The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1902-08-29
THE REWARDS OF LITERATURE.

Writing for the Saturday Review, Mr..
Frederic Stanford notes that returns
for literary work are now far better
than they were a generation ago and
says IL Is a pity that such authors as
Hawthorne and Poe, not to mention
others also desperately hard pressed Tor
money. could not have postponed them
selves to this more renuueratIve pc
Rod" Poe lived and died In poverty.
His first literary earning was prize
of 500 received for The MS. Found in
"A Bottle" When he had acquired some
little fame he was glad to sell his tai
ents to the Southern Literary Maya
zine at SO per week. Later he worked
for several literary journals at the rate
of 50 a printed page. In 1871 he wrote
to n friend In Washington that he
would be glad to secure any regular
work that would bring him $500 year.
The best pay Poe ever had for any arti-
Gle was 500. His greatest success,
The Raven" was sold to a second
class publication i'm ls43 for SIS. Writ
ing disconsolately about his hard life
he said: "To coin ones brains into
silver. at the nod of "A master, Is, to
my thinking. the hardest task in the
world"
/ Mr. Stanford does not give US ex-
amplcs of the profits Of modern literary
workers. lie might have noted. how
ever. that aside from a popular few,
/ literary men are st!ll but poorly re-
warded; that majority of the publish
ed books return their writers uuthi x;
that hundreds Of them are published at
the authors loss, and that, word for
word, the newspaper writer's receive
better pay than the poets and the iiC-
tion-makers. And this will not appear
anomalous to those experienced in the
newspaper profession. A genius for so
called literary work is far more plenti-
full than the capacity for quick writing,
coupled with incXhaustibilty. which is
essential in the successful editor.
Returning to the interesting review
of early authors given by MIR. Stan
/ ford. we find II noted that Washington
Irving sold his sketch Book" for $500
and that Harriet Beecher stowe receiv-
ed but 5000 for the rights OF Uncle
Toms Cabin" as "A serial Most OF
Hawthorne's Twice Told Tales" were
sold AT 1886 apiece. THE literary pay of
Lowell ana Longfellow." says Mr. Stan
ford, was not sufficient to encourage
either to dispense with the salary of a
professor, $500 year, paid at Har-
ward College. 1t Is stated that John
Bartlett, author of 'Bartlett's Familiar
Quotations realized more on three edi-
lions Of that work than Lowell had re-
ceived for all he had published. 1t is
inferred from a passage In Scudder's
biography that when Lowell had $500
In hand he felt easy I'm money affairs
Longfellow enjoyed the labor of COM
position, pay or no pay. Although the
publisher Of Hyperion failed and one
half the edition was seized by the cred
itors, the author wrote, No matter.
had the glorious satisfaction Of writing
It, lie also informed his friend Green
IN lNik that all nf the p1hliSharG
whether of books or periodicals, We're
desperately poor just then and that the
editor of the Knickerbocker Magazine
had not paid him for his work the last
three years. A letter, though, from
Park Benjamin, at the beginning of
that year, makes IT apparent that the
editor Of The New World was not
without money. Your ballad, The
Wreck OF the Hesperus, he sent word
TO Longfellow, is grand. Enclosed are
S25 the sum you mentioned for it, The
Skeleton in Armor drew SIS. A few
months later Sam Ward. who was then
In Wall street, began TO act as Long
fellows literary broker In New York
lie wrote to Ward that Benjamin want
ed couple Of poems and offered sec
each. Mention should be made that II
was Ward who negotiated the sale Of
The Hanging OF the Crane with Rob
ert Bonner for the Ledger in 1874. Long.
fellow knew nothing Of the affair unit
Ward carried him a check for $4,000 and
asked for the manuscript. The money
proved too tempting TO resist. Bonner
made Ward present Of $1,000 for tn,
service he had rendered him. In 1877
Harper and Bros paid Longfellow 500
for the right 10 publish the long poem
'Keramos' in their magazine. Thes,
two amounts were the culminatln,
prices for Longfelow's single produc
lions, His executors estimated In thei
accounting that the plates and copy
rights Of all his works in 1852 wer,
worth about $50 600, He was an indus
trious literary worker for more thar
20 years"
Sir Walter Resant had accumuiatet
10000 out OF his writings bv the tim,