At our present writing a beautiful new edition, the “Centenary,” is being published.
The moment that the copyrights of the earlier novels expired the market was flooded with cheapreprints; but the Messrs. Black were equal to the occasion. They issued a trade reminder to the public that the edition of 1829 was thoroughly revised by the author, was altered in almost every page and largely augmented by notes, and that it still was copyright, and as a death-blow to the reprints by rival houses they brought out the “sixpenny edition” in monthly volumes, each volume containing a complete tale with all the matter that had appeared in the more expensive editions. Thanks to former stereotypes they were thus enabled to present a series of the cheapest and most valuable books that any house in the country has yet been able to produce. The publication lasted from November, 1866, to November, 1868, and the complete issue consisted of twenty-five volumes, and thus the public were able to purchase for twelve shillings and sixpence what had originally cost upwards of forty pounds. Constable himself in his wildest dreams of cheap publishing never imagined such a marvellous feature as this.
As a proof of their popularity we quote from a contemporary writer in theIllustrated Times, 25th of September, 1867. The writer was travelling down to Wales, and, at the London station, he said, “‘Boy, where are the Scott novels?’ ‘Don’t keep them,’ he replied. ‘Don’t keep them! Why not?’ ‘Because, if we did, we should not sell anything else.’ Here then, to begin with, is a small fact worth reflection. Some of the novels were first published fifty years ago. Can you point out any other series of books, or even any single book, a sixpenny edition of which Mr. Smith would be afraid to lay upon his bookstalls for fear the public might refuse to buy anythingelse?” At every station the writer made the same inquiry and met with the same result.
As through the business talents of the publishers, the printed works of Sir Walter Scott were reduced in price, so through the fame of the author did the autograph remains rise to a very wonderful fictitious value. Mr. Cadell made a remarkable collection of all the manuscripts he could purchase, and on the 9th of July, 1868, his collection was sold for £1073; while even a corrected proof of “Peveril of the Peak” realized £25.
The seventh edition of the “Encyclopædia Britannica” was finished, as we have previously stated, in 1842, and met with, not only an immediate, but also a continuous sale, but human knowledge refuses to be stereotyped, and at the close of 1852 the eighth edition was commenced, occupying nine years in the publication. The proprietors justly claim for it the proud title of “the largest literary enterprise ever undertaken by any single house in Great Britain.” The editorial charge was entrusted to Dr. Thomas Stewart Trail, professor of medical jurisprudence in the University of Edinburgh; and, among the more important new contributors, we may mention Archbishop Whately, Professor Blackie, and Dr. Forbes, the latter of whom contributed a new “Dissertation” to the introductory volume. Lord Macaulay contributed five of the leading biographies “as a token of friendship to the senior proprietor.” “Any article of any value in any preceding edition,” says the editor, “has been reprinted in this—in all cases with corrections, and frequently with considerable additions. Besides these, it has received so great an accession of original contributions, that nine-tenths of its contentsmay be said to be absolutely new,” and this will probably apply with the same force to the ninth edition, which is to be commenced next year.
Long before this date Mr. Adam Black was assisted in his business by his sons. He retired from the house in 1865, and now laden with honours in public, and successes in business, life, he may fairly claim to be the Nestor of publishers. He must have seen many changes in the literary world, and marked many vicissitudes in the “realms of print;” but the changes as far as they operated for him were for the better, and vicissitudes seem invariably to have kept outside his charmed circle.
In the year 1861, a very valuable work—the “Collected Writings of the late Thomas De Quincey”—came into the hands of Messrs. Black; but, as the public are almost entirely indebted to the laborious care and patient perseverance of another publisher, Mr. James Hogg, then of Edinburgh, for the production of this collection, which then consisted of fourteen volumes, we have thought it better that this account should form a kind of supplement to our present chapter.
For a period of about forty years De Quincey had been an extensive contributor to periodical literature, and it is scarcely surprising that, during such a length of time, the sources even where many of his contributions originally appeared had been forgotten, and that the very existence of a few had altogether escaped the author’s recollection. Various attempts had been made to induce De Quincey to draw together and revise a selection from the more important of his scattered writings, but from his varying state of health and, consequent on this, his inveterate habit of procrastination, the work was always postponed; andfrom his advanced years, all hope was given up of the collected works ever appearing under the superintendence of the author.
In the year 1845, the well-known periodical,Hogg’s Instructor, was started under the management and sole responsibility of Mr. Hogg. Sixteen volumes of theInstructoras a weekly serial were published, and among many other contributors of note was the “Opium-Eater,” and from the commencement of their intercourse De Quincey and Mr. Hogg became firm friends.
About this time several volumes of De Quincey’s writings had been collected and published by Messrs. Ticknor and Fields, of Boston, U.S., without, of course, the advantage of the author’s own revisal; and, as the papers had been originally hurriedly written for magazines, and as, during the lapse of time, many changes had become unavoidable, the author felt that, in justice to himself, extensive additions and, in some cases, suppressions were necessary. Arrangements were accordingly entered into for bringing out the collected works at home in a thoroughly revised and amended form, Mr. Hogg undertaking all the responsibility, and engaging to give his aid both in collecting the materials, and in generally seeing the volumes through the press. On the announcement of the publication it was confidently predicted by some of those who had been engaged in the previous attempts that not a single volume would ever appear. In order to afford ample time for the thorough revision of the work it was arranged that the publication should be spread over three years. The first volume appeared in 1853; but, instead of three years bringing the series to a close, eight yearshad elapsed before the thirteenth volume was completed, and then De Quincey died—the remainder of the thirteenth, and the whole of the fourteenth, being due to Mr. Hogg. During these eight years almost daily interviews or correspondence occurred between De Quincey and Mr. Hogg. To use the author’s words, “the joint labour and patient perseverance spent in the preparation of these volumes was something perfectly astounding.” In addition to the frequent and protracted interviews, the correspondence which passed during the progress of the work would fill a goodly volume.
In order to account for the delays which so frequently occurred, De Quincey remarks upon one occasion:—“I suffer from a most afflicting derangement of the nervous system, which at times makes it difficult for me to write at all, and always makes me impatient, in a degree not easily understood, of recasting what may seem insufficiently or even incoherently expressed.” But, while suffering under this cause, he laboured under a daily and more formidable bar to progress, as annoying and perplexing to himself as to others. For many years he had been in the habit of correcting manuscript or of jotting down on loose sheets, more frequently on small scraps of paper, any stray thoughts that occurred to him, intending to use them as occasion might afterwards offer. These papers, however, instead of being methodically arranged and preserved, were carelessly laid aside, and were soon mixed up with letters, proofs, old and new copy, newspapers, periodicals, and other confusing litter, and the numerous volumes he received from literary friends and admirers, all huddled together on chairs, tables,or wherever they at the moment might be stowed. Placing a high value on many things in this heterogeneous mass, and feeling assured in his own mind that strange hands would only render confusion worse confounded, he would allow no one to endeavour to put the things in order. Indeed, if anything could have ruffled his gentle nature into the use of an angry word it would have been the attempt to meddle with these papers. They very rapidly increased, and every search after missing copy or proofs made matters worse. When a dead block occurred his invariable practice was to build them up, as they lay, against the wall of the room, and, as a consequence, everything went astray. A few extracts from notes to Mr. Hogg will show the labour, suffering, and worry which this state of chaos entailed:—“My dear Sir,—It is useless to trouble you with theinsandoutsof the process—the result is, that, working through most part of the night, I have not yet come to the missing copy. I am going on with the search, yet being walled up in so narrow an area (not larger than a postchaise as regards the free space), I work with difficulty, and thestoopingkills me. I greatly fear that the entire day will be spent in the search.”
“Yesterday, suddenly, I missed the interleaved volume. I have been unrolling an immense heap of newspapers, &c., ever since six a.m. How so thick a vol.canhave hidden itself, I am unable to explain.”
“The act ofstoopinghas for many years caused me so much illness, that in this search, all applied to papers lying on the floor, entangled with innumerable newspapers, I have repeatedly been forced to pause. I fear that the seventeen or eighteen missing pages may have been burned suddenly lighting candles;and I am more surprised at finding so many than at missing so few.”
“I am utterly in the dark as to where this paper is—whetherchez moi, orchez la presse(I use French simply as being the briefest way of conveying my doubts). Now mark the difference to me, according to the answer. 1. On the assumption that the paper is inmypossession, then, of course, I will seek till I find it, and no labour will be thrown away. But 2. On the counter assumption that the paper is all the while in the possession of the press, the difference to me would be this: That I should be searching for perhaps half a day, and, as it is manifestly not on my table, I should proceed on the postulate that it must have been transferred to the floor, consequently the work would all be unavoidably a process of stooping, and all labour lost, from which I should hardly recover for a fortnight. This explains to you my earnestness in the matter. Exactly the same doubt applies (and therefore exactly the same dilemma or alternative of stoop or stoop not) to some other papers.”
How keenly De Quincey felt in consequence of these continually recurring delays, the following sentences will show:—“It distracts me to find that I have been constantly working at the wrong part. It is most unfortunate, nor am I able to guess the cause, that I who am rendered seriously unhappy whenever I find or suppose myself to have caused any loss of time to a compositor, whose time is generally his main estate, am yet continually doing so unintentionally and in most cases unconsciously. It seems as if to the very last my destiny were to cause delays.”
The frequency of the communications and personal interviews which occurred during the eight years inwhich the works were in progress may be inferred from the following:—“My dear Sir,—I have been in great anxiety through yesterday and to-day as to the cause of a mysterious interruption of the press intercourse with me. Now, it has happened once before that we were at cross purposes, each side supposing itself stopped by the other. As the easiest way, therefore, of creeping out of the mystery I repeat it to you.”
Notwithstanding the continual interruptions and the difficulty of dragging the volumes through the press, the cordial and friendly feeling which existed between De Quincey and Mr. Hogg was never interrupted by a single jarring word.
Since the fourteen volumes passed into the hands of Messrs. Black, they have added other two volumes, made up of biographies contributed by De Quincey to the “Encyclopædia Britannica,” and a number of papers which remained in Mr. Hogg’s hands.