The citizen. (Frederick City, Md.) 1895-1923, 1900-10-19
ATTRACTIVE TITLES.
cLEVERNEsS OF AUTHORS IN NAMING
THEIR BOOKS.

How and Why Some Famous Authors
Evolved Titles For Their Works.
Some Quaint Titles of Ancient
Studies and ROmances.
The effect which taking title may or
may not have on the fortunes of Il book
is an open question. When books are
spoken of in this connection, it is usually
fiction that is in the speakers thoughts.
There is little need or excuse in the
fields of history and biography, topogra-
ply, theology and science for the use of
other than perfectly plain, straightfor-
ward titles. In the domain of the essay
fancy has more scope, and here some
writers have been happily inspired
But, after all, it is in regard to fiction
that the question of titles becomes of
most Importance. Some great novelists
have taken but little trouble in the mat
ter. "Waverley," Jane Eyre" "Nicho-
Jones"-to name Il few examples at ran
dom-offer no special attraction to catch
the attention of possible readers. None
of Thackeray's or Dickens titles are of
an alluring or particularly suggestive
turn, save perhaps Vanity Fair" THE
Mystery of Edwin brood" and "a Tale
of Two Cities" Some other novelists
have devoted special care and thought to
the invention of attractive titles. Wilkie
Collins was much exercised about the
naming of the book known to fame as
"The Woman In White" The story was
finished and part of it was already in
type for serial publication in All the Year
Round before a name had been found.
Literally at the eleventh hour" said
Collins himself long afterward, 81
thought of The Woman In White In
various quarters this was declared to be
a vile melodramatic title that would ruin
the book. Among the very few friends
who encouraged me the first and fore
most was Charles Dickens. Are you.
too, disappointed? l said to him. Moth
ing of the sort, Wilkie! 4 better title
there cannot be'"-a verdict which the
reading public was not slow to indorse
"No Thoroughfare, the title of the story
written in collaboration by Dickens and
Collins, was another happy inspiration.
Collins carefully studied effectiveness in
most of the titles of his novels. mo
Name" "After Dark" Miss or Mrs. ?"
''The Haunted Hotel" and the like have
all proved alluring enough to hesitating
readers.
George Eliot's titles are mostly of the
straightforward, pedestrian order, but
she is said to have had great trouble in
fixing on one for the book which tells the
history of Maggie Tulliver Stephen
Guest and Philip Waken. The Tulli-
vers" and various others were suggested
before it was finally decided to call the
book by the not very happy title of The
Mill on the Floss" Hawthorne, with
his natural instinct for the picturesque
and the suggestive, found titles which
were not only attractive. but full of sug-
gestiOn. What could he better than The
Scarlet Letter" "Thc House of the Sew
en- Gables" and 1.-THE Marble Faun"
OF recent years novehsts have We'd
with one another in the invention of far
fetched Names intended to be arresting
and enticing, but which are often mere
ly "conceited," in the old sense of the
word, and strained. But for titles which
are full of quaint conceits we must go
back to the earlier days of our literature
Grammar is not precisely an inviting
study, though in the Diversions of pur-
ltS IL btNdlllt dilllbSl dllEdGllNe, DuI
Horne Tooke's absurd title is altogether
put in the shade by sixteenth century
Latin grammar, which had for Il sub
title the following honeyed descriptions
"A; delysious Syrupe newly CLARIFIED for
Eounge Scholars vt thurste for the Swete
Lycore of Latin Specie" We wonder
whether this highly sugared pill deceived
q single one of the urchins for whom it
was so carefully prepared.
For titles of the fanciful kind the Puri-
tan writer's distance all competitors. In
their hands allusion and metaphor often
become simply grotesque. Here are a
few titles of theological pamphlets and
books: - Most Detachable Sweet Per
fumcd Nosegay For Gods Saints to
Smell At" a pamphlet issued in 1856;
''The Shutters of Divine Love-" "Heel
Pieces For Limping Sinners" "The Spir-
itual Mustard Pot to Make the Soul
Snccze With Devotion" and so forth.
Devotion is hardly the feeling which
seems most likely to be inspired by the
perusa of such absurdities But the
Puritans in the adoption of these high
flown and grotesque phrases simply apcd
the ways of more secular writers of the
time.
The rOmancers of Elizabethan days rev
eled in fantastic titles, which were doubt
less enticing enough to the limited read
ing public of that day. Painters palace
of Pleasure" is a type of many book IT,
ties similarly constructed. The euphuis-
tic school of course let their fancy run
riot in the invention Of strange names for
the tedious romanccs in which they dis
coursed of strange birds and beasts and
plants. Greene's "Philomela; the Lady
FitzWatcr's Nightingale" and Moran
do; or, The Tritameron of Love-" sound
much more attractive than any modern
reader could possibly find them to be.
Fashions in names have changed, but
the object aimed at remains the same.
The modern novelist invents a farfetchcd
or n startling title in the hope of stimu-
lating curiosity and alluring readers and
buyers, just in the same way that his
predecessors of three centuries ago strove
to hoodwink the reading public of that
day.-London Globe.