The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1885-07-23
THE AUTHOR OF CALLED
BACK"

Yes said Mr.. Arrowsmith, "the
| death of Hugh Conway was shock to
me-although late kilograms from Mr..
| Fargus at Monte Carlo had prepared
LIE for the worst. You see, apart from
! my business connection, a very close
friendship had existed between Us from
| youth
| The gentleman who made these re-
| marks was Mr.. j. w. Arrowsmith, of
| Bristol, to whose enterprise is due the
! publication of Called Back" We
| were seated in Mr.. Arrowsmith' s sane
tum sanctorium in Quay street, Bris-
| tol. The four walls of the apartment
| denoted the versatile sympathies of its
| daily occupant. MIR. Arrowsmith is,
| should say, on the bright side of 80
chatty. agreeable, and well-informed.
When | mentioned the name of Hugh
Conway, l could judge from the de-
meanOr of my vis-a-vis that | had hit
upon the subject just then uppermost
| in his mind. Yes" he broke in.
Erred Fargus was remarkable man;
and L must tell you, as you will natur
ally suppose, that | have no patience
with the quidnuncs who kept saying
that he died in the fullness of his
fame. | remember years ago Fargus
went in for writing satirical skits in
rhyme, which he distributed among
his friends, much to their satisfaction.
In 1881 made up my mind to publish
Christmas annual, and | asked Far
gus to do something for me. He con-
sented, and spun me off a short poem,
called The Golden Page of Youth
But he did more; he turned his prem
tice hand to prose, which was conceiv-
ed in his peculiarly weird vein of fancy.
This was entitled The Daughter of the
Stars, and it was absolutely the first
attempt at storytelling made by Hugh
Conway. / can't say it set the Thames
on fire, but it was pretty extensively
read. After that he managed to get
place on BJGcbVo0d's and Chambers
Journal. A year elapsed, and l want
ed something Tres h for my annual of
1888, SO applied to my friend Far
gus.
He promptly produced the Ms. of
Called Back, remarking at the time,
| remember, that it had cost him ten
weeks labor. l was not quite decided
in my own mind about the value of
another mystic tale, but l carefully
went over the copy and in a quail
fed spirit of criticism thought it would
do AS for Fargus himself, he was
from the first confident of its success.
This was in November, 1851 always
issue my annual early. As to terms, |
offered Fargus ESQ for the copyright of
his new story. He did not at first seem
particularly satisfied with this; but
eventually he agreed. | did not feel
myself safe to pay more, because was
not quite so sure of my author-in fact,
| will confess to you that | was not
violently struck with the plot of Call
ed Back, as | had read il in MS.
"Well, the novel became my abso-
Lutte property for $50, and l set about
getting it up in moderately attractive
form. And now occurred a circum-
Stance curious enough III the annals of
publishing, and one which | believe is
not generally known. | published
Called Back in royal Svo edition of
some ninety pages. 1t simply fell fiat
as ditch water worse luck ck"-contin-
ucd Mr.. Arrowsmith with comical
expression of rucfuiness. which sug-
geSted 4 knowledge of heaps of unsold
copies piled away somewhere in the re-
cesscs OF his premises. Il printed of
this edition III November 5000 copies,
and despite the fact that it was pub
lished at Cd, few-miserably few
were sold. During this period of de-
preston | used to be irritated by the
daily cheerfulnesS of Fargus. OF
course, he had no risk in. the venture
whatever, and could afford to come
around my office and gleefully specu-
late as 10 what then sadly deemed to
be gross improbabilities. His faith in
the ultimate popularity of Called
Back was SO remarkably unalterable
that | sometimes was tempted 20 take
courage and join him in his wanderings
in the air castles OF success.
And it was not long before his
prophecies were realized. BY some
fortune Mir. Comyns Carr had the book
placed in his hands as one likely tC
move his dramatic instincts. 1t is re-
ported that that gentleman went to
sleep in searching for the merits of the
story. But that was in the evening.
Next morning he made q further essay,
and was at length so captivated by its
richness OF incident that he telegraph
ed straight away to Fargus with whom
he was intimately & proposition to CO.
laborate with him in dramatizing it. ,
Almost simultaneously London pa
per saw in the book what all the world
has discovered III it since.
Then the tlutter came" went on
Mr. Arrowsmith, with evident satisfac-
ton. .'On the second day afterward |
was deluged with telegrams ordering
Called Backs
''When | discovered the almost daz-
cling success of the novel | Immediate
/ made an offer to cancel my abso-
lutely proprietary right. | agreed TO
pay him royalty upon each copy sold;
and when | tell you that something
like 320, GOO have been disposed of, you
will guess the sums that have changed
hands have not been Insignificant. Be-
sides this, he reaped a heavy income
from the dramatizcd version of the
work.
How did Hugh Conway take his
success? Oh! as to that said the
genial publisher, 'it made no differ
ence in the world to him in his unob-
trusiye bearing toward friends; but it
was very evident that it created a re-
solve to surrender business for litera-
ture-a resolve which he carried into
effect. Ii also made him less scrupu-
lous about the preservation of his an
onymity. Before Called Back came
out he had always a nervous dread of
being identified, beyond the circle of
his immediate friends, as Hugh Con-
way.
How did Hugh Conway come to be-
heve so steadily in the supernatural as
basis for his fiction? Was he a spir-
itualist? Not in the least; but he had
a knack of treating those things with
q solidity which almost gave the stamp
of reality. | know he has been ac-
cused OF being u medium and that
sort of thing, but that was nonsense of
a purely speculative kind. Why. he
received shoals OF letters from spirit
ualists and dealers in the mystic gen.
orally, demanding TO know further of
the celebrated murder vision in Called