The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-04-24
CRITICS WHO ARE SHY.

nhe Men Who Have Rejected Most of
 the Best Books are Not on Parade.
 The head of a big Philadelphia pub fishing house leaned far back in his revolving chair, his feet upon his desk top.
 < "What do you wish?" he asked as he Z applied black cigar to his mouth, and gazed at the swirling smoke clouds. with one eye closed critically. He had lust lunched. He was content. It would have been a happy moment to try to sell novel to him.
 ~s@r But the interviewer only murmured: VI wish to know something about pub fishers readers, about those men who examine manuscripts and decide whether they are to be taken or reject ed. They are mysterious class"
 sThey have to be- said the publish er. For two reasons they have to be. First, because they are constantly turn fng down novels that eventually make Tremendous success Now that is lu- dicrous thing for them to do, and if y41eir names were known people would give them the laugh for it on the street, and they would feel ashamed Second, in this wholesale repudiation of novels they offend bitterly innumerable hot blooded and revengeful writers. These ;writers would not hesitate to annoy them if they knew them, would not hes- atate to give them punch on the nose or a kick. That has happened to pub fishers readers before this. know one man who had front tooth knocked out by a brick that a young poet, annayed 1t the rejection of a sonnet, hurled pet ulantly So you see in order not to be laughed at and in order not to be as- saulted publishers readers go, figura- lively speaking, masked.
 '"The fiction reader for Boston house pretende that he is a wool salesman. He carries manuscripts to and from hls residence in those cylinders of yellow paper that wool statesmen put their samples in Yet the writers suspect him withal. A short story writer at tea, poured cup of hot chocolate down the back of his neck She pre- tended it was accidental, but he had reiected a fairy tale of hers the week before
 .How many readers does the average publishing house employ?"
 t3About a dozen.
 ' And through what process does rnanuscript-say the manuscript of novel-go from the time of it's receipt to the time of it's rejection or acceptance!
 4'Well, on it's arrival it is entered In book and given number. Then It IS roughly examined and if it be iillterate it is returned at once to it's author, With our polite printed slip of rejection. But modern manuscripts are rarely llllte- rate; in this age everybody can write; and practically everything submitted to us has some degree of good in it and shows some signs of skill,
 sWhen a manuscript looks promising Jt gets eight or nine readings. We wish flo know what different minds think ot it. They always think different things, and the chapter that one reader praises another denounces in strong terms But out of all that tumble of contradic- tory opinions the publisher manages, somehow, to hit on what he believes to he the right course, and this he takes, either accepting or rejecting the work, ito find not infrequently that his right a course has been the Wrong one, dlLer all.
 .That is nothing, though. Every nublisher and every reader habitually makes grave mistakes. Their reputa- lions are smirched and plotted over the reflection of I don't know how many manuscripts that later on have made great hits, like David Harum' or The x Chisis or 'Trilby.' l said the other day to a young woman whose book we are bringing out:
 "'Yoar work has just one element of weakness: it hasn't been rejected by enough publishers.
 'Helens Babies had twenty-one re-