to the readers who say they do not read serials.
The multitude of these is not great, and if an author
rested his hopes upon their favor he would be a much
more imbittered man than he now generally is.
But he understands perfectly well that his reward
is in the serial and not in the book; the return from
that he may count as so much money found in the road—a
few hundreds, a very few thousands, at the most, unless
he is the author of an historical romance.
I doubt, indeed, whether the earnings of literary
men are absolutely as great as they were earlier in
the century, in any of the English-speaking countries;
relatively they are nothing like as great. Scott
had forty thousand dollars for ‘Woodstock,’
which was not a very large novel, and was by no means
one of his best; and forty thousand dollars then had
at least the purchasing power of sixty thousand now.
Moore had three thousand guineas for ‘Lalla
Rookh,’ but what publisher would be rash enough
to pay fifteen thousand dollars for the masterpiece
of a minor poet now? The book, except in very
rare instances, makes nothing like the return to the
author that the magazine makes, and there are few
leading authors who find their account in that form
of publication. Those who do, those who sell
the most widely in book form, are often not at all
desired by editors; with difficulty they get a serial
accepted by any principal magazine. On the other
hand, there are authors whose books, compared with
those of the popular favorites, do not sell, and yet
they are eagerly sought for by editors; they are paid
the highest prices, and nothing that they offer is
refused. These are literary artists; and it ought
to be plain from what I am saying that in belles-lettres,
at least, most of the best literature now first sees
the light in the magazines, and most of the second-best
appears first in book form. The old-fashioned
people who flatter themselves upon their distinction
in not reading magazine fiction or magazine poetry
make a great mistake, and simply class themselves
with the public whose taste is so crude that they
cannot enjoy the best. Of course, this is true
mainly, if not merely, of belles-lettres; history,
science, politics, metaphysics, in spite of the many
excellent articles and papers in these sorts upon what
used to be called various emergent occasions, are
still to be found at their best in books. The
most monumental example of literature, at once light
and good, which has first reached the public in book
form is in the different publications of Mark Twain;
but Mr. Clemens has of late turned to the magazines
too, and now takes their mint-mark before he passes
into general circulation. All this may change
again, but at present the magazines—we
have no longer any reviews form the most direct approach
to that part of our reading public which likes the
highest things in literary art. Their readers,
if we may judge from the quality of the literature
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