One evening some literary men were dining together previous to going to
a private house where a number of authors were to give readings from
their books. At the table the talk turned on the carelessness with which
the public reads books. Richard Harding Davis, one of the party,
contended that the public read more carefully than the others believed.
It was just at the time when Du Maurier's Trilby was in every one's
hands.
"Don't you believe it," said one of the diners. "I'll warrant you could
take a portion of some well-known story to-night and palm it off on most
of your listeners as new stuff."
"Done," said Davis. "Come along, and I'll prove you wrong."
The reading was to be at the house of John Kendrick Bangs at Yonkers.
When Davis's "turn" in the programme came, he announced that he would
read a portion from an unpublished story written by himself. Immediately
there was a flutter in the audience, particularly among the younger
element.
Pulling a roll of manuscript out of his pocket, Davis began:
"It was a fine, sunny, showery day in April. The big studio window--"
He got no farther. Almost the entire audience broke into a shout of
laughter and applause. Davis had read thirteen of the opening words of
Trilby.
All publishing houses employ "readers" outside of those in their own
offices for the reading of manuscripts on special subjects. One of these
"outside readers" was given a manuscript for criticism. He took it home
and began its reading. He had finished only a hundred pages or so when,
by a curious coincidence, the card of the author of the manuscript was
brought to the "reader." The men were close friends.
Hastily gathering up the manuscript, the critic shoved the work into a
drawer of his desk, and asked that his friend be shown in.
The evening was passed in conversation; as the visitor rose to leave,
his host, rising also and seating himself on his desk, asked:
"What have you been doing lately? Haven't seen much of you."
"No," said the friend. "It may interest you to know that I have been
turning to literary work, and have just completed what I consider to be
an important book."
"Really?" commented the "reader."
"Yes," went on his friend. "I submitted it a few days ago to one of the
big publishing houses. But, great Scott, you can never tell what these
publishers will do with a thing of that sort. They give their
manuscripts to all kinds of fools to read. I suppose, by this time, some
idiot, who doesn't know a thing of the subject about which I have
written, is sitting on my manuscript."
Mechanically, the "reader" looked at the desk upon which he was sitting,
thought of the manuscript lying in the drawer directly under him, and
said:
"Yes, that may be. Quite likely, in fact."
Of no novel was the secret of the authorship ever so well kept as was
that of The Breadwinners, which, published anonymously in 1883, was the
talk of literary circles for a long time, and speculation as to its
authorship was renewed in the newspapers for years afterward. Bok wanted
very much to find out the author's name so that he could announce it in
his literary letter. He had his suspicions, but they were not well
founded until an amusing little incident occurred which curiously
revealed the secret to him.
Bok was waiting to see one of the members of a publishing firm when a
well-known English publisher, visiting in America, was being escorted
out of the office, the conversation continuing as the two gentlemen
walked through the outer rooms. "My chief reason," said the English
publisher, as he stopped at the end of the outer office where Bok was
sitting, "for hesitating at all about taking an English set of plates of
the novel you speak of is because it is of anonymous authorship, a
custom of writing which has grown out of all decent proportions in your
country since the issue of that stupid book, The Breadwinners."
As these last words were spoken, a man seated at a desk directly behind
the speaker looked up, smiled, and resumed reading a document which he
had dropped in to sign. A smile also spread over the countenance of the
American publisher as he furtively glanced over the shoulder of the
English visitor and caught the eye of the smiling man at the desk.
Bok saw the little comedy, realized at once that he had discovered the
author of The Breadwinners, and stated to the publisher that he intended
to use the incident in his literary letter. But it proved to be one of
those heart-rending instances of a delicious morsel of news that must be
withheld from the journalist's use. The publisher acknowledged that Bok
had happened upon the true authorship, but placed him upon his honor to
make no use of the incident. And Bok learned again the vital
journalistic lesson that there are a great many things in the world that
the journalist knows and yet cannot write about. He would have been
years in advance of the announcement finally made that John Hay wrote
the novel.
At another time, while waiting, Bok had an experience which, while
interesting, was saddening instead of amusing. He was sitting in Mark
Twain's sitting-room in his home in Hartford waiting for the humorist to
return from a walk. Suddenly sounds of devotional singing came in
through the open window from the direction of the outer conservatory.
The singing was low, yet the sad tremor in the voice seemed to give it
special carrying power.
"You have quite a devotional servant," Bok said to a maid who was
dusting the room.
"Oh, that is not a servant who is singing, sir," was the answer. "You
can step to this window and see for yourself."
Bok did so, and there, sitting alone on one of the rustic benches in the
flower-house, was a small, elderly woman. Keeping time with the first
finger of her right hand, as if with a baton, she was slightly swaying
her frail body as she sang, softly yet sweetly, Charles Wesley's hymn,
"Jesus, Lover of My Soul," and Sarah Flower Adams's "Nearer, My God, to
Thee."
But the singer was not a servant. It was Harriet Beecher Stowe!
On another visit to Hartford, shortly afterward, Bok was just turning
into Forrest Street when a little old woman came shambling along toward
him, unconscious, apparently, of people or surroundings. In her hand she
carried a small tree-switch. Bok did not notice her until just as he had
passed her he heard her calling to him: "Young man, young man." Bok
retraced his steps, and then the old lady said: "Young man, you have
been leaning against something white," and taking her tree-switch she
whipped some wall dust from the sleeve of Bok's coat. It was not until
that moment that Bok recognized in his self-appointed "brush" no less a
personage than Harriet Beecher Stowe.
"This is Mrs. Stowe, is it not?" he asked, after tendering his thanks to
her.
Those blue eyes looked strangely into his as she answered:
"That is my name, young man. I live on this street. Are you going to
have me arrested for stopping you?" with which she gathered up her
skirts and quickly ran away, looking furtively over her shoulder at the
amazed young man, sorrowfully watching the running figure!
Speaking of Mrs. Stowe brings to mind an unscrupulous and yet ingenious
trick just about this time played by a young man attached to one of the
New York publishing houses. One evening at dinner this chap happened to
be in a bookish company when the talk turned to the enthusiasm of the
Southern negro for an illustrated Bible. The young publishing clerk
listened intently, and next day he went to a Bible publishing house in
New York which issued a Bible gorgeous with pictures and entered into an
arrangement with the proprietors whereby he should have the Southern
territory. He resigned his position, and within a week he was in the
South. He made arrangements with an artist friend to make a change in
each copy of the Bible which he contracted for. The angels pictured
therein were white in color. He had these made black, so he could show
that there were black angels as well as white ones. The Bibles cost him
just eighty cents apiece. He went about the South and offered the Bibles
to the astonished and open-mouthed negroes for eight dollars each, two
dollars and a half down and the rest in monthly payments. His sales were
enormous. Then he went his rounds all over again and offered to close
out the remaining five dollars and a half due him by a final payment of
two dollars and a half each. In nearly every case the bait was
swallowed, and on each Bible he thus cleared four dollars and twenty
cents net!
Running the elevator in the building where a prominent publishing firm
had its office was a negro of more than ordinary intelligence. The firm
had just published a subscription book on mechanical engineering, a
chapter of which was devoted to the construction and operation of
passenger elevators. One of the agents selling the book thought he might
find a customer in Washington.
"Wash," said the book-agent, "you ought to buy a copy of this book, do
you know it?"
"No, boss, don't want no books. Don't git no time fo' readin' books,"
drawled Wash. "It teks all mah time to run dis elevator."
"But this book will help you to run your elevator. See here: there's a
whole chapter here on elevators," persisted the canvasser.
"Don't want no help to run dis elevator," said the darky. "Dis elevator
runs all right now."
"But," said the canvasser, "this will help you to run it better. You
will know twice as much when you get through."
"No, boss, no, dat's just it," returned Wash. "Don't want to learn
nothing, boss," he said. "Why, boss, I know more now than I git paid
for."
There was one New York newspaper that prided itself on its huge
circulation, and its advertising canvassers were particularly insistent
in securing the advertisements of publishers. Of course, the real
purpose of the paper was to secure a certain standing for itself, which
it lacked, rather than to be of any service to the publishers.
By dint of perseverance, its agents finally secured from one of the
ten-cent magazines, then so numerous, a large advertisement of a special
number, and in order to test the drawing power of the newspaper as a
medium, there was inserted a line in large black type:
"SEND TEN CENTS FOR A NUMBER."
But the compositor felt that magazine literature should be even cheaper
than it was, and to that thought in his mind his fingers responded, so
that when the advertisement appeared, this particular bold-type line
read:
"SEND TEN CENTS FOR A YEAR."
This wonderful offer appealed with singular force to the class of
readers of this particular paper, and they decided to take advantage of
it. The advertisement appeared on Sunday, and Monday's first mail
brought the magazine over eight hundred letters with ten cents enclosed
"for a year's subscription as per your advertisement in yesterday's --."
The magazine management consulted its lawyer, who advised the publisher
to make the newspaper pay the extra ninety cents on each subscription,
and, although this demand was at first refused, the proprietors of the
daily finally yielded. At the end of the first week eight thousand and
fifty-five letters with ten cents enclosed had reached the magazine, and
finally the total was a few over twelve thousand!