Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-02-23
WITHFOREIGN WRITERS
DOUGLAS SLADEN PERSUADED TO
WRITE HIS MEMOIRS.
American Magazines Cutting Out the
English Magazine Market and
Reducing Prices.
Special Correspondence of. The Star.

Special Correspondence OF The Star.
LONDON, February II, 1907.
Literary people will all be glad to hear
that Douglas Sladen has at last been per-
suaded to write his memoirs. There are
few literary lions who have had a larger
circle of famous friends than Mr.. Sladen,
who for about thirty years has been one
of the leading figures in literary London.
His Thursday evening parties in his Ken
sington fiat were celebrated for their ce-
lebrities, and it was Mr.. Sladen who was
mainly instrumental in promoting a sue
cess!on of brilliant Bohemian clubs, the
Argonauts, the Vagabonds and the Authors,
where his powers as a raconteur made him
an always popular member. OF the old
Vagabonds' Club, of which Jerome X.
Jerome once regretfuliy said that there
was only one perambulator between all
the members Barrie and Kipling were
members, and its dinners were frequented
regularly by Conan Doyle, Jerome, Gang
will, Anthony Hope, Stanley Weyman, H.
G. Wells, Hall Cane, Rider Haggard and
many others whose names are now writ in
the scroll of fame.
Sladen's American "reminiscences are like
ly to be of peculiar interest, for he was in
the United States for three years, and num-
bered among his friends such men and
women as the poet Whittier, the atheist
1ngersoll. Col. John Hay, DR.. Oliver Wen
n. L. d.
rich. w. D. Howells, Mark Twain. Bill
Nye, Edmund Clarence Stedman, Louise
Chandler Moulton, Col. T. w. Higginson
and many others. He saw something of
three Presidents, Cleveland, Harrison and
Roosevelt. With reference to oliver Wen
dell Holmes, l once heard Mr.. Sladen tell
an interesting anecdote He was calling
on the doctor and his host introduced him
to his secretary. When she had left the
room, Holmes said to Mr.. Sladen: THAT
will one day be famous woman! She
can really write" The secretary was Miss
Mary E. Wilkins.
Began "Who's Whop"
AS most people know, Douglas Sladen
was the original founder Of Who's Who?'
about the compiling Of which he has many
stories. One very famous authoress who
affects to despise her gigantic popularity,
paid not the slightest attention to his polite
request that she would fill in the details
on the form which was duly sent her. Mr..
Sladen had no choice but to fill in the de-
tails himself, which he did as best he
could, but by Machiavellian stroke of
policy inserted the lady's age as forty.
The proofs were duly sent to her, and the
result was an indignant letter of protest,
together with reams of biographical mat
ter-more, in fact, than was needed. Mr..
Sladen was subsequently, 1 gather, for
given.
Invasion of Americans.
Within a week or two the annual inva-
sion of London by American publishers
will be at its height. Each wishing to
be first on the ground to pick up the best
bargains in English authors, the invasion
seems to begin a little earlier each year.
But the day has gone by for much profit
in such pilgrimages. In the last few years
the successful English author has become
fully alive to the value of the American
market longer m
rights in his English publishers hands to
be held until some American publisher
comes along to buy them. AS a matter of
sad fact, good many of the more impor-
tant English novels are sold in America
even before they are written-at least, so
far as book rights are concerned. The gen.
eral report Is. however, that the American
magazine editor has acquired habit of
insisting upon seeing what it is that he is
going to buy before he agrees to pay for
IT. Another interesting sign of the times
is that, whereas English authors can get
better prices than ever from American
magazines. providing their stories are good,
the prices in the English magazines. for
serials at least, are decreasing steadily, and
the prices for short stories are also sur
prisingly small, except in the case of a
few favorite authors The principal reason
is that so many Of the American magazines
are now disposing of the English rights
of their material to magazines here at
lower rates than the local authors used to
get. The amount of American material in
English magazines is increasing steadily.
On the other hand. scarcely one of the
English magazines that doesn't circulate in
the United States finds any market with
American magazines for the American
rights of it's material. Yet another inter-
estng change in the situation is that
French, German and Scandinavian authors
are waking up to the advantage of the
new American copyright law, and are be-
ginning to offer their work to American
publishers and editors.
Name Still Withheld.
Mystery still clings to the authorship of
Elizabeth and Her German Garden. -
"Fraulein Schmidt and Mr.. Anstruther, 4"
the new book by this retiring author, is
announced for publication here in book
form early next summer, but the author
name is still suppressed. The first few in
stallments of the story appeared i one of
the leading American magazines under the
name of The Countess Won Arnhim," but
there is such name in the lists of titled
personages in Germany, and it is inter-
estng to observe that this name has now
been withdrawn from the magazine in ques-
ton and by the author of Elizabeth and
Her German Garden - substituted for it.
One of the most distinguished of old Ger
man families bears a name closely reSem-
bling the one so strangely withdrawn, but
this doesn't necessarily signify.
Eden Phillpotts, who has been having a
ferOcious correspondence with the London
Times over the book war brought on by
the Times cut-rate sales, has been ill for
several weeks, and has now left his charm
ing home in Torquay for the sunshine of
San Reno where his health has already
begun to improve.