The age-herald., 1901-03-17
#BooksShaA ave ReaA


The hrst book of an author, and espe- cially a successful author, Is always an interesting theme. The struggles and pit iful story of rejection at the hands of publishers. and despair that follows dis couragement, or may be, as ,S Hoy often the case. the extraordinary ana 'nmedi- ate success of the first work, whichever the experience of the new author, the attending circumstances are full of in- terest to the reader. Two of the most popular writers in London have no mournful story to tell of rejection at the hands of publishers for each one met with unusual and immediate success. In an interview, Hall Caine said: NO tale of mine has yet passed from publishing house to publishing house; my stories have been accepted before they have been read. In two or three instances they have been bought before thy have been written. And yet, although Mir. Caine has never known anything but success, he offers this cheering and encouraging word of advice to young writers; Keep a good heart, even if you have to knock in vain at many doors, and kick about the backstairs of the house of letters. There is room enough inside"
 The other one is Marie Corelli. This suc- cessful young writer laments that it is unromantic for an author to have had no literary vicissitudes, and are entirely un- interesting unless they have come up to London with the proverbial solitary 'shil- ling" and gone about hungry and foot sore, begging from one hard-hearted pub fishers house to another with ones per petually rejected manuscript under ones arm" Because this is true In these two instances may account for the fact that they each had a super-abundant amount of energy on hand which, being unused, was devoted to the exploiting of these same successful books when they did ap- pear It is not kind to write of an au- thor's unique methods of advertising and yet some of the work accomplished by these two writers in their way has been extraordinary. They were perfectly legiti- mate methods-as in the case of the dis cussion of the enormous amount of notes made by Hall Caine before the writing of the book began-but they were very cer- tainly ingeniously calculated to sell the books that followed. Marie Corelli, now so well known as the writer of a number of remarkable books. can easily boast-"I have had no difficulty in making my ca reer or wining my public. And l attribute my good fortune to the simple fact that have always tried to write straight from my own heart to the hearts of others, regardless of opinions and indifferent to results"
 In speaking finer first book, "A Ro- nance of Two Worlds" and it's success, Miss Corelli pleasantly alludes to an early experience with Mir. Hall Caine which is no doubt the experience of many an author. Readers of publishing houses in general are oftentimes very unique characters and Hall Caine is not by any means noted for his kindness to young aspiring authors. Miss Corelli said ''When the book was written, as kind of test of it's merit or demerit, l sent the manuscript to MT. George Bentley head of the long established and famous Bent lev publishing firm. It ran the guantlet of his readers first. and they all advised it's summary rejection Among these readers at that time was MT. Hall Caine. His strictures on my work were peculiarly bitter, though, strange to re- late, he afterwards forgot the nature of his own report For, on being introduced to me at ball, when my name was made and my success assured, he blandly re- l marked before a select sircle of inter 1 ested auditors. that he had had the pleasure of recommending my first book l to MT. Bentley. Comment on this were needless and unknd he tells stories sc admirably that 1 readily excuse him for his slip of memory and accept the whole incident as a deligtwul example of his incentive faculty"
 A unioue success that we never tire of reading about fell to the happy lot oi Rudyard I<ipling. Quite the most inter- esting part of his immediate and marked