Literature knows no Trades Unions, but if things go on as they are at
present, perhaps we shall hear of literary rattening and picketing. The
_Kolnische Zeitung_, in Germany, has been protesting against the mob of
noble ladies who write with ease, though their works, even to persons
acquainted with the German tongue, are by no means easy reading. The
Teutonic paper requests these ambitious dames to conduct themselves as
amateurs, to write, if write they must, but to print only a few copies of
their books, and give these few copies only to their friends. This is
advice as morally excellent as it will be practically futile, nor does it
apply only to ladies of rank, but to amateur novelists in general. The
old quarrel between artists and amateurs is fiercely waged in dramatic
society, perhaps because actors and actresses feel the stress of
competing with cheap amateur labour. Now, though the professional
novelist has only of late begun to think seriously of the subject, it is
plain that he too is competing with labour unnaturally cheap, and is
losing in the competition. To define an amateur is difficult, as all
athletic clubs and rowing clubs are aware. But in this particular field
of human industry, the amateur may be defined with ease. The amateur
novelist is not merely the person who, having another profession, writes
a romance by way of "by-work," as the Greeks called it. Lord
Beaconsfield was no amateur in romance, and perhaps no novel was ever
sold at so high a ransom as "Endymion." Yet Lord Beaconsfield only
scribbled in his idle hours, and was not half so much an amateur novelist
as Mr. Gladstone is an amateur student of Homer. No; the true amateur is
he or she who publishes at his or her own expense. The labour of such
persons is not only cheap; its rewards may be estimated by a frightful
minus quantity--the publisher's bill. Every one must have observed that
when his box of books comes from the circulating library, it by no means
contains the books he has asked the librarian to send. The batch does
not exclusively consist of the plums and prizes of the publishing season,
of Sir Henry Gordon's book on his illustrious brother, of the most famous
novel of the month, of Mr. Romilly's "New Guinea and the Western
Pacific"--as diverting a book of travel as ever was written, of Mr.
Stockton's "Mrs. Null," and generally of all that is freshest and most
notable in biography, fiction, and history. A few of the peaches of the
best quality there are, but the rest are fruit less valued, are, in fact,
amateur novels. There are two sets of three gaudy novels by unheard-of
ladies; and perhaps three shilling novels, with such titles as "Who Did
It?" "Chopped in Cover," or "Under a Cloud," none of which names we
trust are copyright. A similar phenomenon presents itself at the
bookstalls, which are choked with cheap and unenticing brief tales of the
deadly sins. And whose fault is it that we do not get the good books and
are flooded with the bad books? Why, it is the fault of the ambitious
amateur, of the ladies and gentlemen who publish at their own risk, and
at the cost of the world of readers and professional writers.
This is, with a few remarkable limitations, a free country. No law
exists which says to publishers, "Thou shalt not publish on commission."
No law confines the vagaries of amateur romance. Hence the market is
choked, and the circulating libraries are overwhelmed with rubbish, and
good books, as the Americans of the West say, "get no show." The
debauched novel reader, to whom every story is a story, and one no better
nor worse than another, may not heed it, but the judicious grieve, and
the artist in fiction returns a smaller income tax. Then the very
revenue suffers with the general decline of letters. It may, of course,
be urged that all artists are amateurs before they secure a paying
public. The amateur novelist may be compared to the young dramatic
author who gives his piece at a _matinee_, and who, once in a hundred
times, finds a manager to approve it. May not publishing _en amateur_ be
the only way of reaching the public? To this question the answer is, No!
The risk of publishing a novel by a new author is nothing like so great
as the risk of producing a play with an unknown name to it. Publishers
exist for the purpose of bringing out books that will pay, and they
generally pounce on a good manuscript in fiction, whether the writer be
known or unknown. It is much more easy to predict whether a novel will
pay or not than to prophecy about a drama. Thus the most obscure author
(in spite of the difficulties faced by "Jane Eyre" and "Vanity Fair") may
rely on it, that if his MS. is not accepted, it is not worth accepting.
He should not, if he has decently sound reasons for self-confidence, be
disheartened by two or three refusals. One man's taste might be averse
to "John Inglesant," another's might turn against Ouida, a third might
fail to see the merit of "Vice Versa." But if half a dozen experts taste
and reject a manuscript, it is almost certain to be hopeless. Then the
author should take the advice once offered by Mr. Walter Besant. "_Never_
publish at your own expense." If you do, you stamp yourself as an
amateur; you add to the crowd of futilities that choke the market; and,
if you have it in you to write a novel which shall be a good piece, you
are handicapping yourself by placing a bad novel on your record. People
sin out of thoughtlessness, as well as depravity, and we would not say
that every amateur novelist is, _ex officio_, infamous, nefarious, and
felonious. He or she may be only rather vain, conceited, and
unreflecting.
Where, then, is the remedy if homilies fail to convert the sinner, as,
indeed, it is the misfortune of homilies to fail? The remedy will be
found in a Novelists' League, with tickets, and boycotting, and strikes,
and rattening, and all the other devices for getting our own way in an
oppressive world. There will be a secret society of professionals. Lady
novelists (amateurs) will be rattened; their blotting-paper and French
dictionaries will be stolen or destroyed; their publishers will be
boycotted by all members of the League, who will decline to publish with
any man known to deal with amateurs. Nay, so powerful is this dread and
even criminal confederacy, that amateurs will not even be reviewed.
Neither the slashing, nor the puffing, nor the faintly praising notice
will be meted out to them. There will be a conspiracy of silence. The
very circulating libraries will be threatened, and coffins (stolen from
undertakers who dabble in romance) will be laid at Mr. Mudie's door,
unless he casts off the amateur in fiction. The professionals will march
through rapine to emancipation. They will strike off the last gyves that
fetter the noble art of romance, and in five or six years we shall have
only about a tenth of the present number of romances, but that tenth will
pass through as many editions as "The Pilgrim's Progress," which, by the
way, was probably, like Ronsard's poems, the work of an amateur. But
these were other times, when an author did not expect to make money, and
thought himself lucky if, after a slashing personal review by the
Inquisition, his fragments were not burned at the stake in a bonfire of
his volumes.