The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1902-03-29
PAY OF THE PIONEER
AMERICAN AUTHORS


| wlllc on his way to Baltimore in the spring OF
| lei' Professor Hart paid so for the poem.
| several weeks later roe sent the poem rewritten
'Ii" iehEthencu' ASKING ior Tlo additional lhlt
also was paid. When the poem was published il
| was asco'err" that Graham had also bought 1t
from the author at the same price.
| me literary pay which Lowell and l.ongfellow
! received Whiie their regulations were making was
not sufficient to encourage either to dispense with
| 'hr salary OF professor, Fl,3V year, paid
| '"ch at Harvard college II is inferred from a
| passage IN Seudcers biography that when Lowell
md $500 i'll hand he felt at case in money at,
| ialis' lohgtellow enjoyed 'he labor ot rom2o'
| sl'ioh, pay or no pay. Although the publisher
OF Hyperion failed and one-half of the edition
was se'zed by the creditors, the author wrote:
| NO matter had the glorious satisfaction OF
WritlhS IT, lie also informed his friend Greene,
III loio, that all the publIslerS, whether OF books
OF periodicals. were desperately poor Just then
ana mat the cdltor OF the knickerbocker Maga-
zine lad not pad him for his work the last
three years. y letter, though, from Park Benja-
min at the beginning of that year makes it APP
parent that the editor OF the New York World
was not without money. Your ballad. The
Wreck OF the iesper'ls. he sent word 10 Long
fellow, lis grand lnclosed are $25, the sum you
mentioned for it. The Skeleton in Amor
was printed III the knickerbocker Tor January,
ISL ana the pay Tor 1t was so. few months
later sam ward, who was then in Wall street,
began TO act as longtellow's literary broker in
New York. lie wotc to Ward that BENJAMIN
wanted couple OF poems and offered $50 for
each III You nave not disposed OF Charles
hiNer, lie directed. send II 10 him shail
send him new poem, called simply 'Fenncl."
II Is as good perhaps as Excelsior Hawthorne,
who Is passing the night with me, likes it bet
ter Mention should he made that it was Ward
who negotiated the sale of ''rhc Hanging of
Bonner Ledger
in 1871. Longteilow knew nothing OF the affair
until Ward carried him check for SS,0oO and
asked for the manuscript. The money proved
too tempting to resist. Bonner made Ward a
present of $1,000 for the service he rendered him.
In 1877 Harper Il Brothers paid Longfelow $1,000
for the right to publish the long poem ''Ker-
amos in their magazine. These two amounts
were the eliminating prices for I.ongfellows sin
gle productions. His executors estimated in their
accounting that the plates and copyrights OF all
his works in 1852 were worth about $4,000 lie
was an industrious literary worker more than
fifty years.
Other items which may be added, giving cvi
dcnce Of the remuneration that the most famous
have received should include the first nstallmcnts
OF pay to Harriet Beechcr Stowe, which excited
attention. For 'tncle Toms Cabin" as a Sc |
rial in the National Era, during part of the year
1851 the pay was $500. John p. Jewett, Young |
Boston publisher. offered TO bring out the story |
Ill hOoK form II PROFESSOR stowe would snare haif
the expense That offer was declined. Then the |
daring publiSher-many Others had refused to con-
slider the book-thought twice, and boldly signed |
an agreement on March 49, 1882 TO publish an |
edition of five thousand copies and give the
thor 10 per cent. on all sales. The yield to her |
the first -four months was $4,000 As mone".
winner with novel Mrs. Stowe OF course left all |
her contemporaries far in the rear. Hawthorne
had published "rhe Scarlet Letter. the previous
year. and about the time Mrs. Stowe was count
ing her thousands he had in the bank - 800 the
profits of his success, which he medlatcd invest
ing in house and land somewhere III the region
of Lenox Next to the writer OF felton, Prescott.
the most successful writer OF history, is believed
to have had the largest financial exhibit among
the chief authors during the years Immediately
the epoch period of Uncle Toms
Cabin" and "Thc Scarlet Letter" Six months |
after the publication OF the first two volumes of
''Philip the Second" in 1856 he stated that a
settlement made with his publishers enabled him
to estimate the success OF the work. In Eng
land it had been published in four separate edi
tions. and in the United States 5000 sets had been
sold The impulse it had provided TO the sales
Of all his other works had resulted in an absorb
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