Authorship in America

THE United States census, two or three decades ago, in its summary of persons engaged in various occupations included a poet. He lived in Arkansas, if I remember rightly, but may have perished from want, for I have looked in vain for him in later issues of the census reports. I have often thought of him, however, when speculating about the conditions of authorship in America, and have admired the courage with which he made his confession. He was the only poet in America to stand up boldly and be counted. The rest of us sheltered ourselves in the census behind such evasive titles as journalist, or editor, or professor, or, if especially courageous, literary man. Mr. Carlyle, in his celebrated petition, wrote himself down as a maker of books; but every one feels that Mr. Carlyle’s was a case of affected humility and bluntness. If he had had the nerve of the man from Arkansas, he would have subscribed himself a genius, or a man that turns the world upside down.

There is unquestionably a reluctance on the part of all of us, whether poets, or American humorists, or men of general genius, — for since I am not going to sign this paper, I am as bold as Snug the joiner, — there is a reluctance, I say, on our part to be classified. A guild of authors could exist only as a mutual burial society ; though there would seem to be many interests which authors might combine to defend or resist, as a matter of fact there is, I believe, but one literary club in the country which makes the authorship of books a condition of membership, and this Authors’ Club has been derided for its arrogance, as if it were another instance of the three tailors of Tooley Street. When any movement is to be made which affects the whole body of literary men, what member has the boldness to marshal his fellows into any phalanx of remonstrants or petitioners ? Even in the matter of international copyright, the views of authors have been reached only by individual solicitation from publishing houses or trade journals.

The truth is that this individuality of authors, which seems to some to spring from jealousy or a suspicious habit of mind, is an essential characteristic of their vocation, and a necessary result from the material conditions of their profession. There can be an association of artists, with the object to maintain a school of painters, or to conduct an exhibition of paintings ; there can be an historical society to collect materials for history, to discuss and criticise historical writings, and to print papers ; but there cannot be anything more than a social basis for an authors’ league, because the individual interests of every author are vastly greater to him than the combined interests of all authors, but chiefly because there exists for him already a complement organization which no voluntary association with other authors could supply. An author with his manuscript is an incomplete figure ; a hundred authors associated are only a hundred times more incomplete, and the various authors’ unions and publication societies which have attempted to disprove this have invariably proved it.

The devices of authors to get along without publishers have succeeded only so far as authors have abandoned their legitimate function and become publishers, and such successes have merely registered a loss to authorship and a gain to publishing. It would seem a waste of time to demonstrate that in the organization of modern society the author needs a publisher as much as the publisher needs an author, and that each supplies the other’s defects ; but while most would concede this without dispute, there are frequent attitudes taken by one or the other of these two classes which practically deny the proposition. The publisher, for example, is often spoken of as if he were the author’s natural enemy ; and I have heard people make the preposterous remark that the publisher grows rich, while the authors for whom he publishes continue to be poor. Of course he does ; if he is faithful to the interests of the authors, he must, or what would he the meaning of the rule of three ? A publisher with his hundred books ought to be better off for money than each of a hundred authors with one book. Even if it should he capable of proof that he was better off than the hundred authors combined, one would be obliged next to prove that authorship was a trade, of which the prime purpose was to make money.

On the other hand, publishers sometimes speak of my authors very much as they would speak of my employees, or regard every desire of an author to understand his accounts as a breach of confidence, or think and speak of his work as a mere arrangement of words, or imagine that his literary reputation has been made solely by the publisher’s advertisement. There is plenty of room for misunderstanding between a publisher and an author, but the fact remains that the interests of the two are identical ; that in the long run any injury or injustice to the one affects equally the other ; that neither party to the contract can safely ignore the other ; that, in fine, literature and the publishing business are spirit and body.

The publisher, in the last analysis, is neither printer nor bookseller, but advertiser. It is his business to make the author known. He may take a book from the author after it has been printed and bound, and he may never sell a single copy directly to a reader; but the one function which he cannot rid himself of is that of making the book known to the world, — of publishing it. But to publish a book with intelligence one must know something about the book, and a great deal about the public; he must know the various avenues by which the public eye and ear are to be reached, and he must possess that power of organization and executive ability which will bring the author face to face with a great number of persons scattered all over the land. When one adds to this that the publisher, in the highest development, includes the manufacturer and the merchant, it is easily seen how much may go to the success of a publishing house. When a business like that of publishing becomes thus highly organized, it is also highly sensitive to all manner of influences ; and the more complex it becomes, the more perfectly is it able to correspond to the needs of the author.

It is one of the commonplaces of historical philosophy that the literature of a people is the highest expression of its character and genius. But what is a book ? In one aspect, it is a bundle of sheets of paper, stamped with little characters, sewed together, put between covers of pasteboard dressed in cloth. It can be used to build block houses with, as a missile, to raise the seat at the piano, to set off a cabinet of shelves ; but for all these purposes a block of wood or a bit of stamped leather would be more serviceable. Then it is a power, a spirit, a friend, something altogether imponderable and immeasurable. Now it is in this double property of the material and the immaterial that we are constantly compelled to consider books when we legislate about them or determine their conditions. Into the making and selling of them go an infinite variety of industries and organizations and a network of social order ; the fortunes of books are constantly subject to influences which extend from a machine to a solitary scholar, and in the decisions made with regard to them there is necessitated an equilibrium of the two natures involved in them.

A few years ago an effort was made by some persons to change the ad valorem duty on imported books to a specific duty, of a certain rate per pound, and great was the derision at such a mechanical test; yet it was not more arbitrary than the test of price, and much more convenient and desirable for the purposes of impost. By a comparison of fair typical cases, it was found that a measurement of books by weight would yield, at twenty-five cents a pound, just about the same revenue as the existing tariff of twenty-five per cent, ad valorem, if that duty were honestly collected ; and every one knows that where a specific duty is practicable it cannot be evaded, as an ad valorem duty can be.

I speak of this only as illustrating in an extreme way the fact that books are capable of being treated not merely as pieces of merchandise, but upon the basis of their most material properties. Indeed, every one who deals in books is constantly confronted by the fact that the price is largely determined by the weight and size of the book, and not by its beauty, the character of its contents, or the money and labor which have been put into it. It is impossible to escape from the most gross conditions, when considering the fortune of books. As articles of commerce, as related to mechanical industries, they are subject to the laws which govern in commerce and manufacture, and no wise student of literature can ignore these facts when he is inquiring into the influences which affect authorship or reading.

The publisher and manufacturer of books does not call the author into existence, neither does the author make the publisher ; but both act upon each other by turns, for both are parts of an intricate order. The publisher is the first to feel the conditions which affect the market for books, but he is very quick to communicate these influences to the author. In a general way, one readily sees that in what are called good times the publisher will encourage the author to produce, and in hard times will discourage him when he brings his manuscript. There are winds and tides in human affairs which are beyond the reach either of individuals or of classes, but there are also movements which are under control ; and certainly it is the part of a wise man to forecast the effect of these movements, and to guide them if he can.

An instance occurred lately which illustrates my subject. In the revision of the tariff it was proposed to remove the existing duty upon imported books. The proposition was received favorably both in and out of Congress. Knowledge was to be free, at least English knowledge was, and a relic of barbarism unworthy of an enlightened nation was to be swept away. Many publishers, however, and with them a few authors, united in a remonstrance against the removal of the duty, and Congress finally declined to alter the tariff on this point. This remonstrance was characterized as a piece of selfishness on the part of the publishers, and of timidity or folly on the part of the authors, who were treated with a delicious arrogance by the censors of literature and morals. It was supposed that those persons who had given honorable thought to literature, and had, indeed, in the homely phrase, made it their business to write books, were quite incapable of understanding a few simple laws of economy and their effect upon literature and authors.

There are always people who imagine themselves about to live in a world which they have prearranged upon a scientific basis. It is indeed base to say that imagination is lacking in America so long as there are theorists who manufacture entire systems of social life upon the foundation of a few simple principles ; but theorists in government, in finance, in economy, while they have plenty of room in America, are not the rulers. The tariff, whether it be a weed or a serviceable plant, has very long roots, and there are few people so sanguine as to think that it can be pulled up forcibly, and leave no derangement behind. What, for example, would be the effect were the tariff on books to be removed ? That is the question which any reasonable legislator might ask before he voted to remove it, and I think he would be the wisest congressman who took the widest range in his inquiry. It would be easy to show that the mercantile interests involved were pitifully small when compared with the iron or wool interests, but it would be easier to trace the connection between the lower and the higher interests than it would be in the case of those industries.

I think the matter might be stated in a series of propositions ; at any rate, by choosing this form I guard myself against the temptation to fly off into generalities, and I make the way plain for any one who has already ranged himself on the other side of the question to demolish my positions. For convenience, I use those which formed the text of the remonstrance made by certain authors ; for I am not considering the matter from the publishers’ side, except as they have common concern with the authors. These writers, then, based their objection to a removal of the duty on these grounds : —

First, that the prosperity of authors is closely connected with the prosperity of publishers, who are their agents in manufacturing, advertising, and selling the books which they write.

This is a harmless-looking sentence, and as I have already treated the matter in a sufficiently elementary way, I think I need not detain the reader with any expansion of so reasonable a statement, but go on to

Second, that American books demand American publishers, and whatever seriously checks the business of publishing checks the freedom of writing.

The latter part of this proposition would appear to be the corollary of that with which the remonstrance led off, but the former part introduces a new member. Is it especially necessary that books written by Americans should be published by Americans ? Why not go to the publisher who can give the books the widest circulation, whether in America or England ; or why not go to the publisher who can pay the heaviest royalty, whether in America or England ? I do not know that such questions would be seriously asked ; and yet if it should prove that American authors could gain substantially by employing English publishers for both countries, it would indicate an uneven state of affairs. The relation between author and publisher is natural and organic, not mechanical ; they are complementary to each other, as I have before said, and until one has rid himself of all relation to his country he cannot separate himself from so constituent a part of the order in which he lives. It would certainly be an anomalous condition if an author, writing, as he cannot help writing, mainly for readers in his own country, should employ a foreign agent to help him find these readers. I do not believe such a state of affairs will ever be brought about, because I do not believe that nationality is going to give way to universality ; but if it were to be, the first step would be taken when the American publisher had been divorced by his partner.

Third, that the removal or essential reduction of the existing tariff on books would give the foreign publisher an advantage over the American publisher, by enabling him to occupy the American market with books written and made abroad at a lower rate than they can be made in this country.

This statement looks to a simple commercial fact. It assumes books to be purely objects of merchandise, subject to the laws which govern merchandise. It assumes that the publisher who can make books cheaper than his neighbor, and at the same time deprive them of no essential value, will hold the market, it assumes that a book is a book, and it almost eliminates the element of authorship. Under these assumptions, it maintains that in the competition American publishers, unless protected by a duty of twenty-five per cent. on English goods, would suffer seriously. The whole proposition is so degrading to ordinary intelligence that it needs close examination. Is it true that a book is a book ? A clerical friend of mine, who knows books which are books, went into a bookstore one day, and asked, —

“ Have you a copy of Bossuet ? ”

“ No,” was the prompt reply, “ but we have Balzac.” That young man knew how to keep store. He missed his customer this time, but he answered by rule, and knew that nine out of ten chance buyers would have taken another French book by an author whose name began with B, if the one they had heard of was not to be had. The truth is that the cultivated few, who buy a book in current literature because they know about the author, do not make the great public that supports bookstores. That is made of people who want something to read, — the latest, freshest, cheapest book, — and of people who have serious intentions towards classic authors. The very men who have most to do with the distribution of literature — the booksellers — buy their stock with reference to its saleworthiness, and to the margin of profit between the buying and selling price ; and they know that, with the exception of a few books by men of worldwide note and a few that are immediately advertised in an extensive way, a pound of books is a pound of books, and the public at large buys by the pound, and wants its money’s worth.

To particularize : There are two great classes of books which are bought and sold as merchandise under the common laws which affect trade. One is a class made up of a few works so individual that the author gives the entire value to the property ; the other, of a great multitude of works, where the author’s name, when known, scarcely affects the value of the property at all. The former of these classes goes by the name of standard books, and is a very important element in the publishing business. The publisher has no power to add to their number ; he cannot, by his dictum, determine that a hook shall be standard : the world and time do that for him. He only looks on, and as a servant of the public sees that they are never left in want. Now the element of speculation, which is never absent from new books, need scarcely be present when books which have stood the test of time are concerned. There the problem is a simple one. Can the publisher give a better, more marketable edition of a standard book than his neighbor ? Can he bring out a peculiar excellency which will stamp his edition as the most desirable, or can he produce a cheaper book for the size ? He has not to create a demand, but to satisfy it. The bookseller is constantly applied to by the publisher to buy from him his Shakespeare, or his Scott, or Thackeray, or Dickens, or Macaulay, or Milton. There are more than sixty editions of the Pilgrim’s Progress published in America, at prices ranging from six cents to fifteen dollars.

The latter of the two classes of which I have spoken goes by the name of juvenile books, and it constitutes one of the bulkiest parts of the publishing business. There are many modest persons engaged in the writing of these books, and the proportion of anonymous or pseudonymous titles is larger, it may safely be said, than in any other order of literature. The author’s name has comparatively little to do with the fortune of juveniles. Of course, here and there an author’s name has a great significance, especially when he has already made his reputation in a higher class of literature, and then his juvenile book gets lifted out of the crowd ; but, in the main, the publisher and the bookseller know that the sales are determined by a few simple considerations. They both know that the public will buy the showiest, most attractive books, and those which seem to give the most for the money ; that the question of home or foreign production, whether in authorship or manufacture, scarcely weighs a feather with the public ; and that pictures and binding determine most confidently the fate of any one book. The publisher keeps in mind also the important fact that the bookseller will buy these goods of the person who will give him the most favorable discount. The great individuality of standard books, the absence of individuality in juvenile books, alike throw the burden of these two great classes upon the publisher, and it is the conditions which he can control that make the books successful or unsuccessful.

Now the practical effect of this state of things is that the English publisher goes to the bookseller with these two classes of books, the standard and the juvenile, and sells them to him at better rates than the American publisher can. It is a fact, and not a theory, that for the last few years the English books in these two departments have been steadily pushing American ones to the wall, and the more far-sighted American publishers have maintained that the tariff of twenty-five per cent, is the only serious obstacle to a pretty full occupation of the American market ; that were this tariff to be removed, or greatly lowered, the English publisher would have an advantage which distance from the market and the cost of freight would not materially lessen.

Can English books, then, be made cheaper than American ? Yes. First, because the American manufacturer is already heavily taxed in all the duties laid upon the materials which enter into the production of a book. Second, because, while the American has the advantage in machinery, ninety per cent. of the cost of electrotype plates — the investment of a book — is in hand labor, and hand labor in England is much lower than in America. Third, because the plant of book manufacture in England is so extensive, so highly organized, and so wealthy, that, with a great market in addition to their own, English publishers can afford to produce books at a smaller margin of profit on each copy than is possible among manufacturers whose earnings have not yet paid for the newer plant.

But granting all this, one may impatiently ask, Why not buy Shakespeare in an English edition, if it be better and cheaper ; and why not buy English books for the young, if they are prettier ? The answer, for my purposes, is suggested by the last two propositions in the authors’ remonstrance, and so I give them together : —

“ Fourth, that the effect will be to force American publishers into the publication of those copyright books only whose reputation has already been made, or of those which serve professional uses, as reports of courts and school books. Fifth, that higher literature will be discouraged,and that the greatest volume of current literature, which is in the form of reading for the young, will be guided by foreign authors, instead of by men and women of their own nation.”

That is to say, if publishers were to be crowded out of the market in the field of what is known as miscellaneous and juvenile books, from inability to make any profit in them, they would give their attention to those books in the publication of which they are protected. Such protection exists in the case of copyright books, whose reputation has already been made ; it exists also in the case of books which are not properly literature, but rather the intellectual tools required by students and professional workers, and can best be made by those who are brought into close connection with the persons who use them. But the contraction of the publishing business means the restriction of experiments in literature, and the pursuit of a conservative policy on the part of publishers toward the beginners in authorship. A broad industrial basis is requisite for successful ventures in newer fields. If the effect of legislation were to cut off from American publishers the manufacture and sale of standard uncopyright books, and of juvenile books of home origin, then, so far, such legislation would be a blow at American authorship, not of juvenile books merely, but of all new contributions to literature.

As a specific illustration of this point, it is worth while to note that the rates of payment for copyright on books for the young arc notoriously lower than for copyright on books in general literature. The reason is easily stated. The publisher has to give a much larger discount to the dealer than on other books, and the margin of profit is smaller. But why does he have to give larger discounts ? Because the competition is closer, owing to the impersonal character of this literature, and to the great tide of English books.

I have been drawn away somewhat from my immediate subject by this study of a special illustration, but I am not sorry if it has served to emphasize the statement that authorship in America is so closely identified with publishing enterprise as to be sensitive to the same influences. The truth is that publishing in America is more nearly allied with professional life than with trade, and it is likely that the relations between publishers and authors will grow closer, and partake more of a partnership character, than heretofore. The publisher has been the author’s servant, and he has been the author’s employer. I think that a more natural and a more honorable connection is steadily forming. As one indication of an elevation of the business, I have little hesitation in saying that there are more men who have received a collegiate education now engaged in the publishing business in America than there are in the ranks of men of letters.

It is not surprising that this is so. The demands made upon publishers in this country are of a kind to test them severely, and to make the important prizes come within the grasp of those only who are capable of large and comprehensive views. There is a vast territory in which to operate ; an innumerable throng of readers ; no compact educated class ; no distinctive and authoritative organs of opinion or information ; a great number of small centres; a scattering, and not a concentration, of forces. All these conditions, taken with the details involved in publishing, the large capital required in proportion to the business done, the speculative nature of the business, and the constant presence of a highly organized foreign competition, working indeed from a distant base, but with the distance yearly lessening under the applications of science, — these conditions, I say, tend to discourage the smaller publishers, and to build up a few great houses. It is a matter of fact that within ten years past there has been scarcely an addition to the list of publishing houses.

The effect of all this is to throw the initiative of literature more and more into the hands of the publishers. I am speaking, of course, of such literature as can be deliberately planned. In the matter of the highest literature, it can be said that, so far as publishers occupy a middle ground between commercial and professional lines, they have it in their power to perceive the presence of genius, and to give it a chance ; to detect the absence of genius and to put obstacles in the way of its encumbering literature. The main province, however, of publishing enterprise is in the field of that great body of literature which has to do with knowledge ; and here the higher organization of the publishing business means the greater opportunity for authorship. The publisher who has developed the industrial and distributing part of his business is compelled to do more than select from the works which are offered to him ; he must shape the course of his business at its source as well as at its outlet, and invite certain books as well as judge those which come without solicitation.

It is this function of the publisher which may be watched with the liveliest interest. I am inclined to think that it is destined to be largely developed in America, and that the most thoroughly equipped publishing houses are to be great centres of intellectual force ; collecting the scattered powers of literature, and redistributing them in ordered form. In this respect more is to be hoped from them than from the universities. Authorship and university life are not nearly so closely connected as authorship and publishing. The effect, indeed, of university life upon authorship is on the whole a repressive one. The university man is undermined by his disposition to perfect his work, and by the air of criticism which prevails about him. He is too near a few readers and critics, and too remote from the many readers, to work either with freedom, or with the stimulus which great movements of life give to him. The very limitations of a scholastic life are unfavorable to the man of letters. He is constantly tempted, in the routine of that life, to refine indefinitely and to lose the large purposes of literature.

Yet the university might well range itself among the forces which are to stimulate and control letters in America. I can see no good reason why it should not ally itself with publishing houses in the organization of literature. It has funds for the encouragement of students ; why should it not have funds for the encouragement of learning? It need not have its bookstore or printing office, nor need it engage in the business of publishing ; but it may fairly put its seal upon a translation of Aristotle, or a thoroughly edited and complete series of the writings of Washington.

The close connection which exists between author and publisher compels us to ask what are the author’s proprietary rights, by which he is enabled to meet the publisher on even grounds ? The copyright laws give him control of his writings for a period of twenty-eight years, with a right to renew for fourteen years at the end of the first period. For forty-two years, then, the author has peculiar property in a book ; after that he has no legal right, and however honorable his own publisher may be, both author and publisher are at the mercy of any rogue who may choose to publish a book, the copyright of which has expired. The period of forty-two years is too short for reasonable protection. Books published by an author when he is under thirty are taken away from him just when he most needs the income from them. For example, I published a book when I was twenty-four years old ; it. continues to bring me in a yearly return. I am already looking forward to my sixty-sixth year ; but when that time comes the investment which I made in my youth will be nearly worthless to me, and I shall be grinding out work when I ought to be engaged only in writing in autograph albums. Besides, it is unreasonable to compel an author to remember when the twenty-eighth birthday of each of his books comes round, with a penalty of losing his property in them if he forgets it. No ; a fairer law would be one which gave an author a hundred years’ right in his book. The valueless books would be no more valuable if they enjoyed a perpetual copyright ; but if a book has vitality enough to last fortytwo years it may fairly hope to live a hundred, and after that, if it is still alive, it ought to be everybody’s property. I am communist enough for that.

In considering the material conditions of authorship in America, it is impossible to leave out of account the absence of an international copyright. It has a great deal more to do with literature than a tariff on books has ; and since, when the tariff was in danger, a few authors came forward and lent a hand to their partners, I think it would be a retort courteous if the publishers were to show a little more diligence in securing such an international copyright as authors have been individually calling for any time these fast forty years. Upon the plane of commerce it is clear that the conditions for free trade in literature are much sounder now than they ever have been. In the exchange of literary wares there is a closer approach to even terms. Upon the higher ground of the recognition of rights, it is to be hoped that the nation is prepared to treat its own authors with dignity, even if it be indifferent to the fortunes of foreigners. The assumption in copyright is that the nation has a final proprietorship in its literature ; it grants a monopoly for a term as an encouragement and protection to its authors. Very well ; let it take a step in advance by extending that copyright in time to a hundred years, and by extending it in space so as to make it cover English speaking countries. But it cannot do this last without reciprocity, and of all the methods proposed I know of none so simple as the change of the copyright law by which persons and not citizens may take out copyright, with the condition that prior publication be made in this country ; but such priority need be no more than a day.

Yet when I begin to think of international copyright, my mind always flies back to the immensely larger interests involved in national copyright. The American author who secures a hearing in England has first found his audience in this country. The English sometimes please themselves with the complacent notion that American literature exists after it has been indorsed in England. The notion does them no harm, and it amuses us. Perhaps we have sometimes imagined that we have made the reputation of English authors. Really, an author is made out of much the same stuff as his readers. I have suggested that the university may render needed help to authors engaged upon work which promises little pecuniary return, but the system of schools which prevails, with variations upon one common plan, throughout the United States offers a more important aid to authorship in America by supplying readers. It is the absence of a class of readers which has affected the conditions of authorship here; it is the presence of a nation of readers which ought to affect those conditions still more powerfully. The immediate outlook is not especially encouraging. We have, no doubt, a vast body of people who can read, but their reading is largely confined to newspapers. The lever to raise this mass of indifferent readers is to be found in the system which has hitherto formed them. The introduction of a high order of literature into the common schools is a movement which has begun, and if it be carried forward will have more effect upon authorship in America than all other causes combined. It has not been possible hitherto, because there has been no native literature at the service of the schools. Now, the accumulation of a body of prose and poetry, with its origin in national life, has become a substantial foundation upon which a love of literature may be built. It is difficult tor the older readers in America to-day to comprehend the significance of the change which is going on. They drew their literary impulses quite as much from foreign as from native sources. It is not so with the young people of today. They find already existing a body of American classics, and unless I misread the signs of the times these books are to have a profound influence in the education of Americans. They are to constitute the humane letters of the common school, and it is impossible to measure the power which they will exert in enlarging and lifting the mental life of the people.

So far as authors are concerned, the effect, as I have said, will be to give them more readers. The gracious lives of the elder American writers will pass into the fortunes of the younger men, not only by the direct influence of their thought and art, but through the indirect service which they have rendered to noble literature. It was theirs to make this literature at home in America, and a familiarity with it is to be one of the great conservative forces in American life. There will always be more room and welcome for authors in America, because these have become permanent guests. After all, when one sums up the conditions of authorship in America to-day, is not the final and comprehensive one to be found in the existence of America itself ? I mean an America which stands for a distinct, resolute power in history, having its own organic life, planted between the great oceans, hospitable to all influences. There are not wanting signs of a conscious life which breathes through literature : the new and ardent devotion to our own history is one sign ; the disposition to make fresh examinations of foreign life and ancient literature is another. One may easily stray away from the material conditions of authorship in any such survey, and my wish has been chiefly to inquire into some of those material conditions ; but authorship has a way of trying to catch a breath of the upper air. It has indeed feet of clay, but it lifts a golden head.