think, have been even then much below the truth. Since then it has been
much increased. Of two of them, Putnam's and Harper's, the first
exclusively original, and the latter about two thirds so, the sale is
about two millions of numbers per annum; while of three others, published
in Philadelphia, it is about a million. Cheap as are these journals, at
twenty-five cents each, the sum total of the price paid for them by the
consumers is about $700,000. The quantity of paper required for a single
one of them is about 16,000 reams of double medium, being one tenth as
much as has recently been given as the consumption of the whole newspaper
press of Great Britain and Ireland. Every pursuit in life, and almost
every shade of opinion, has its periodical. A single city in Western New
York furnishes no less than four agricultural and horticultural journals,
one of them published weekly, with a circulation of 15,000, and the
others, monthly, with a joint circulation of 25,000. The "Merchants'
Magazine," which set the example for the one now published in London, has
a circulation of 3,500. The "Bankers' Magazine" also set the example
recently followed in England. Medicine and Law have their numerous and
well supported journals; and Dental Surgery alone has five, one of which
has a circulation of 5,000 copies, while all Europe has but two, and those
of very inferior character.[1] North, south, east, and west, the
periodical press is collecting the opinions of all our people, while
centralization is gradually limiting the expression of opinion, in
England, to those who live in and near London. Upon this extensive base of
cheap domestic literature rests that portion of the fabric composed of
reproduction of foreign books, the quantities of some of which were given
in my last. The proportion which these bear to American books has been
thus given for the six months ending on the 30th of June last:
Republications 169
Original 522
691
[Footnote 1: It is a remarkable fact that there should be in this
country no less than four Colleges of Dental Surgery, while all Europe
presents not even a single one.]
Of these last, 17 were original translations.
We see, thus, that the proportion of domestic to foreign products is
already more than three to one. How the sale of the latter compares with
that of the former, will be seen by the following facts in relation to
books of almost all sizes, prices, and kinds; some of which have been
furnished by the publishers themselves, whilst others are derived from
gentlemen connected with the trade whose means of information are such as
warrant entire reliance upon their statements.
Of all American authors, those of school-books excepted, there is no one
of whose books so many have been circulated as those of Mr. Irving. Prior
to the publication of the edition recently issued by Mr. Putnam, the sale
had amounted to some hundreds of thousands; and yet of that edition,
selling at $1.25 per volume, it has already amounted to 144,000 vols. Of
"Uncle Tom," the sale has amounted to 295,000 copies, partly in one, and
partly in two volumes, and the total number of volumes amounts probably to
about 450,000.
_Price per vol._ _Volumes._
Of the two works of Miss Warner,
Queechy, and the Wide, Wide World, the
price and sale have been. $ 88 104,000
Fern Leaves, by Fanny Fern, in six months. 1 25 45,000
Reveries of a Bachelor, and other books,
by Ike Marvel. 1 25 70,000
Alderbrook, by Fanny Forester, 3 vols. 50 33,000
Northup's Twelve Years a Slave 1 00 20,000
Novels of Mrs. Hentz, in three years 63 93,000
Major Jones' Courtship and Travels 50 31,000
Salad for the Solitary, by a new author,
in five months 1 25 5,000
Headley's Napoleon and his Marshals, Washington
and his Generals, and other works. 1 25 200,000
Stephen's Travels in Egypt and Greece. 87 80,000
" " Yucatan and Central America 2 50 60,000
Kendall's Expedition to Santa Fe 1 25 40,000
Lynch's Expedition to the Dead Sea, 8vo. $3 00 15,000
" " 2mo. 1 25 8,000
Western Scenes 2 50 14,000
Young's Science of Government 1 00 12,000
Seward's Life of John Quincy Adams. 1 00 30,000
Frost's Pictorial History of the World,
3 vols. 2 50 60,000
Sparks' American Biography, 25 vols 75 100,000
Encyclopaedia Americana, 14 vols. 2 00 280,000
Griswold's Poets and Prose Writers
of America, 3 vols. 3 00 21,000
Barnes' Notes on the Gospels, Epistles, &c.,
11 vols. 75 300.000
Aiken's Christian Minstrel, in two years. 62 40,000
Alexander on the Psalms, 3 vols. 1 17 10,000
Buist's Flower Garden Directory 1 25 10,000
Cole on Fruit Trees. 50 18,000
" Diseases of Domestic Animals 50 34,000
Downing's Fruits and Fruit Trees. 50 15,000
" Rural Essays. 3 50 3,000
" Landscape Gardening. 3 50 9,000
" Cottage Residences. 2 00 6,250
" Country Homes. 4 00 3,500
Mahan's Civil Engineering. 3 00 7,500
Leslie's Cookery and Receipt-books. 1 00 96,000
Guyot's Lectures on Earth and Man. 1 00 6,000
Wood and Bache's Medical Dispensatory 5 00 60,000
Dunglison's Medical Writings,
in all 10 vols. 2 50 50,000
Pancoast's Surgery, 4to. 10 00 4,000
Rayer, Ricord, and Moreau's Surgical Works
(translations). 15 00 5,500
Webster's Works, 6 vols. 2 00 46,800
Kent's Commentaries, 4 vols. 3 38 84,000
Next to Chancellor Kent's work comes Greenleaf on Evidence, 3 vols.,
$16.50; the sale of which has been exceedingly great, but what has been
its extent, I cannot say.
Of Blatchford's General Statutes of New York, a local work, price $4.50,
the sale has been 3,000; equal to almost 30,000 of a similar work for the
United Kingdom.
How great is the sale of Judge Story's books can be judged only from the
fact that the copyright now yields, and for years past has yielded, more
than $8,000 per annum. Of the sale of Mr. Prescott's works little is
certainly known, but it cannot, I understand, have been less than 160,000
volumes. That of Mr. Bancroft's History, has already risen, certainly to
30,000 copies, and I am told it is considerably more; and yet even that is
a sale, for such a work, entirely unprecedented.
Of the works of Hawthorne, Longfellow, Bryant, Willis, Curtis, Sedgwick,
Sigourney, and numerous others, the sale is exceedingly great; but, as not
even an approximation to the true amount can be offered, I must leave it
to you to judge of it by comparison with those of less popular authors
above enumerated. In several of these cases, beautifully illustrated
editions have been published, of which large numbers have been sold. Of
Mr. Longfellow's volume there have been no less than ten editions. These
various facts will probably suffice to satisfy you that this country
presents a market for books of almost every description, unparalleled in
the world.
In reflecting upon this subject, it is necessary to bear in mind that the
monopoly, granted to authors and their families, is for the term of no
less than forty-two years, and that in that period the number of persons
subjected to it is likely to grow to little short of a hundred millions,
with a power of consumption that will probably be ten times greater than
now exists. If the Commentaries of Chancellor Kent continue to maintain
their present position, as they probably will, may we not reasonably
suppose that the demand for them will continue as great, or nearly so, as
it is at present, and that the total sale during the period of copyright
will reach a quarter of a million of volumes? So, too, of the histories of
Bancroft and Prescott, and of other books of permanent character.
Such being the extent of the market for the products of literary labor, we
may now inquire into its rewards.
Beginning with the common schools, we find a vast number of young men and
young women acting as teachers of others, while qualifying themselves for
occupying other places in life. Many of them rise gradually to become
teachers in high schools and professors in colleges, while all of them
have at hand the newspaper, ready to enable them, if gifted with the power
of expressing themselves on paper, to come before the world. The numerous
newspapers require editors and contributors, and the amount appropriated
to the payment of this class of the community is a very large one. Next
come the magazines, many of which pay very liberally. I have now before me
a statement from a single publisher, in which he says that to Messrs.
Willis, Longfellow, Bryant, and Alston, his price was uniformly $50 for a
poetical article, long or short--and his readers know that they were
generally very short; in one case only fourteen lines. To numerous others
it was from $25 to $40. In one case he has paid $25 per page for prose. To
Mr. Cooper he paid $1,800 for a novel, and $1,000 for a series of naval
biographies, the author retaining the copyright for separate publication;
and in such cases, if the work be good, its appearance in the magazine
acts as the best of advertisements. To Mr. James he paid $1,200 for a
novel, leaving him also the copyright. For a single number of the journal
he has paid to authors $1,500. The total amount paid for original matter
by two magazines--the selling price of which is $3 per annum--in ten
years, has exceeded $130,000, giving an average of $13,000 per annum. The
Messrs. Harper inform me that the expenditure for literary and artistic
labor required for their magazine is $2,000 per month, or $24,000 a year.
Passing upwards, we reach the producers of books, and here we find rewards
not, I believe, to be paralleled elsewhere. Mr. Irving stands, I imagine,
at the head of living authors for the amount received for his books. The
sums paid to the renowned Peter Parley must have been enormously great,
but what has been their extent I have no means of ascertaining. Mr.
Mitchell, the geographer, has realized a handsome fortune from his
schoolbooks. Professor Davies is understood to have received more than
$50,000 from the series published by him. The Abbotts, Emerson, and
numerous other authors engaged in the preparation of books for young
persons and schools, are largely paid. Professor Anthon, we are informed,
has received more than $60,000 for his series of classics. The French
series of Mr. Bolmar has yielded him upwards of $20,000. The school
geography of Mr. Morse is stated to have yielded more than $20,000 to the
author. A single medical book, of one 8vo. volume, is understood to have
produced its authors $60,000, and a series of medical books has given to
its author probably $30,000. Mr. Downing's receipts from his books have
been very large. The two works of Miss Warner must have already yielded
her from $12,000 to $15,000, and perhaps much more. Mr. Headley is stated
to have received about $40,000; and the few books of Ike Marvel have
yielded him about $20,000; a single one, "The Reveries of a Bachelor,"
produced more than $4,000 in the first six months. Mrs. Stowe has been
very largely paid. Miss Leslie's Cookery and Receipt books have paid her
$12,000. Dr. Barnes is stated to have received more than $30,000 for the
copyright of his religious works. Fanny Fern has probably received not
less than $6,000 for the 12mo. volume published but six months since. Mr.
Prescott was stated, several years since, to have then received $90,000
from his books, and I have never seen it contradicted. According to the
rate of compensation generally understood to be received by Mr. Bancroft,
the present sale of each volume of his yields him more than $15,000, and
he has the long period of forty-two years for future sale. Judge Story
died, as has been stated, in the receipt of more than $8,000 per annum;
and the amount has not, as it is understood, diminished. Mr. Webster's
works, in three years, can scarcely have paid less than $25,000. Kent's
Commentaries are understood to have yielded to their author and his heirs
more than $120,000, and if we add to this for the remainder of the period
only one half of this sum, we shall obtain $180,000, or $45,000 as the
compensation for a single 8vo. volume, a reward for literary labor
unexampled in history. What has been the amount received by Professor
Greenleaf I cannot learn, but his work stands second only, in the legal
line, to that of Chancellor Kent. The price paid for Webster's 8vo.
Dictionary is understood to be fifty cents per copy; and if so, with a
sale of 250,000, it must already have reached $125,000. If now to this we
add the quarto, at only a dollar a copy, we shall have a sum approaching
to, and perhaps exceeding, $180,000; more, probably, than has been paid
for all the dictionaries of Europe in the same period of time. What have
been the prices paid to Messrs. Hawthorne, Longfellow, Bryant, Willis,
Curtis, and numerous others, I cannot say; but it is well known that they
have been very large. It is not, however, only the few who are liberally
paid; all are so who manifest any ability, and here it is that we find the
effect of the decentralizing system of this country as compared with the
centralizing one of Great Britain. There Mr. Macaulay is largely paid for
his Essays, while men of almost equal ability can scarcely obtain the
means of support. Dickens is a literary Croesus, and Tom Hood dies leaving
his family in hopeless poverty. Such is not here the case. Any
manifestation of ability is sure to produce claimants for the publication
of books. No sooner had the story of "Hot Corn" appeared in "The Tribune,"
than a dozen booksellers were applicants to the author for a book. The
competition is here for the _purchase_ of the privilege of printing, and
this competition is not confined to the publishers of a single city, as is
the case in Britain. Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and even Auburn and
Cincinnati, present numerous publishers, all anxious to secure the works
of writers of ability, in any department of literature; and were it
possible to present a complete list of our well-paid authors, its extent
could not fail to surprise you greatly, as the very few facts that have
come to my knowledge in reference to some of the lesser stars of the
literary world have done by me. You will observe that I have confined
myself to the question of demand for books and compensation to their
authors, without reference to that of the ability displayed in their
preparation. That we may have good books, all that is required is that we
make a large market for them, which is done here to an extent elsewhere
unknown.
Forty years since, the question was asked by the "Edinburgh Review," Who
reads an American book? Judging from the facts here given, may we not
reasonably suppose that the time is fast approaching, when the question
will be asked, Who does not read American books?
Forty years since, had we asked where were the _homes of American
authors_, we should generally have been referred to very humble houses in
our cities. Those who now inquire for them will find their answer in the
beautiful volume lately published by Messrs. Putnam and Co., the precursor
of others destined to show the literary men of this country enjoying
residences as agreeable as any that had been occupied by such men in any
part of the world; and in almost every case, those homes have been due to
the profits of the pen. Less than half a century since, the race of
literary men was scarcely known in the country, and yet the amount now
paid for literary labor is greater than in Great Britain and France
combined, and will probably be, in twenty years more, greater than in all
the world beside. With the increase of number, there has been a
corresponding increase in the consideration in which they are held; and
the respect with which even unknown authors are treated, when compared
with the disrespect manifested in England towards such men, will be
obvious to all familiar with the management of the journals of that
country who read the following in one of our principal periodicals:--
"The editor of Putnam's Monthly will give to every article forwarded for
insertion in the Magazine a careful examination, and, when requested to do
so, will return the MS. if not accepted."
Here, the competition is among the publishers to _buy_ the products of
literary labor, whereas, abroad, the competition is to _sell_ them, and
therefore is the treatment of our authors, even when unknown, so
different. Long may it continue to be so!
Such having been the result of half a century, during which we have had to
lay the foundation of the system that has furnished so vast a body of
readers, what may not be expected in the next half century, during which
the population will increase to a hundred millions, with a power to
consume the products of literary labor growing many times faster than the
growth of numbers? If this country is properly termed "the paradise of
women," may it not be as correctly denominated the paradise of authors,
and should they not be content to dwell in it as their predecessors have
done? Is it wise in them to seek a change? Their best friends would, I
think, unite with me in advising that it is not. Should they succeed in
obtaining what they now desire, the day will, as I think, come, when they
will be satisfied that their real friends had been, those who opposed the
confirmation of the treaty now before the Senate.
LETTER VI.
We have commenced the erection of a great literary and scientific edifice.
The foundation is already broad, deep, and well laid, but it is seen to
increase in breadth, depth, and strength, with every step of increase in
height; and the work itself is seen to assume, from year to year, more and
more the natural form of a true pyramid. To the height that such a
building may be carried, no living man will venture to affix a limit. What
is the tendency to durability in a work thus constructed, the pyramids of
Egypt and the mountains of the Andes and of the Himalaya may attest. That
edifice is the product of decentralization.
Elsewhere, centralization is, as has been shown, producing the opposite
effect, narrowing the base, and diminishing the elevation. Having
prospered under decentralization, our authors seek to introduce
centralization. Failing to accomplish their object by the ordinary course
of legislation, they have had recourse to the executive power; and thus
the end to be accomplished, and the means used for its accomplishment, are
in strict accordance with each other.
We are invited to grant to the authors and booksellers of England, and
their agent or agents here, entire control over a highly important source
from which our people have been accustomed to derive their supplies of
literary food. Before granting to these persons any power here, it might
be well to inquire how they have used their power at home. Doing this, we
find that, as is usually the case with those enjoying a monopoly, they
have almost uniformly preferred to derive their profits from high prices
and small sales, and have thus, in a great degree, deprived their
countrymen of the power to purchase books; a consequence of which has been
that the reading community has, very generally, been driven to dependence
upon circulating libraries, to the injury of both the authors and the
public. The extent to which this system of high prices in regard to
school-books has been carried, and the danger of intrusting such men with
power, are well shown in the fact that the same government which has so
recently concluded a copyright treaty with our own, has since entered
"into the bookselling trade on its own account," competing "with the
private dealer, who has to bear copyright charges." The subjects of this
"reactionary step" on the part of a government that so much professes to
love free trade, are, as we are told, "the famous school-books of the
Irish national system."[1] A new office has been created, "paid for with a
public salary," for "the issue of books to the retail dealers;" and the
centralization of power over this important portion to the trade is, we
are told,[2] defended in the columns of the "Times," as "tending to bring
down the price of school-books; for booksellers who possess copyrights,
now sell their books at exorbitant prices, and, by underselling them, the
commissioners will be able to beat them." Judging from this, it would seem
almost necessary, if this treaty is to be ratified, that there should be
added some provision authorizing our government to appoint commissioners
for the regulation of trade, and for "underselling" those persons who "now
sell their books at exorbitant prices." If it be ratified, we shall be
only entering on the path of centralization; and it may not be amiss that,
before ratification, we should endeavor to determine to what point it will
probably carry us in the end.
[Footnote 1: _Spectator_, June 4, 1853.]
[Footnote 2: _Ibid_.]
The question is often asked, What difference can it make to the people of
this country whether they do, or do not, pay to the English author a few
cents in return for the pleasure afforded by the perusal of his book? Not
very much, certainly, to the wealthy reader; but as every extra cent is
important to the poorer one, and tends to limit his power to purchase, it
may be well to calculate how many cents would probably be required; and,
that we may do so, I give you here a list[1] of the comparative prices of
English and American editions of a few of the books that have been
published within the last few years:--
_English._ _Amer._
Brande's Encyclopaedia $15 00 $4 00
Ure's Dictionary of Manufactures 15 00 5 00
Alison's Europe, cheapest edition 25 00 5 00
D'Aubignd's Reformation 11 50 2 25
Bulwer's "My Novel" 10 50 75
Lord Mahon's England 13 00 4 00
Macaulay's England, per vol. 4 50 40
Campbell's Chief Justices. 7 50 3 50
" Lord Chancellors 25 50 12 00
Queens of England, 8 vols. 24 00 10 00
Queens of Scotland 15 00 6 00
Hallam's Middle Ages 7 50 1 75
Arnold's Rome 12 00 3 00
Life of John Foster 6 00 1 25
Layard's Nineveh, complete edition. 9 00 1 75
Mrs. Somerville's Physical Sciences 2 50 50
Whewell's Elements of Morality. 7 50 1 00
Napier's Peninsular War 12 00 3 25
Thirlwall's Greece, cheapest edition 7 00 3 00
Dick's Practical Astronomer 2 50 50
Jane Eyre 7 50 25
[Footnote 1: Copied from an article in the New York _Daily Times_.]
The difference, as we see, between the selling price in London and in New
York, of the first book in this list, is no less than eleven dollars, or
almost three times as much as the whole price of the American edition. To
what is this extraordinary difference to be attributed? To any excess in
the cost of paper or printing in London? Certainly not; for paper and
printers' labor are both cheaper there than here. Is it, then, to the
necessity for compensating the author? Certainly not; for there are in
this country fifty persons as fully competent as Mr. Brande for the
preparation of such a work, who would willingly do it for a dollar a copy,
calculating upon being paid out of a large sale. As the sale of books in
England is not large, it might be necessary to allow him two dollars each;
but even this would still leave nine dollars to be accounted for. Where
does all this go? Part of it to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, part to
the "Times," and other newspapers and journals that charge monopoly prices
for the privilege of advertising, and the balance to the booksellers who
"possess copyrights," and "sell their books at such exorbitant prices"
that they have driven the government to turn bookseller, with a view to
bring down prices; and these are the very men to whom it is now proposed
to grant unlimited control over the sale of all books produced abroad.
It will, perhaps, be said that the treaty contains a proviso that the
author shall sell his copyright to an American publisher, or shall himself
cause his book to be republished here. Such a proviso may be there, but
whether it is so, or not, no one knows, for every thing connected with
this effort to extend the Executive power is kept as profoundly secret as
were the arrangements for the Napoleonic _coup d'etat_ of the 2d of
December. Secrecy and prompt and decisive action are the characteristics
of centralized governments--publicity and slow action those of
decentralized ones. Admit, however, that such limitations be found in the
treaty, by what right are they there? The basis of such a treaty is the
absolute right of the author to his book; and if that be admitted, with
what show of consistency or of justice can we undertake to dictate to him
whether he shall sell or retain it--print it here or abroad? With none,
as I think.