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    Sir,—May I be allowed to call attention ...

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    Besant Sir ' , s — pamp If your hlet rea...

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    Sib,,—Archdeacon Farrar, in his reply to...

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  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    »Vt Authors And Publishers.

    this particular book . Again we leave your readers to jud « l ge O whether there was anythin « f g Oinequitable A ,

    in a bargain which had results such as these for the author . A third work was also written by Archdeacon

    Farrar for us . This was ' The Early Days of Christianity / We agreed to pay him the same terms as for the ' Life of St . Paul / He received

    £ 2 , 000 on writing the book , and it is only because this work has failed to attain the success of his earlier books that — the —— — additional — — royalty — ^ z i / paid ^ —to

    him has amounted to the comparatively small sum of £ 400 . We have thought it . only justboth to

    ourselves and to Archdeacon Q-y ^ ^ ^ Farrar ^ , j , to give an explicit statement of our relations with him as publishers ¦ b - —— - - and - ^— can onl f y repeat that we ¦» leave ¦¦ - your

    ^ readers — — to , ^ p jud — —— ge — — —^» whether - ^ —*~ —* * - ^^^ " ^^ " ~~ » ^ " ^ the ^^ P » W *^ P" ^ PPP" ^ PPP *^ P » heated ^ P ^ ^ P » - ^™^^ - ^ ~™ - — ~» - language « - ^ ppr - ^^— ~^»* ^^ - - ^ j ~^ pr he — — used to ourselves at the Church . Congress has any application

    We are , Sir , your obedient servants , Cassell & Company ( Limited ) .

    La Belle Sauvage , Ludgate Hill , E . C ., Oct . 7 .

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    II 1354 The Publishers' Circular Oct . 15 , 1890

    Sir,—May I Be Allowed To Call Attention ...

    Sir , —May I be allowed to call attention to a point which has been curiously overlooked by Messrs . Cassell in writing to you this morning ?

    The firm might , had they chosen , have taken their stand on the letter of the agreement . If a man undertakes , in any kind of businessto execute

    a certain piece of work for a certain sum , of money , there is nothing more to be said . The agreement must be kept j .. But Messrs . Cassell & Co . have

    not done this . They have taken a much higher and a more honourable line . They admit , by the words of their letter and by their recorded action

    in the case , the principle that in literature , as in everything else , the producer should be paid in proportion to the value of his work . Therefore

    they made , over and above the letter of their agreement , various additional payments to the distinguished author ( not , as they say , unknown

    at the time ) from whom they had acquired a very valuable property . On this principle also they advanced the paymentfor the second bookfrom

    , , £ 500 , offered originally for the first , to £ 2 , 000—a very considerable leap . Messrs . Cassell & c Co . have published in your

    columns—I assume , with the consent of the author —the figures belonging to one side of the transaction . They ask whether there could be '

    any-¦ ¦ thing ^ inequitable m . m ^ in m a bargain v pm which pm a « had « ^ results ^ such as these for the authors . ' Here is the point which they have overlooked .

    Equity regards both sides of a transaction . It is for not B enoug to tell h , when the world A and what B do A business has made together out of ,

    it ; he must also tell the world what he himself sides has made are give out n of it it is . impossible Unless the even figures to consider on both

    the question of , equity . W lete ill , the therefore statement , Messrs of the . case Cassell ? We & shall Co . comp

    require of each ( 1 book ) the ; gross ( 2 ) amount the exact received actual by the cost sales of producing—i . e . printingbindingpaperand

    engraving—each , book ; ( 3 , ) the exact , and actual , sum sums spent paid in to advertising the author the — book but ; this ( 4 ) the we various know

    determined already ; and bsubtraction ( 5 ) the amount from , the which above can data be realised by the y house . The world will then be ,

    in equity a positio of the n to transaction consider . the question as to the ¦ Speaking aa « w *^^ one 1 who i « - « -v simp ~ "n ~ " ly read the Arch « aa

    -^^^^^™ ^^*^*!* ' wm ^ r % Jv ^ mva * ' % ' * deacon KT ' s speech ^ f ^ in your columns Tf J , I may , say that \/ 4 MY — i -j - n . .. ; i jj . | i .. f * trm—* - ! ¦

    Sir,—May I Be Allowed To Call Attention ...

    it did not occur to me that his words had anything to do with the publishers of his own books .

    As for the strength of these words , no words the could knaves be too and strong sweaters to be who employed infest concerning the shad y

    side of publishing , as those who work for this society I have remain had Sir every opportunity obedient servan of discovering t . your

    , , Walter Besant , ChairmanExecutive Committee , . The Society of Authors ( Incorporated , ) , 4 Portugal ,

    Street , Lincoln ' s-inn Fields , W . C ., ( Jot . 8 .

    Besant Sir ' , S — Pamp If Your Hlet Rea...

    Besant Sir ' , s — pamp If your hlet readers on ' The will Literary refer to Mr Handmaid . Walter

    of the Church / they will see on pp . 7 , 8 the passages lishers ' which about I * quoted knavish . ' But and now sweating that Messrs pub- .

    and Cassell to tell have the thoug world ht that it necessary they gave to me write £ 2 , 005 to you for the editions 37 library of the editions 4 Life of and Christ very ' will numerous they tell other the

    world I did also not what ( as they they gained assert ) protest b , y that against book ? 4 the iniquity of advertising ' but against . rudefalse

    and immoral advertising , . I had nothing , to do , with their mode of advertising my book . It was to - me altogether distasteful ; and why do they

    C ? ' w •/ not say that 20 years ago I wrote to request them to abandon one of their methods of advertising it , which _ seemed — _ — _ to me vulgar ^ j and unworth . y ^? I

    have published during nearly 40 years with Messrs . A . & C . Black , Messrs . Macmillan , Messrs— . Longman — — — - ^^ , Mr . Murray , , the manager cz ? of

    the University Press , Messrs . Isbister , and others . They all possess my confidence , gratitude , and esteem .

    It is most painful to me to be rudely forced into these personal matters . I protested in my paper AAO . against things O notoriously *> wrong » J . I saicl

    no word to pain the * thousands ' or ' tens of thousands' of honest traders , whose integrity anjl honour — I acknowled — _ ged fJ at _ . the very outset .

    Your obedient servant ^ , F . W . Farrar .

    Athenseum Club , Pall Mall , S . W ., Oct . 8 .

    Sib,,—Archdeacon Farrar, In His Reply To...

    Sib ,, —Archdeacon Farrar , in his reply to my letter tion' of with the 7 m th isst , charges ating me its with whole * misrepresenta purpose' ( of

    -, his speech ) , with * omitting sentences which showed that its objects were entirely different from what he states , ' with * attributing «_ Jto him

    sentences which he was avowedly by name quoting from others , ' with * picking out words apart from the context which explained their bearing' and with a ' free use of unworthy

    personalities , My answer is , the authority upon which I wrote my letter is the report in the Times of Saturday last , to which I referred , and

    in answer to the foregoing I submit my letter to be tested by that report , and I challenge Archdeacon Farrar to substantiate thereby any one of

    the charges he has so freely made . Everything of the nature of * insinuation' is contained in his letter this morning c ~ j , and fro , m which my i ,

    letter is wholly and completely free . Messrs . Cassell ' s letter is what might have been expected—it is a direct denial of the grossly

    extravagant charge made by the Archdeacon against the publishing world . But it does more —it again shows how extremely dangerous it is

    for those who live in glass houses to throw sjtones . The professed object of the Venerable Archdeacon -- mi Farrar ¦¦¦ » ' s f speech rspr vtpt was « i bi tQ ¦*•¦ ™*\ show ¦ ¦ ¦ - the - — ~ - 3 emo -w- —~ - ¦ -

    — — --p ^ - ^^ ^ ** r ij— vpppv wp ^ nw ** p" *~ - ^ * ^^ - ^^ ^ n * ""^ p . ^ w p » " ^ pp • — - ^ -j — ralising oupidity of human nature , and how ,

• Citation
  • Publishers’ Circular (1880-1890), Oct. 15, 1890, page 1354, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/pc/issues/tec_15101890/page/16/