The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-05-24
SUPERFLUOUS NOVELS.
BY HAL SPEED.

Much has been written about the tribu- iatiohs of the young author and the diff fculty he has in placing his first manu- script Older writers frighten him with their own experience. and with the aid of statistics tell him just how many times and to how many publishers a manuscript must, be submitted, what severe critics the readers are, how unsympathetic the publisher himself is, and-this is most dis couraging of all to the young author-how glutted the fiction market is. The cool reception of Vanity Fair. the terrible pow erty Sof Dr. Johnson, Poe's ineffective struggle with an unsympathetic audience the early neglect of Hawthorne. these in stances of genius unappreciated cannot but have a terrifying effect upon the young author. who himself, often enough, is doubtful of the perfection of his first manuscript.
 But If literature has its ages and its pe- yfods. this would seem to be the age of the young author; and when one sees the thousands of volumes of fiction. all bear ing a new name, and all with few ex- captions. covering a new territory. the wonder is not that the publishers are so exclusive in the literary company they keeph but apparently that their house is open to all corners, old and young. origi- nal and dull. past masters and appren- uces. And the critics or the discerning readers no longer ask themselves why such and such a novel was published, but rather why it was not suppressed. For if publishers often overlook a masterpiece they more than often go to the other ex- treme. thence the supply of fiction which has nothing much to distinguish it except the binding and the title. This is a per- fectly natural condition, for without medi- ocrity as background, talent could nev- CT stand out in the prominence of its nov city. And if more of the inferior class of novels are now published it is probably due to the fact that more novels of every kind are published.
 Commenting on these conditions in mod ern literature, Harper's Weekly in a re- cent issue quotes from an article-"Fric- tion and Froth"-in the Academy:
 There are times when the multitude of novels upon our shelves strikes us with a kind of hopeless amazement. With the best intention in the world it is impossi- ble to deal with them all; impossible even to mention more than the titles of many of them. This, in itself, does not neces- sarily imply that the production of novels is too great; but when we approach the question of selection, the implication that 1t is too great becomes a hard and un- blinkable fact. The number of novels which can stand the test of reasonable critical standard is astonishingly small; even if we accepted the modern and as we think. the untenable theory, that the main end of fiction should be to amuse. it would remain astonishingly small, for true amusement is not often to be found in these rows of many colored volumes. But the main end of fiction should not be to amuse any more than 1t should be con- sciously to instruct. Fiction, indeed is an instrument of too wide a range to be brought within the narrow circle of a defi- milton; 1t has all the world for its pas ture, all the infinite follies and vices and noblenesses of man for theme. Yet defi- mite theme, point of view, individuality of presentation, are precisely the things which we find lacking in so much recent fiction. critic whose faculty has been