The Wichita daily eagle., 1894-03-16

until after he had been several wears upon
the lecture platform. For that work OF
his which the critics have always said was
his most artistic performance and as fine
art as appeared in any English work of fic-
tion, Henry Esmond, :" he received scarcely
enough TO pay him fair wage, so he said,
for the work of writing it, and when An
thony Trollope met him one day and spoke
with words of high praise of "Esmond;'
Thackeray replied, Yes, but the people
don't buy it."
Notwithstanding these great earnings OF
PRS. Ward, George Eliot and one or two
ether English writers, it is probable that
the largest sums of money realized by the
sale of single book have come to American
authors and publishers, and within very
few days there has been a new illustration
Df the lasting success Of what is probably
the most popular, certainly pecuniarily the
most successful, work ever published in the
English language-the memoirs of General
Grant.
General Grants son. Colonel Fred Grant,
lately United States minister to Austria,
completed in February a work upon which
he has been occupied since his return from
his diplomatic missiOn-the editing of a new
edition OF his fathers memoirs This work
Of editing did not entail any revision of the
text. With the exception of single word,
the new edition is exactly as General Grant
wrote the manuscript of his memoirs.
Advance orders have already been re-
reived for this edition for some 80. 600 copies.
and the indications are, the publishers say,
That within the next 10 months an edition
Of 200, GOO copies viii be sold Nothing like
the success which such sale would illus
trate has been known in the history of any
book. 1t was supposed that within two or
three years after the first publication of
these memoirs the sale would practically
be ended. Yet, instead of that being so, the
demand fer the work has been constant
and has every year yielded to Mrs. Grant a
very handsome income.
Up 10 tisis time Mrs. Grant has received
In the way Of royalties a little over $500 coo
for this book, and the publishers and Colo
mel Grant, 11cw looking back, realize that if
they had had the experience when the book
was published that they now possess the
sales would have been SO much larger that
Airs Grants profits would probably have
been S'50O00. To these profits must be add
ed those Of the publishers as well as the
enormous aggregate commissions paid to
the agents in order 10 get an idea of the
gross profits obtained by the sale of this
work. 1t has been upon the market less
than 10 years, ard yet it Is a fair estimate
Of Its profit making capacity TO say that il
has earned over the cost of production con
sideraOly more than s.. COO. GOO
No single work published in the English
language can show such figures as those
for tue same length OF time. Mr.. Blaire's
Twenty Years OF Congress brought him
not far from quarter of a million dollars
and thac was regarded as so phenomenal ?
sale that il has passed into tradition. There
haze been some series of works. like ercv-
clopeGlas or Bible histories, which have
earned more money than that, but noshort
work, such as those memoirs were
General Sherman was supposed to have
received for his memoirs about $4,000. but
be WAS asked by New York friend not
long before his death II those figures Were
correct, and be replied that they were more
than 90 per cent out of the way He did nos
make even SS0O0o Sheridan's memoirs
brought even less money in the way OF
profits, while JEFF Davis netled onlvan in
considerable sum TO his widow.
I. J. EDWARDS.