "cast off," or measured up by the printer; type and page have to be decided, and many specimens are often set up before the form is fixed. The processes of proof revising, of choosing and making illustrations and maps, and all the other minutiæ of printing, need not be specified here; it is sufficient to say that they involve an infinite amount of labor, watching and care, if they are to be properly fulfilled. Once more I must touch on a personal question. My brother Hallam is now pretty well known as an amateur artist, and one who has had wide experience of all processes of art reproduction. All illustrations pass through his hands and on many occasions he has spent days, or even weeks, in superintending the illustrations of one book, selecting pictures, touching up proofs and plates, and even drawing the subjects himself.

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When proofs are corrected there comes the crucial decision as to how many copies are to be printed; and