The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-02-19

I general, Stevenson. His capturers
therefore, believed, or affected TO be-
lieve (there is, as remember the rec
ord, some question of their entire hon
esty in this), that he was a British
| agent; and it was on this theory that
they sought to justify their severity
with him. He had numerous COM
paniOns in his confinement and tor
ments, most of them held, like himself,
| on political accounts. Many Of them
were important men from native tribes
| that had acted with the British and
had been left to the mercy of the der
wishes when the British withdrew from
the Soudan.
! There have been remarkable feats of
! production among the writer's OF ro-
! mantle stories; but given a. certain IA
! cility of invention, and not too much
care for form and expression, and one
! can always see in a way how the thing
! is done. There is no occasion to stop
and gather information; once you have
got your start, you slant" as Steven
son used to call it, the thing runs on,
and it becomes merely a question of
! how fast you can drive your pen, or, II
you dictate, how fast your amanuensis
can take you. Much more amazing
/ than any OF these is the achievement
I of the man who produces descriptive
! biographical and historical works, and
even dictionaries, at the rate of a vol
ume of 100, 900 words in the course of a
few weeks. Naturally, the learned mas
ter of this miraculous SwiftneSS is a
Chicago man. In the last six or seven
years he has produced twenty-seven
vOlumes-four to five of them diction-
aries, a number of them histories, none
of them books that could be written
straightaway without stopping to gath
er material-and in addition, has made
numerous TRANSACTIONS, and has writ
ten numerous short stories, special ar
ticles, editorials and reviews. The name
of the wonder is c. NJ. Stevans, one that
must by now be rery well known to
quite a large body of readers, as it is
well known to various publishers and
editors here and in Chicago.
Mr.. SteVanS was for a number Of
years a teacher; then he became an
editor and literary manager and COM
piled a number of miscellaneous works
not included in the count given above.
An intimate friend of his gave me, the
other day, a very interesting account
of some of the most extraordinary Of
his performances.
His first piece of rapid writing"
said this friend was Uncle Jere-
miah at the Worlds Fair 100000 words).
He did the fair during the way-or part
of it-and wrote at night. He was three
&ElIlS
To the printers each day. Half a mil
lion copies of this book have been sold,
but il was not at all in Mr.. Stevens
general line, and he did not publish it
over his own name, but over the pen
name. 'QuOndam.' Its sequel, Uncle
jeremiah in the South. he wrote in con-
junction with his wife, a newspaper
woman. when they were on their we'd
ding Journey. They Travelled down the
oil
coast to New York, visiting all the large
towns, and writing the $1,000 words
which the book contains in about five
weeks During the last presidential
campaign Mr.. Stevans got up six cam
paign books inside of two months,
working from o'clock every morning
until l or at night. He hasn't slept
since in consequence, however. His
History of Spain in America $4,000
words, he wrote in six weeks-no clip
ping of copying. His 'Buccaneers'-50,-
600 woodstock seven weeks of research
and writing-this, too, being entirely
original, and covering all that has been
recorded about these holy terrors of the
deep. But his greatest feats have been
done on the work which he has in hand
al the present moment a History Of the
World In this work he frequently die
tateS 1900 words in day, keeping two
expert stenOgraphers busy"
1t is scarcely a surprise to learn that
Mr.. Watts-DuntOn, having got so fav-
Orable a reception for his novel. "Ayl-
Win" is now bringing into shape for
publication another ancient tale Of his.
Authors may not be very keen business
men. but il must be a very simple
minded author, indeed. who has not
learned by now that the first tide of a
distinct literary success is a perfectly
reliable element-so long as ii is in full
flOw-for floating early constructions of
imperfect bUOyancy. a well known
American novelist once said to g lit
erary youth, who was striving hard,
but had still to positively arrive: Yes,
save your old manuscripts; one can
never tell when they will come in"
And this. [ should guess. had come to be
the general working rule with authors,
at least with the authors of fiction But
the authors haven't discovered the
value of it wholly by their own clever
ness. It is not infreQuent to hear pub
fishers speak disparagingly, and even
with a kind of high moral disdain. of
novelist who, having put out a good
and highly popular work, follows it
with one not good and almost beyond
the strength of his newly won popular
ity to sustain. But it is, after ALL the
publishers themselves who provoke and
encourage this sort of proceeding. They
bid against each other so fiercely for
the sake of getting on their list what
seems to be. a telling name, that the
author in competition has to be a very
extraordinary man not to empty his
desk of about every old thing it con-
tains- So, as / say, ii is in nowise sur
prising that, under the quickening in
hUence of the success of "Aylwin,' Mr.
Watts-Dunton has discovered that he
has by him another fine novel. and has
resolved that the public shall be kept
out of it no longer.
z c. MARTIN