Letters on International Copyright Part 4

Kendall's Expedition to Santa Fe 1 25 40,000

Lynch's Expedition to the Dead Sea, 8vo. $3 00 15,000

" " 2mo. 1 25 8,000

Western Scenes 2 50 14,000

Young's Science of Government 1 00 12,000

Seward's Life of John Quincy Adams. 1 00 30,000

Frost's Pictorial History of the World, 3 vols. 2 50 60,000

Sparks' American Biography, 25 vols 75 100,000

Encyclopaedia Americana, 14 vols. 2 00 280,000

Griswold's Poets and Prose Writers of America, 3 vols. 3 00 21,000

Barnes' Notes on the Gospels, Epistles, &c., 11 vols. 75 300.000

Aiken's Christian Minstrel, in two years. 62 40,000

Alexander on the Psalms, 3 vols. 1 17 10,000

Buist's Flower Garden Directory 1 25 10,000

Cole on Fruit Trees. 50 18,000

" Diseases of Domestic Animals 50 34,000

Downing's Fruits and Fruit Trees. 50 15,000

" Rural Essays. 3 50 3,000

" Landscape Gardening. 3 50 9,000

" Cottage Residences. 2 00 6,250

" Country Homes. 4 00 3,500

Mahan's Civil Engineering. 3 00 7,500

Leslie's Cookery and Receipt-books. 1 00 96,000

Guyot's Lectures on Earth and Man. 1 00 6,000

Wood and Bache's Medical Dispensatory 5 00 60,000

Dunglison's Medical Writings, in all 10 vols. 2 50 50,000

Pancoast's Surgery, 4to. 10 00 4,000

Rayer, Ricord, and Moreau's Surgical Works (translations). 15 00 5,500

Webster's Works, 6 vols. 2 00 46,800

Kent's Commentaries, 4 vols. 3 38 84,000

Next to Chancellor Kent's work comes Greenleaf on Evidence, 3 vols., $16.50; the sale of which has been exceedingly great, but what has been its extent, I cannot say.

Of Blatchford's General Statutes of New York, a local work, price $4.50, the sale has been 3,000; equal to almost 30,000 of a similar work for the United Kingdom.

How great is the sale of Judge Story's books can be judged only from the fact that the copyright now yields, and for years past has yielded, more than $8,000 per annum. Of the sale of Mr. Prescott's works little is certainly known, but it cannot, I understand, have been less than 160,000 volumes. That of Mr. Bancroft's History, has already risen, certainly to 30,000 copies, and I am told it is considerably more; and yet even that is a sale, for such a work, entirely unprecedented.

Of the works of Hawthorne, Longfellow, Bryant, Willis, Curtis, Sedgwick, Sigourney, and numerous others, the sale is exceedingly great; but, as not even an approximation to the true amount can be offered, I must leave it to you to judge of it by comparison with those of less popular authors above enumerated. In several of these cases, beautifully ill.u.s.trated editions have been published, of which large numbers have been sold. Of Mr. Longfellow's volume there have been no less than ten editions. These various facts will probably suffice to satisfy you that this country presents a market for books of almost every description, unparalleled in the world.

In reflecting upon this subject, it is necessary to bear in mind that the monopoly, granted to authors and their families, is for the term of no less than forty-two years, and that in that period the number of persons subjected to it is likely to grow to little short of a hundred millions, with a power of consumption that will probably be ten times greater than now exists. If the Commentaries of Chancellor Kent continue to maintain their present position, as they probably will, may we not reasonably suppose that the demand for them will continue as great, or nearly so, as it is at present, and that the total sale during the period of copyright will reach a quarter of a million of volumes? So, too, of the histories of Bancroft and Prescott, and of other books of permanent character.

Such being the extent of the market for the products of literary labor, we may now inquire into its rewards.

Beginning with the common schools, we find a vast number of young men and young women acting as teachers of others, while qualifying themselves for occupying other places in life. Many of them rise gradually to become teachers in high schools and professors in colleges, while all of them have at hand the newspaper, ready to enable them, if gifted with the power of expressing themselves on paper, to come before the world. The numerous newspapers require editors and contributors, and the amount appropriated to the payment of this cla.s.s of the community is a very large one. Next come the magazines, many of which pay very liberally. I have now before me a statement from a single publisher, in which he says that to Messrs.

Willis, Longfellow, Bryant, and Alston, his price was uniformly $50 for a poetical article, long or short--and his readers know that they were generally very short; in one case only fourteen lines. To numerous others it was from $25 to $40. In one case he has paid $25 per page for prose. To Mr. Cooper he paid $1,800 for a novel, and $1,000 for a series of naval biographies, the author retaining the copyright for separate publication; and in such cases, if the work be good, its appearance in the magazine acts as the best of advertis.e.m.e.nts. To Mr. James he paid $1,200 for a novel, leaving him also the copyright. For a single number of the journal he has paid to authors $1,500. The total amount paid for original matter by two magazines--the selling price of which is $3 per annum--in ten years, has exceeded $130,000, giving an average of $13,000 per annum. The Messrs. Harper inform me that the expenditure for literary and artistic labor required for their magazine is $2,000 per month, or $24,000 a year.

Pa.s.sing upwards, we reach the producers of books, and here we find rewards not, I believe, to be paralleled elsewhere. Mr. Irving stands, I imagine, at the head of living authors for the amount received for his books. The sums paid to the renowned Peter Parley must have been enormously great, but what has been their extent I have no means of ascertaining. Mr.

Mitch.e.l.l, the geographer, has realized a handsome fortune from his schoolbooks. Professor Davies is understood to have received more than $50,000 from the series published by him. The Abbotts, Emerson, and numerous other authors engaged in the preparation of books for young persons and schools, are largely paid. Professor Anthon, we are informed, has received more than $60,000 for his series of cla.s.sics. The French series of Mr. Bolmar has yielded him upwards of $20,000. The school geography of Mr. Morse is stated to have yielded more than $20,000 to the author. A single medical book, of one 8vo. volume, is understood to have produced its authors $60,000, and a series of medical books has given to its author probably $30,000. Mr. Downing's receipts from his books have been very large. The two works of Miss Warner must have already yielded her from $12,000 to $15,000, and perhaps much more. Mr. Headley is stated to have received about $40,000; and the few books of Ike Marvel have yielded him about $20,000; a single one, "The Reveries of a Bachelor,"

produced more than $4,000 in the first six months. Mrs. Stowe has been very largely paid. Miss Leslie's Cookery and Receipt books have paid her $12,000. Dr. Barnes is stated to have received more than $30,000 for the copyright of his religious works. f.a.n.n.y Fern has probably received not less than $6,000 for the 12mo. volume published but six months since. Mr.

Prescott was stated, several years since, to have then received $90,000 from his books, and I have never seen it contradicted. According to the rate of compensation generally understood to be received by Mr. Bancroft, the present sale of each volume of his yields him more than $15,000, and he has the long period of forty-two years for future sale. Judge Story died, as has been stated, in the receipt of more than $8,000 per annum; and the amount has not, as it is understood, diminished. Mr. Webster's works, in three years, can scarcely have paid less than $25,000. Kent's Commentaries are understood to have yielded to their author and his heirs more than $120,000, and if we add to this for the remainder of the period only one half of this sum, we shall obtain $180,000, or $45,000 as the compensation for a single 8vo. volume, a reward for literary labor unexampled in history. What has been the amount received by Professor Greenleaf I cannot learn, but his work stands second only, in the legal line, to that of Chancellor Kent. The price paid for Webster's 8vo.

Dictionary is understood to be fifty cents per copy; and if so, with a sale of 250,000, it must already have reached $125,000. If now to this we add the quarto, at only a dollar a copy, we shall have a sum approaching to, and perhaps exceeding, $180,000; more, probably, than has been paid for all the dictionaries of Europe in the same period of time. What have been the prices paid to Messrs. Hawthorne, Longfellow, Bryant, Willis, Curtis, and numerous others, I cannot say; but it is well known that they have been very large. It is not, however, only the few who are liberally paid; all are so who manifest any ability, and here it is that we find the effect of the decentralizing system of this country as compared with the centralizing one of Great Britain. There Mr. Macaulay is largely paid for his Essays, while men of almost equal ability can scarcely obtain the means of support. d.i.c.kens is a literary Croesus, and Tom Hood dies leaving his family in hopeless poverty. Such is not here the case. Any manifestation of ability is sure to produce claimants for the publication of books. No sooner had the story of "Hot Corn" appeared in "The Tribune,"

than a dozen booksellers were applicants to the author for a book. The compet.i.tion is here for the _purchase_ of the privilege of printing, and this compet.i.tion is not confined to the publishers of a single city, as is the case in Britain. Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and even Auburn and Cincinnati, present numerous publishers, all anxious to secure the works of writers of ability, in any department of literature; and were it possible to present a complete list of our well-paid authors, its extent could not fail to surprise you greatly, as the very few facts that have come to my knowledge in reference to some of the lesser stars of the literary world have done by me. You will observe that I have confined myself to the question of demand for books and compensation to their authors, without reference to that of the ability displayed in their preparation. That we may have good books, all that is required is that we make a large market for them, which is done here to an extent elsewhere unknown.

Forty years since, the question was asked by the "Edinburgh Review," Who reads an American book? Judging from the facts here given, may we not reasonably suppose that the time is fast approaching, when the question will be asked, Who does not read American books?

Forty years since, had we asked where were the _homes of American authors_, we should generally have been referred to very humble houses in our cities. Those who now inquire for them will find their answer in the beautiful volume lately published by Messrs. Putnam and Co., the precursor of others destined to show the literary men of this country enjoying residences as agreeable as any that had been occupied by such men in any part of the world; and in almost every case, those homes have been due to the profits of the pen. Less than half a century since, the race of literary men was scarcely known in the country, and yet the amount now paid for literary labor is greater than in Great Britain and France combined, and will probably be, in twenty years more, greater than in all the world beside. With the increase of number, there has been a corresponding increase in the consideration in which they are held; and the respect with which even unknown authors are treated, when compared with the disrespect manifested in England towards such men, will be obvious to all familiar with the management of the journals of that country who read the following in one of our princ.i.p.al periodicals:--

"The editor of Putnam's Monthly will give to every article forwarded for insertion in the Magazine a careful examination, and, when requested to do so, will return the MS. if not accepted."

Here, the compet.i.tion is among the publishers to _buy_ the products of literary labor, whereas, abroad, the compet.i.tion is to _sell_ them, and therefore is the treatment of our authors, even when unknown, so different. Long may it continue to be so!

Such having been the result of half a century, during which we have had to lay the foundation of the system that has furnished so vast a body of readers, what may not be expected in the next half century, during which the population will increase to a hundred millions, with a power to consume the products of literary labor growing many times faster than the growth of numbers? If this country is properly termed "the paradise of women," may it not be as correctly denominated the paradise of authors, and should they not be content to dwell in it as their predecessors have done? Is it wise in them to seek a change? Their best friends would, I think, unite with me in advising that it is not. Should they succeed in obtaining what they now desire, the day will, as I think, come, when they will be satisfied that their real friends had been, those who opposed the confirmation of the treaty now before the Senate.

LETTER VI.

We have commenced the erection of a great literary and scientific edifice.