The Roanoke times. [volume] (Roanoke, Va.) 1890-1895, 1892-10-04
PROFITS OF POPULAR WRITER'S.
Robert Louis Stevenson Is tho Best
Paid of Living NoveIists.
IL


= Especial Correspondence.1
NEW YORK, Sept ia publisher who
has had personal dealings with some of
the more popular writers of fiction and
who is well informed us to the comparative
popularity of those who are regarded as
the most successful Of the younger genera
ton oflstory tellers, gave the writer some
interesting information recently upon
these subjects. He said that notwith-
standing the copyright law, the English
writers of fiction are holding their own
and more, in comparison with their Amer
lean cousins. In the realm of the short
story the younger writers of the United
States are winning greater honors than
those of England. Richard Harding
Davis, his mother, Rebecca Harding Davis,
and brother, Charles, retain their popu-
larity. OF Dick Davis Gallagher" over
10000 copies have been sold and of the
recently published collection of short
stories by his mother q third edition is in
press.
Miss wilkins gains with the appearance
Of every new book, and her latest collec-
ton of short stories, which is the third
that has been published, was exhausted
only few days after publication in the
first edition.
There IRE so many writers of short stories
of merit, and the opportunities for local fa-
vor are so varied in u country OF the size of
the United States, that tales of this sort of
conspicuous merit do not begin to attract
the attention which would have been the
case had they been published quarter of
a century ago.
But if American writer's are cxcelling rs
tellers of short stories they seem not to be
successful, in the best sense of the word,
with the longer romance or novel Even
Mr.. Howells' stories are far more widely
read while appearing as serials than when
published between covers.
The writer of romance who Is perhaps
earning the most money nowadays is Rob
ert Louis Stevenson, and yet he is depend
ent upon serial publication for the larger
proportion of his earnings In the past
year Mr.. Stevenson has received S24 600, or
will receive it as soon rs his forthcoming
novel, which is a sequel to "Kidnaped. I"
is in the hands of his publishers. He earns
from $1,000 TO 1000 for each novel that
he writes-thGt is. for the serial publicu-
ton of it-and there is no other writer
nowadays who receives us much as he
Bret Harte might If he wrote rs much as
Stevenson. He demands and receives sew
enty-flve dollars for each 900 words that
he writes, or what is equivalent to $3.50 for
column in most of the metropolitan
ly, and does not produce as much in q year
as others who find profit in the pen. His
average income for the past eight or ten
years has been about $4,000.
The publisher who guve these interest
ing facts told IN anecdote of Stevenson
which illustrates in his case as has been
the experience of SO many other writers,
that his popularity was gained by means
Of the work which he thought little of
when it was finished Stevenson had been
known to little group of authors in Lon
don and to n comparatively small circle of
readers by two or three roinances before
he wrote "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" 1t
was his dream to write story OF romantic
adventure which should be rs vivid, excit-
ing and contain as lifclike characters as
Dumas Three Guardsmen," which Ste
venson regards as one of the best, If not the
BEST romance ever written.
For long time he had had vague con-
ception of writing little sketch in which
he would depict man possessing two
natures, one good and one bad. He tried Il
hundred times or more to work out this
idea without success. One evening while
he was alone in an inn in little country
village the idea of Jekyll and Hyde came
to him like revelation. He took up his
pen and began the work. 1t was finished
speedily, and he very cheerfully sold it for
$500. He never dreamed that It would
give him fame, and he now cares for it less
than for any OF his other works. 1t did not
bring him much fame in England, but was
enormously popular in America, where
literary popularity means pecuniary sue
cess.
The impression in publishing circles is
that the man who is destined to win the
highest popularity Mt fiction writing il he
keeps at it is j. M. Barrie, the young
Scotchman who began his career as n
newspaper reporter, and who Is now IA
NOUS In England the best opinion IS that
"a Window in Thrums" and AUD LIGHT
Idyls" are the finest development of close
fiction since George Eliot published her
Scenes Of Clerical Life" but the greatest
popularity has come to the longer novel,
The Little Minister" In this country no
English book since Robert Elsmere" has
given so much to the critics to talk about,
and it is far more populaf b;ok than
"Elsmore" was, for the story is more ex-
citing. 1t has not yet attained the sale
which "Elsmere' had and which WAS due
to the fact that that book was fashiona-
BILE craze.
"The Little Minister" in some points
suggests Prosper Merimee's greatest shor,
story, Carmen" and there is little douh;
that Mr.. Barrie is fond of Carmen and
consciously or unconsciously had her in
mind when writing; this book Yet there
is no imitation. 1t is original from the
first to the last word in it.
Barrie, however has made moro money
with single play which he has written
than with all his romances, and it is said
that he is now anxious to begin political
career.