The Earnings Of Authors

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Title:     The Earnings Of Authors
Author: William Andrews [More Titles by Andrews]

Little is known of the remuneration of authors until the days of Dr. Samuel Johnson. Before his time, literary men, as a rule, depended on the generosity of patrons for their means of support, and as an acknowledgment of their obligations, dedicated their works to them. The dedications were frequently made in most fulsome terms. The position of the writer was certainly a mean one; indeed, it might fitly be pronounced degrading; when he had exhausted his possibilities of patronage, he starved. It was Johnson--a giant in the world of letters--who broke through the objectionable custom, and taught the author to look to the reading public for support, and not to a wealthy patron. It is not until the days of Samuel Johnson that the subject of literary earnings is of much importance; yet we may with advantage glance at a few payments made prior to his age.

We do not know the amount Shakespeare received for his plays, but it is certain that his connection with the theatre in London in a few years realised for him a fortune, and, at a comparatively early age, enabled him to return to his own town, a man of independent means. Oldys, in one of his manuscripts, says that "Hamlet" was sold for £5; but he does not mention his authority for the statement. It appears, from a publication of Robert Greene's, in 1592, the price of a drama was twenty nobles, or about £6 13s. 4d. of current coin.

Small must have been the literary pay of Spenser, Butler, and Otway, since they feared to die for want of the simple necessaries of life. Milton sold "Paradise Lost" for £5 down, to be followed by £15 if a second and third large editions were required. The first edition consisted of 1,500 copies, and in two years 1,300 were sold. The balance was not disposed of until five years later. This powerful poem, when given to the world, met with some adverse criticism. The poet Waller wrote of it thus: "The old, blind schoolmaster, John Milton, hath published a tedious poem on the fall of man; if its length be not considered a merit, it hath no other." A greater poet than Waller--Dryden--recognised its merits, and said: "Undoubtedly, 'Paradise Lost' is one of the greatest, most noble, and most sublime poems which either this age or nation has produced." Dryden wrote the following epigram referring to Homer, Virgil, and Milton:--

"Three poets--in three distant ages born--
Greece, Italy, and England did adorn;
The first in loftiness of thought surpassed,
The next in majesty, in both the last.
The force of Nature could no further go;
To make a third, she joined the former two."

Milton's poem has been praised by the greatest critics, and it is still very much read. It appears in many forms, and the annual sale is extremely large. Routledge's popular edition sells at the rate of about a couple of thousand a year; and we suppose the sale of other editions is equally great.

Dryden arranged with Jacob Tonson, the famous bookseller and publisher, to write for him 10,000 verses, at sixpence per line. To make up the required number of lines, he threw in the "Epistle to his Cousin," and his celebrated "Ode to Music."

Gray only received £40 for the whole of his poems. He presented the copyright of his famous "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" to Dodsley, feeling that it was beneath the dignity of a gentleman to make money with his pen. The lucky publisher quite agreed with him, and cleared about a thousand pounds by the publication.

Pope's translation of "Homer" yielded him about £8,000. He was assisted in the work by William Broome, a scholar who was the author of a volume of verse. John Henley thus refers to the circumstance:--

"Pope came off clean with Homer; but they say,
Broome went before, and kindly swept the way."

Gay made £1,000 by his "Poems." He was paid £400 for the "Beggar's Opera," and for the second part, "Polly," £1,000. Rich, the theatrical manager, profited to a far greater extent from the "Beggar's Opera" than its author. The contemporary jest was that it made Gay rich, and Rich gay.

Dr. Johnson sold the copyright of Goldsmith's "Vicar of Wakefield" for £60, and he thought that amount fairly represented the value of the work. "The great lexicographer," as Miss Pinkerton called him, placed no high value on the performance of his friend, but the publisher found in the "Vicar of Wakefield" a gold mine. Goldsmith was paid £21 for "The Traveller." It was the work that established his reputation. Before it appeared he was regarded as little better than a superior Grub Street hack. Johnson pronounced this the finest poem that had been written since the death of Pope. After having read it to the sister of Sir Joshua Reynolds, she said: "Well, I never more shall think Dr. Goldsmith ugly." The following are the prices Goldsmith obtained for others of his works:--"English Grammar," £5; the "History of Rome," in two volumes, 250 guineas; the "History of England," in four volumes, £500; the "History of Greece," £250; and the "History of the Earth and Animated Nature," in eight volumes, £850. "She stoops to Conquer" yielded between £400 and £500. Five shillings a couplet was paid for "The Deserted Village."

To cover the cost of his mother's funeral, Johnson wrote "Rasselas," and disposed of it for £100. He sold his "Lives of the Poets" for 200 guineas. The sum was considered liberal, but Johnson became so engrossed in his subject that he supplied much more than what was expected from him. It is believed that out of his work, in twenty-five years, the booksellers cleared £5,000. It is still a saleable book, and is to be found in every public and private library of any pretentions.

The sum of £700 was paid to Fielding for "Tom Jones," and for "Amelia," £1,000.

Very large amounts have been given for biographical works. Hayley received for his "Life of Cowper," £11,000; and Southey, £1,000 for his life of the same poet. The life of "William Wilberforce" was sold for £4,000; "Bishop Heber's Journals," for £5,000; "General Gordon's Diary," for £5,250; and the "Life of Hannah More," for £2,000.

The income of Scott was, perhaps, the largest ever made by authorship, yet he said that the pursuit of literature was a good walking-stick, but a bad crutch! His reputation was first made as a poet, and the following are particulars of his profits from poetry: "The Lay of the Last Minstrel," published in 1805, £769 6s.; "Ballads and Lyrical Pieces," published in 1806, £100; for "Marmion," published 1808, Messrs. Constable offered 1,000 guineas soon after the poem was begun. It proved a very profitable speculation to its publishers. During the first month after its appearance, 2,000 copies were sold, the price being 31s. 6d. the quarto volume. Next came the "Lady of the Lake" (1810), £2,100. This found even greater favour with the public than its predecessors, and with it Scott's poetical fame reached its zenith. A new poet who appeared on the scene, Byron, completely eclipsed Scott. Scott tried, with two more poems, to win back his lost place, as the popular poet of the period, and produced "Rokeby," and the "Bridal of Triermain;" the latter was issued anonymously, but both were failures. When Scott saw that his poetry did not attract many readers, he turned his thoughts and energy into another channel, and commenced his immortal novels. He had by him an unfinished story, the work of former years, which he completed, giving it to the world under the title of "Waverley." Constable offered £700 for the copyright--an amount deemed very large in those days for a novel to be published without the name of the author. Seven hundred sovereigns did not, however, satisfy Scott; he simply said, "It is too much if the work should prove a failure, and too little if it should be a success." It was a brilliant book, and entranced the reading world. Scott had now found his real vocation. He received for eleven novels, of three volumes each, and nine volumes of "Tales of My Landlord," the sum of £110,000. For one novel he was paid £10,000. Between November, 1825, and June, 1827, he earned £26,000--an amount representing £52 6s. 3d. per working day. From first to last, Sir Walter Scott made by his literary labours about £300,000.

Lord Byron's dealings with Mr. Murray were in every respect satisfactory, but this did not prevent the pleasure-loving lord from having a little joke at the expense of his publisher. He delighted Mr. Murray with a gift of a Bible, but the recipient's pleasure was fleeting, for on examining the book it was discovered that it contained a marginal correction. "Now Barabbas was a robber," was altered to "Now Barabbas was a publisher." This was a cruel stab, seeing that Byron had received for his poetry £19,340, and might have increased this sum if he had been more anxious about remuneration.

In Mrs. Oliphant's book on "William Blackwood and His Sons," a letter is quoted from Mr. Murray relating to the poet. "Lord Byron is a curious man," says Murray, "he gave me, as I told you, the copyright of his two poems, to be printed only in his works. I did not receive the last until Tuesday night. I was so delighted with it that even as I read it I sent him a draught for a thousand guineas. The two poems are altogether no more than twelve hundred and fifteen hundred lines, and will altogether sell for five and sixpence. But he returned the draught, saying that it was very liberal--much more than they were worth; that I was perfectly welcome to both poems to print in his (collected) works without cost or expectation, but that he did not think them equal to what they ought to be, and that he would not admit of their separate publication. I went yesterday, and he was rallying me upon my folly in offering so much that he dared to say I thought now I had a most lucky escape. 'To prove how much I think so, my lord,' said I 'do me the favour to accept this pocket book'--In which I had brought with me my draught, changed into two bank notes of £1,000 and £50; but he would not take it. But I am not in despair that he will yet allow their separate publication, which I must continue to urge for mine own honour."

Mr. Murray treated Crabbe in a most liberal manner. He paid for the "Tales of the Hall," and the copyright of his other poems, £3,000. It was given to the poet in bills, and we read that "Moore and Rogers earnestly advised him to deposit them, without delay, in some safe hands--but no; he must take them with him to Trowbridge, and show them to his son John. They would hardly believe his good luck at home, if they did not see the bills." On his way to Trowbridge, a friend at Salisbury, at whose house he rested (Mr. Everett, the banker), seeing that he carried his bills loosely in his waistcoat pocket, requested to be allowed to take charge of them; but Crabbe thankfully declined, saying that "There was no fear of his losing them, and he must show them to his son John."

Without seeing a line of Thomas Moore's "Lalla Rookh," Messrs. Longman undertook to pay £3,000 for it. The terms drawn up were simple, and read as follows: "That upon your giving into our hands a poem of yours, the length of 'Rokeby,' you shall receive from us the sum of £3,000. We also agree to the stipulation, that the few songs which you may introduce into the work shall be considered as reserved for your own selling."

His poem, of some 6,000 lines, was written in a lonely cottage in Derbyshire. Moore never tired of telling his friends that the stormy winter weather in the country helped him to imagine, by contrast, the bright and everlasting summers and glowing scenery of the East.

The work was a great success. The first edition was sold in almost fourteen days; within six months six editions had been called for. It is said that some parts of the poem were translated into Persian, a circumstance which caused Mr. Luttrell to write to the author in the following strain:--

"I'm told dear Moore, your lays are sung
(Can it be true, you lucky man?)
By moonlight, in the Persian tongue,
Along the streets of Ispahan."

Moore received considerable amounts for his "Irish Melodies." The mention of these call to mind a letter he penned to Mr. Power, his publisher, on November 12, 1812:--

"My dear Sir,--I have just got your letter, and have only time to say, that if you can let me have three or four pounds by return of post, you will oblige me. I would not have made this importunate demand on you, but I have foolishly let myself run dry without trying my other resources, and I have been the week past literally without one sixpence. Ever, with most sincere good will.--T.M."

Mr. Power promptly posted ten pounds to the poet. Said Moore, in the course of his reply, "The truth is, we have been kept on a visit at a house where we have been much longer than I wished or intended, and simply from not having a shilling in my pocket to give to the servants on going away. So I know you will forgive my teasing you.... You may laugh at my ridiculous distress in being kept to turtle eating and claret-drinking longer than I wish, and merely because I have not a shilling in my pocket,--but, however paradoxical it sounds, it is true."

We read in Moore's journals, ten years later: "17th August, 1822.--Received to-day a letter from Brougham, enclosing one from Barnes (the editor of The Times), proposing that, as he is ill, I shall take his place for some time in writing the leading articles of that paper, the pay to be £100 a month. This is flattering. To be thought capable of wielding so powerful a political machine as The Times newspaper is a tribute the more flattering (as is usually the case) from my feeling conscious that I do not deserve it." The next day he wrote and declined the offer.

Thomas Campbell received, at the age of 21 years, £60 for his "Pleasures of Hope," certainly a small amount for a fine poem, yet it gave him a name, and enabled him to obtain large sums for some very slight literary services. The publisher of his "Pleasures of Hope" did not treat him in a generous manner, and his conduct appears to have embittered his mind as will be gathered from the following anecdote. He was present at a party at a period when the actions of Bonaparte were most severely condemned. On being called upon for a toast, Campbell gave "The Health of Napoleon." This caused a great surprise to all the company, and an explanation was called for. "The only reason I have for proposing to honour Bonaparte," said he, "is that he had the virtue to shoot a bookseller." Palm, a bookseller, had recently been executed in Germany by order of the French chief.

It may here be mentioned that the copyright of the "Life of Bonaparte," by Sir Walter Scott, with some copies of the work, was sold for £18,000.

Successful school-books are often gold mines for the authors and publishers. The copyright of "Vyse's Spelling-Book" was sold for £2,000 and an annuity of £50 to the compiler.

The copyright of Rundell's "Domestic Cookery" realised a couple of thousand pounds, and many other works of this class have been extremely popular.

Very large sums have been paid for historical works. Hume received £700 a volume; and Smollett, for a catch-penny rival work, cleared £2,000. The money made by Henry is set down at £3,300. The booksellers, says Mr. Leslie Stephen, made £6,000 out of Robertson's "History of Scotland." He was paid for his "Charles V." the handsome sum of £4,500. Lingard's "History of England" is, without doubt, an able work, and for it the author was paid £4,683. The author's profits for the "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," by Gibbon, are put down at £10,000.

The foregoing are respectable figures, but they appear small when compared with the amounts paid to Lord Macaulay. On one occasion he had handed to him a cheque for £20,000, representing three-fourths of the net profits of his "History of England." A short time since, the following statement went the rounds of the newspaper press, respecting Mr. Justin McCarthy's popular work, the "History of Our Own Times." The book was offered to a well-known publishing firm, who agreed to purchase it for £600. On finding that the author was a Home Ruler, however, this firm asked to be allowed to withdraw from the contract. Mr. McCarthy, who was greatly annoyed at the suggestion that he might mutilate history to suit his own private or political views, then went to Messrs. Chatto and Windus, who at once agreed to publish the work for him on a basis of mutual profits. In the interval, the other firm reconsidered the situation, and asked to be allowed to revive the lapsed contract, but were too late, as the book had been placed in the hands of the second firm. The work won a flattering reception, and the author has, up to the present time, received several thousand pounds as his share of the profits.

In 1897 passed away Dr. Brewer, the compiler of a "Guide to Science," and other popular books. Shortly before his death, he told an interviewer that he offered the copyright of his "Guide to Science" to Mr. Thomas Jarrold for £50, but he declined the venture, saving he would pay a royalty of one penny in the shilling for every copy sold. It went through two editions in ten months, and then it was agreed to call 8,000 an edition, the royalty to be given half-yearly, but any number less than 1,000 to stand over to the next return. The largest half-yearly royalty was 19,000 copies (Midsummer, 1836). In 1842, Dr. Brewer offered Mr. Jarrold £2,000 for his half-share, which he declined. Soon after this, Messrs. Longman and Co. offered Dr. Brewer £300 per year for life for the copyright. He offered Mr. Jarrold £4,000 for his share, but he replied that he would not accept double that sum, in fact that he would not part with it at all.

According to a careful estimate, Charles Dickens received £10,000 a year from his works for five years, and died worth nearly £100,000. He made every penny from his writings and readings. We need scarcely repeat the well-known facts that "he not only lived in a very liberal style for over thirty years, keeping up a considerable establishment, and often travelling without regard to cost, but he brought up a large and expensive family."

Thackeray did not make large sums by his books, when we consider his undoubted genius and the high place he holds amongst the greatest authors. It is said that he never made more than £5,000 out of any of his novels. He received large sums for his lectures; indeed, the platform yielded him better returns than the publishers.

Eighty thousand pounds is the amount of Bulwer Lytton's earnings as a novelist. The remuneration he received, when his books first appeared, did not reach large figures, the sums usually ranging from £600 to £1,000, although his books were in great favour with lovers of fiction. When a collected edition of his novels was issued, the publishers paid liberally for the copyrights. The sale of Lytton's novels is very large; about 80,000 copies of the sixpenny edition, and some thousands of the three-shillings-and-sixpenny edition, are sold every year.

The Earl of Beaconsfield, it is said, received the largest amount ever paid in this country for a single novel. His last work, "Endymion," was sold for £12,000. He only produced one other successful story, and that was "Lothair." It is stated, on good authority, that these two novels have together brought more than double the sums realised for his other books, although inferior to some of his former writings. In his later years the public paid for the novelty of reading stories by a statesman, and not for the merits of his works. Some of his novels have recently been brought out in a shilling edition, but they have already lost the allurements of fiction, and are only read by students of politics, or persons curious as to the character of the author.

Wilkie Collins was paid for "Armadale" £5,000. Mr. James Payn recently received £1,000 for the rights of running one of his novels in the pages of a sixpenny magazine. This author tells rather a good story about the mode of payment for his novels. "It was," says Mr. Payn, "the custom with a very respectable firm of publishers, with whom I did business, to pay my cheques to the names of my immortal works, instead of to myself: and since it suited their convenience to do so, I never complained of it, though it sometimes put me in rather a false position when I presented my demands in person, as, for example, in the case of the 'Family Scapegrace.' When I came for the proceeds of 'Found Dead,' it was too much for the sense of professional propriety of the banker's clerk, who gravely observed: 'It is very fortunate, Sir, that this cheque is not payable to order, or it would have to be signed by your executors.'" Said Dickens, to whom Payn related the incident, "I should not like to have much money at a bank which keeps so clever a clerk as that."

Anthony Trollope worked hard to gain a footing in the literary world. His earlier manuscripts were frequently rejected. He tried to induce managers of theatres to accept his plays, but not one was ever produced. The first year's labour with the pen, and a very hard year's work too, only yielded £12. The next year the sum was still small, only amounting to £20, yet he did not despair. At last, the happy time came, and it was taken at the flood. It was in 1855 that he scored with "The Warden." From that time he was a man of mark; his works were in demand, and with ease he earned £1,000 a year, which soon increased to £2,000 and £3,000, and at the time of his death to about £4,000. The amounts paid for a few of his books are as follows: In 1850 was issued "La Vendée," and for it he got £20; twelve years later he was paid, for "Orley Farm," £3,135; in 1864 was published "Can You Forgive Her?" for which he received £3,525; and in the same year was issued "The Small House at Allington," for which he was paid £3,000. Amongst his other novels for which he received large sums may be mentioned "The Last Chronicles of Barset," £3,000; "Phineas Finn," £3,200; "He knew He was Right," £3,200. The last two were published in 1869. He was paid £3,000 for "The Way We Live Now." "More than nine-tenths of my literary work," writes Trollope, "has been done in the last twenty years, and during twelve of those years I followed another profession. I have never been a slave to this work, giving due time, if not more than due time, to the amusement I have loved. But I have been constant--and constancy of labour will conquer all difficulties." In twenty years he made by writing nearly £70,000. We cannot place Trollope in a high position amongst the greatest novelists, yet the monetary results of his literary labours must be regarded as extremely satisfactory.

Large sums of money were made by George Eliot, but we must not forget that she had some weary years to wait for the days of prosperity, and that the story of her life contains many records of disappointment after brave struggles. We read of her living in humble apartments in London; to earn a little money, which she much needed when she went to Switzerland in 1849, she tried to sell her books and globes. It was not until she was forty years of age that she established a reputation by the publication of "Adam Bede." She received in cash down, for the first sale of her book, some £40,000, or about £2,000 a year. George Eliot had a great objection to her novels appearing in serial form, and she sacrificed much money by not first publishing them in the magazines. Ouida had for a long time the same objection to her stories being published piecemeal in newspapers and periodicals. She now appears to have got over her prejudice in this matter, and consents to write for newspaper readers. It is generally believed amongst literary and journalistic men, that she is not a brilliant success as a newspaper novelist, yet Ouida's income as an author must be very great. The reader of the weekly paper in which fiction forms a feature is not educated up to her standard; authors like those engaged on the Family Herald and similar journals are much more popular.

It is pleasing to state that Mr. John Ruskin has made large sums with his books, but not so much, we think, as his merits entitle him to receive.

We have seen it stated that by "Oceana," by no means a large volume, Mr. Froude cleared £10,000.

In the "Life of Longfellow," written by his brother, are a few particulars of his earnings. During 1825--the last year of his college course--he contributed poems to the United States Literary Gazette, and was paid one or two dollars a poem, the price depending on the length of the piece. He wrote, in 1840-1, "The Village Blacksmith," "Endymion," and "God's Acre," and was paid fifteen dollars each. When his fame was fully established, Mr. Bonner the publisher of the New York Ledger, paid him, for the right of publishing in that paper, 3,000 dollars for "The Hanging of the Crane."

Lord Tennyson received considerable sums for his poetry. He was paid £100 for the right of printing a short original poem in a monthly magazine. For his ballad, "The Revenge," in the Nineteenth Century, he received 300 guineas. It became known some time ago that his lordship did not deem £5,000 a year a sufficient sum for the exclusive right of publishing his works. He changed his publishers several times. He was regarded as a keen man of business, and it is said that he generally got the best of the bargain.

Money never tempted Robert Browning to contribute to the magazines. His poems always saw the light in book form.

Mr. J. Cuthbert Hadden, who has made a study of this subject, says the supply of verse to-day is greatly in excess of the demand, and so it happens that in many quarters poetry is not paid for at all. Most of the minor poets whose volumes come before the public have to bear the whole expense of production themselves, and only a very small number escape without considerable loss. In this connection an amusing story regarding James Russell Lowell--not quite a minor poet--may be quoted. The cost of publishing his first book was borne entirely by Mr. Lowell himself, the edition being a plain but substantial one of 500 copies. The author felt the usual pride in his achievement, and hoped for almost immediate fame. Unhappily, only a few copies of the work were sold. Soon after, a fire occurred in the publishing house where the volumes were stored, and they were destroyed. As the publisher carried a full insurance on the stock, Mr. Lowell was able to realise the full cash value on his venture, and he had the satisfaction of saying that the entire edition was exhausted.

The leading American novelists usually get £1,000 for a serial story in a magazine, and a similar sum when it is produced in book form. Bret Harte can command a thousand dollars for a single magazine article. Mrs. Grant received a cheque for £40,000 for her share of the first volume of General Grant's "Memoirs," and the whole of her share of the proceeds is put down at £100,000.

In closing, we must remind our readers that there are two sides to every picture, and that countless instances of bitter disappointment and death are recorded in the annals of literature. Only a few in the mighty army of writers come to the front and win fame and fortune.

[The end]
William Andrews's essay: Earnings Of Authors

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