up "unless they say about 100 l. I will prefer Murray." These
negotiations came to nothing, and back he went to Murray,
whose offer "is not so bad: 750 copies for the task of
publishing poor Dreck, and the rest of him _our own_." The
terms were accepted, the manuscript was sent to the printer,
and a page set up, when Murray repented his bargain, which had
never pleased him, and, having heard that Carlyle had carried
his MS. elsewhere, he seized the opportunity to send the
author a note saying that since he had, unbeknown to him,
carried his book to "the greatest publishers in London, who
had declined to engage in it," he must ask to have it read by
some literary friend, before he could in justice to himself
engage in the printing of it. The upshot was that the
manuscript was returned to its author.
"The printing of 'Teufelsdröckh,'" Carlyle says to his wife,
"which I announced as commencing, and even sent you a specimen
of, has altogether stopped, and Murray's bargain with me has
burst into air. The man behaved like a pig, and was speared,
but perhaps without art; Jack and I at least laughed that
night _à gorge déployée_ at the answer I wrote his base
_glare_ of a letter: he has written again in much politer
style, and I shall answer him, as McLeod advised my
grandfather's people, 'sharp but mannerly.' The truth of the
matter is now clear enough; Dreck cannot be disposed of
in London at this time. Whether he lie in my trunk or in a
bookseller's coffer seems partly indifferent. Neither, on the
whole, do I know whether it is not better that we have stopped
for the present. Money I was to have none; author's vanity
embarked on that bottom I have almost none; nay, some time
or other that the book can be _so_ disposed of it is certain
enough."
Nearly two years later, in 1833, the unlucky Dreck was
published "piecemeal," in ten parts of ten pages each, in
_Fraser's Magazine_, beginning with November and running
until August, 1834. With the shrewdness of his tribe, Fraser,
fearing failure, paid only twelve guineas a sheet for the
work, though he had been paying its author twenty guineas
a sheet, five guineas more than he paid to any other
contributor. It turned out, however, that he was wise, for the
great essay was not a success, even in the magazine.
"'Magazine Fraser' writes that 'Teufelsdröckh' excites the
most unqualified disapprobation--_à la bonne heure_," said
Carlyle; and again: "--Literature still all a mystery; nothing
'paying;' 'Teufelsdröckh' beyond measure unpopular; an oldest
subscriber came into him and said, 'If there is any more of
that d----d stuff, I will,' &c., &c.; on the other hand an
order from America (Boston or Philadelphia) to send a copy of
the magazine '_so long_ as there was anything of Carlyle's in
it.' 'One spake up and the other spake down.'"
After the work had run its course in the magazine, about fifty
copies were struck off from the types and stitched together
for distribution among friends.
It remained to the honor of America, to print the book in
1836, through the energetic efforts of Dr. LeBaron Russell.
Emerson furnished the copy and a preface; and before the end
of the year he was able to announce to Carlyle the sale of the
whole edition. Another edition of over a thousand copies was
sold before the first English edition, "a dingy, ill-managed
edition" of a thousand copies, was published anonymously by
Saunders and Otley in 1838.
Octavo.
COLLATION: _1 l., 107 pp._
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
(1803-1882)
80. Nature. | [Quotation] Boston: | James Munroe And Company. |
MDCCCXXXVI.
"My little book is nearly done. Its title is 'Nature.' Its
contents will not exceed in bulk Sampson Reed's 'Growth of the
Mind.' My design is to follow it by another essay, 'Spirit,'
and the two shall make a decent volume." Thus Emerson wrote to
his brother William, from Concord, June 28, 1836.
_Nature_ was, however, published alone in September by
Metcalf, Torry and Ballou of the Cambridge Press. It received
little attention except from "the representatives of orthodox
opinion," who violently attacked it. Only a few hundred copies
were sold, and it was twelve years before a second edition was
called for.
Duodecimo.
COLLATION: _95 pp._
WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT
(1796-1859)
81. History | Of The | Conquest Of Peru, | [Three lines] By | William
H. Prescott, | [Two lines] [Quotations] In Two Volumes. | Volume I. |
New York: | Harper And Brothers, 82 Cliff Street. | MDCCCXLVII.
George Ticknor, in his life of Prescott, gives the story of
the production of the _History_ in the following words:
"The composition of the 'Conquest of Peru' was, therefore,
finished within the time he had set for it a year previously,
and the work being put to press without delay, the printing
was completed in the latter part of March, 1847; about two
years and nine months from the day when he first put pen
to paper. It made just a thousand pages, exclusive of the
Appendix, and was stereotyped under the careful correction and
supervision of his friend Mr. Folsom of Cambridge.
"While it was passing through the press, or just as the
stereotyping was fairly begun, he made a contract with the
Messrs. Harper to pay for seven thousand five hundred copies
on the day of publication at the rate of one dollar per copy,
to be sold within two years, and to continue to publish at
the same rate afterwards, or to surrender the contract to the
author at his pleasure; terms, I suppose, more liberal than
had ever been offered for a work of grave history on this side
of the Atlantic. In London it was published by Mr. Bentley,
who purchased the copyright for eight hundred pounds, under
the kind auspices of Colonel Aspinwall; again a large sum, as
it was already doubtful whether an exclusive privilege could
be legally maintained in Great Britain by a foreigner."
The demand for the book was large: in five months five
thousand copies were sold in America, and an edition of half
that number sold in England. By January 1, 1860, there had
been sold of the American and English editions together,
16,965 copies. It was translated into Spanish, French, German,
and Dutch.
Octavo.
COLLATION: _Two volumes._ Volume I: _xl, 527 pp._ Volume II:
_xix, 547 pp._
EDGAR ALLAN POE
(1809-1849)
82. The Raven | And | Other Poems. | By | Edgar A. Poe. | New York: |
Wiley And Putnam, 161 Broadway. | 1845.
The poem first appeared in print in the columns of the _New
York Evening Mirror_ for January 29, 1845, where N. P. Willis,
its editor, says in a note: "We are permitted to copy,
(in advance of publication,) from the second number of the
_American Review_, the following remarkable poem by Edgar
Poe." Willis issued the poem again in the weekly edition of
the _Mirror_, dated February 8, and Charles F. Briggs, with
whom Poe afterward became associated, also published it in the
_Broadway Journal_ of the same date, crediting it to "Edgar A.
Poe." Both of these weeklies seem to have appeared before the
_American Review_ came out. We are not told the reason for
Mr. George H. Colton's editorial courtesy in permitting this
advance publication when the second, or February number of
his paper, _The American Review: A Whig Journal Of Politics,
Literature, Art And Science_, was so soon to appear. It is a
curious circumstance that Willis and Briggs gave the author's
name freely, while Colton's issue, as originally intended,
appeared with the pseudonym of "---- Quarles."
The poem was an immense success, and was copied far and wide
in all the newspapers of the country. Writing to F. W. Thomas,
May 4, Poe says:
"'The Raven' has had a great run, Thomas--but I wrote it for
the express purpose of running--just as I did the 'Gold Bug,'
you know. The bird beat the bug, though, all hollow."
This popularity was the poet's greatest reward, for we learn
that the actual money remuneration was only ten dollars. Poe
makes us think of the early writers, like Bacon and Browne,
whom we have seen take to printing their books to save them
from the errors of the unlicensed publisher. In a preface to
this volume he writes:
"These trifles are collected and republished chiefly with a
view to their redemption from the many improvements to which
they have been subjected while going at random 'the rounds of
the press.' If what I have written is to circulate at all,
I am naturally anxious that it should circulate as I wrote
it...."
From the original straw-colored paper covers in which it
appeared, about December, we learn that the book was issued
as one of a series, _Wiley And Putnam's Library Of American
Books. No. VIII._, and that its price was the unusual sum of
thirty-one cents. Among the other volumes, its companions
in the set, were _Journal of an African Cruiser_, edited by
Nathaniel Hawthorne; _Tales_ of Edgar A. Poe; _Letters from
Italy_, by J. T. Headley; _The Wigwam and the Cabin_, by W.
Gilmore Simms; and _Big Abel_, by Cornelius Mathews.
Duodecimo.
COLLATION: _4 ll., 91 pp._
CHARLOTTE BRONTË
(1816-1855)
83. Jane Eyre. | An Autobiography. | Edited By | Currer Bell. | In
Three Volumes. | Vol. I. | London: | Smith, Elder, And Co., Cornhill.
| 1847.
Under date of August 24, 1847, Miss Brontë wrote a letter to
Messrs. Smith, Elder & Co., in which she said: "I now send you
per rail a MS. entitled 'Jane Eyre,' a novel in three volumes,
by Currer Bell." The novel was accepted, was printed and
published by October sixteenth, and on the nineteenth the
publishers received the following:
"Gentlemen,--The six copies of 'Jane Eyre' reached me this
morning. You have given the work every advantage which good
paper, clear type, and a seemly outside can supply;--if it
fails, the fault will be with the author,--you are exempt.
I now await the judgment of the press and the public. I am,
Gentlemen, yours respectfully, C. Bell."
Their judgment was decisive, and the book was so great a
success that a second edition, dedicated to Thackeray, was
issued January 18, 1848.
Octavo.
COLLATION: _Three volumes._
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
(1807-1882)
84. Evangeline, | A | Tale Of Acadie. | By | Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow. | Boston: | William D. Ticknor & Company. | 1847.
Writing in his journal under date of October 2, 1847,
Longfellow says: "Why does not Ticknor publish Evangeline? I
am going to town to ask him that very question. And his answer
was that he should do so without further delay." An entry,
dated October 30, says, "Evangeline published." On November 8,
he says: "Evangeline goes on bravely. I have received greater
and warmer commendations than on any previous volume. The
public takes more kindly to hexameters than I could have
imagined." On November 13, a third thousand is recorded, and
on April 8 of the following year we learn: "Next week Ticknor
prints the sixth thousand of Evangeline, making one thousand a
month since its publication."
In 1857 the following entry sums up the successful career of
the poem:
"Allibone wants to get from the publishers the number of
copies of my book sold up to date, the editions in this
country only," and _Evangeline_ is set down as 35,850 copies.
The poem was translated into German, Swedish, Danish, Italian,
Portuguese, Spanish, Polish, and French, and was made a
school-book in Italy.
Sextodecimo.
COLLATION: _163 pp._
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING
(1806-1861)
85. Sonnets. | By | E. B. B. | Reading: | [Not For Publication.] 1847.
This is the first appearance in print of the _Sonnets from
the Portuguese_ which were not published until 1850, when they
were issued under the title _Sonnets from the Portuguese_, as
a part of the _Poems by Elizabeth Barrett Browning_.
Mr. Browning told the story of the Portuguese Sonnets to Mr.
Edmund Gosse, who printed the account in _Critical Kit-Kats_,
1896:
"The Sonnets were intended for her husband's eyes alone; in
the first instance, not even for his.... Fortunately for all
those who love true poetry, Mr. Browning judged rightly of the
obligation laid upon him by the possession of these poems.
'I dared not,' he said, 'reserve to myself the finest sonnets
written in any language since Shakespeare's.' Accordingly
he persuaded his wife to commit the printing of them to
her friend Miss Mitford; and in the course of the year they
appeared in a slender volume entitled 'Sonnets, by E. B.
B.,' with the imprint 'Reading, 1847,' and marked 'Not for
publication.'"
Duodecimo.
COLLATION: _47 pp._
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
(1819-1891)
86. Melib[oe]us-Hipponax. | The | Biglow Papers, | Edited, | With
An Introduction, Notes, Glossary, | And Copious Index, | By | Homer
Wilbur, A.M., | [Three lines] [Quotations] Cambridge: | Published By
George Nichols. | 1848.
Writing to Thomas Hughes on September 13, 1859, Lowell says:
"I tried my first "Biglow Papers" in a newspaper, and found
that it had a great run. So I wrote the others from time to
time during the year which followed, always very rapidly, and
sometimes (as "What Mr. Robinson thinks") at one sitting.
"When I came to collect them and publish them in a volume, I
conceived my parson-editor with his pedantry and verbosity,
his amiable vanity and superiority to the verses he was
editing, as a fitting artistic background and foil."
The following extracts from letters show, in detail, the
evolution of the work.
"You will find a squib of mine in this week's _Courier_," said
he to Sidney H. Gay, on June 16, 1846, "I wish it to continue
anonymous, for I wish Slavery to think it has as many enemies
as possible. If I may judge from the number of persons who
have asked me if I wrote it, I have struck the old hulk of
the Public between wind and water...." On the last day of
December, 1847, he says to C. F. Briggs:
"I am going to indulge all my fun in a volume of H. Biglow's
verses which I am preparing, and which I shall edit under the
character of the Rev. Mr. Wilbur.... I am going to include in
the volume an essay of the reverend gentleman on the Yankee
dialect, and on dialects in general, and on every thing else,
and also an attempt at a complete natural history of the
Humbug--which I think I shall write in Latin. The book will
purport to be published at Jaalam (Mr. B's native place), and
will be printed on brownish paper with those little head and
tail-pieces which used to adorn our earlier publications--such
as hives, scrolls, urns, and the like."
The latter part of 1848 found the poet busily engaged in
getting out the book, and he wrote to Gay in September:
"This having to do with printers is dreadful business. There
was a Mr. Melville who, I believe, enjoyed it, but, for my
part, I am heartily sick of Typee."
In October he says:
"I should have sent you this yesterday, but it was not
written, and I was working like a dog all day, preparing a
glossary and an _index_. If I ever make another glossary or
index--!"....
"... Hosea is done with," he says in November, "and will soon
be out. It made fifty pages more than I expected and so took
longer." The volume appeared on the 10th, and on the 25th he
again writes to Gay: "... The first edition of Hosea is nearly
exhausted already."
The following retrospect, sent to the same friend on February
26, 1849, contains the lesson of experience:
"There were a great many alterations of spelling made in
the plates of the "Biglow Papers," which added much to the
expense. I ought not to have stereotyped at all. But we are
never done with cutting eye-teeth."
George Nichols, who published the book, was at one time an
owner of the University Book-store, and, later, one of the
proprietors of the University Press. He was noted for his
skill in proof-reading.
The printing was done by Metcalf and Company, printers to
the University; and the little book came out from their hands
innocent of hives, scrolls, urns, or any other ornament.
Something changed the author's mind, too, regarding _Jaalam_
as the purporting place of publication.
Duodecimo.
COLLATION: _12, xxxii, 163 pp._
WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY
(1811-1863)
87. Vanity Fair. | A Novel without a Hero. | By | William Makepeace
Thackeray. | With Illustrations On Steel And Wood By The Author. |
London: | Bradbury and Evans, 11, Bouverie Street. | 1848.
The name of the book, as we see it in the delightful and
altogether characteristic drawing on the engraved title-page,
reminds us of what Miss Kate Perry says in her reminiscences
of Thackeray:
"He told me, some time afterward, that, after ransacking his
brain for a name for his novel, it came upon him unawares, in
the middle of the night, as if a voice had whispered, 'Vanity
Fair.' He said, 'I jumped out of bed, and ran three times
round my room, uttering as I went, 'Vanity Fair, Vanity Fair,
Vanity Fair.'"
It has been repeated, more than once, that _Vanity Fair_ was
refused by _Colburn's Magazine_, and various other publishers,
before Bradbury and Evans undertook it, but Vizetelly, in his
_Glances Back Through Seventy Years_, thinks that this could
not have been the case, since Thackeray did not finish the
story until long after it had been accepted, and, in fact, was
well along in the printer's hands. If refused, therefore, it
was refused before it was finished. "I know perfectly well
that after the publication commenced much of the remainder of
the work was written under pressure for and from the printer,
and not infrequently the first instalment of 'copy' needed
to fill the customary thirty-two pages was penned while the
printer's boy was waiting in the hall at Young Street."
Vizetelly also gives the following account of the final
arrangements for the publication of the book:
"One afternoon, when he called in Peterborough Court he had
a small brown paper parcel with him, and opened it to show
me his two careful drawings for the page plates to the first
number of _Vanity Fair_. Tied up with them was the manuscript
of the earlier part of the book, of which he had several times
spoken to me, referring to the quaint character that Chiswick
Mall--within a stone's throw of which I was then living--still
retained. His present intention, he told me, was to see
Bradbury & Evans, and offer the work to them.... In little
more than half an hour Thackeray again made his appearance,
and, with a beaming face, gleefully informed me that he had
settled the business. 'Bradbury & Evans,' he said, 'accepted
so readily that I am deuced sorry I didn't ask them for
another tenner. I am certain they would have given it.' He
then explained that he had named fifty guineas per part,
including the two sheets of letterpress, a couple of etchings,
and the initials at the commencement of the chapters. He
reckoned the text, I remember, at no more than five-and-twenty
shillings a page, the two etchings at six guineas each, while
as for the few initials at the beginnings of the chapters, he
threw those in."
Following the plan of Chapman and Hall, who issued Dickens's
works in monthly parts in green covers, and of Charles James
Lever's publishers, who brought him out in pink, Bradbury and
Evans published _Vanity Fair_ in yellow-covered numbers dated
January, 1847, to July, 1848, and costing one shilling a part.
The title on these paper covers ran: _Vanity Fair: Pen And
Pencil Sketches Of English Society. By W. M. Thackeray [Two
lines] London: Published At The Punch Office, 85, Fleet
Street. [One line] 1847._, and there was a woodcut vignette.
There are numerous illustrations in the text, and each part
has two plates, etchings, except the last, which has three and
the engraved title-page. The last part as published contained
the title-page, dedication, "Before the Curtain," a preface,
table of contents, and list of plates.
The earliest issues contain, on page 336, a woodcut of the
Marquis of Steyne, which was afterward suppressed, the type
from pages 336 to 440 being shifted to fill the vacancy. In
the first edition, too, the title at the head of Chapter I is
in rustic type.
At first the novel did not sell well; it was even questioned
whether it might not be best to stop its publication. But
later in the year, owing to some cause, perhaps the eulogistic
mention in Miss Brontë's preface to _Jane Eyre_, or, perhaps,
a favorable review in the _Edinburgh Review_, its success
became assured.
Mrs. Carlyle, writing to her husband, says: "Very good indeed,
beats Dickens out of the World."
Octavo.
COLLATION: _xvi, 624 pp. Forty plates, including the engraved
title-page._
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY,
FIRST BARON MACAULAY
(1800-1859)
88. The | History Of England | From | The Accession Of James II. |
By | Thomas Babington Macaulay. | Volume I. | London: | Printed For
| Longman, Brown, Green, And Longmans, | Paternoster-Row. | 1849.
[-1861].
Trevelyan, in his _Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay_, tells
us there was no end to the trouble that the author devoted
to matters which most writers are glad to leave to their
publishers. "He could not rest until the lines were level to a
hair's breadth, and the punctuation correct to a comma; until
every paragraph concluded with a telling sentence, and every
sentence flowed like water."
In a footnote he adds this quotation from one of Macaulay's
letters to Mr. Longman, which, while it referred to the
edition of 1858, is also indicative of his attitude toward
this, the first edition:
"I have no more corrections to make at present. I am inclined
to hope that the book will be as nearly faultless, as to
typographical execution, as any work of equal extent that is
to be found in the world."
He was apprehensive concerning the success of the book. He
writes, "I have armed myself with all my philosophy for the
event of failure," but his fears were groundless.
"The people of the United States," says Trevelyan, "were even
more eager than the people of the United Kingdom to read about
their common ancestors; with the advantage that, from the
absence of an international copyright, they were able to read
about them for next to nothing. On the 4th of April, 1849,
Messrs. Harper, of New York, wrote to Macaulay: 'We beg you
to accept herewith a copy of our cheap edition of your work.
There have been three other editions published by different
houses, and another is now in preparation; so there will be
six different editions in the market. We have already sold
forty thousand copies, and we presume that over sixty thousand
copies have been disposed of. Probably, within three months
of this time, the sale will amount to two hundred thousand
copies. No work, of any kind, has ever so completely taken
our whole country by storm.' An indirect compliment to the
celebrity of the book was afforded by a desperate, and almost
internecine, controversy which raged throughout the American
newspapers as to whether the Messrs. Harper were justified in
having altered Macaulay's spelling to suit the orthographical
canons laid down in Noah Webster's dictionary."
This quotation refers to the first volume. The second volume
came out in the same year, but the third and fourth did
not appear until 1855. Volume five was edited by Macaulay's
sister, Lady Trevelyan, in 1861. It continued the portion of
the History which was fairly transcribed and revised by the
author before his death.
The posthumous appearance of the last volume reminds us of
what Mr. Alexander B. Grosart says in his life of Spenser,
apropos of the promise on the title-page of the _Fairy Queen_
that the work should be in twelve books fashioning twelve
moral virtues:
"Than this splendid audacity I know nothing comparable,
unless Lord Macaulay's opening of his _History of England_,
wherein--without any saving clause, as Thomas Fuller would
have said, of 'if the Lord will'--he pledges himself to write
his great Story down to 'memories' of men 'still living.'"
Octavo.
COLLATION: _Five volumes._
ALFRED TENNYSON,
FIRST BARON TENNYSON
(1809-1892)
89. In Memoriam. | London. | Edward Moxon, Dover Street. | 1850.
In May of the year 1850, _In Memoriam_ was privately printed
for the use of friends, and soon afterward was published
in the present form, at six shillings. A second and third
editions were issued in the same year. They are alike in
all particulars except for the correction of two literal
misprints. Though the book was anonymous, the authorship was
never in doubt.