The St. Mary banner. (Franklin, Parish of St. Mary, La.) 1889-1931, 1910-07-30

The profits OF successful autnOrSnlp
have not been confined to the last ten
or fifteen years. Scott received his
ra000 for a single volume at a time
vhen money went much further than
at present. When disaster came from
outside speculation literary labor
.aved him; he earned for his creditors
nearly 100000 between January,
1926, and January, 1928.
j. The elder Dumas. with his great
name, the system with which he man
aged his small army of clever collab
orators, his willingness to sign as
many contracts for romances as con-
tanned clauses for advance payment,
IA said in his heyday to have pocketed
and suuandered annually 100000
francs, yet he was often without
twenty francs Of ready money at his
disposal
Balzac made enormous sums from
the novels OF the Coincide Humane,
vet to the end he was weighted with
debts, due to his visionary financial
schemes. In the '20s of the last CEN
fury Eugene Sue received 100000
francs from the serial rights of The
Wandering Jew
OF the moderns, Alphonse Daudet
passed the last of his life in comfort.
Emile lola put the story Of his liter
ary earnings into his residence at Me-
dan, making an addition named for
and paid by each successful work.
Flaubert fortunately inherited money,
as he did not make much from his
writing. Du Maupassant earned from
$4,000 to 10000 francs a year, not a
great deal when one considers that he
was counted big seller" this was
at rate of two or three cents word
for the serial rights.
Dickens at his death left an estate
valued at 100000, though he was a
man of extravagant habits in money
matters It's reckoned that he earned
three times that sum during the thir-
ty-odd years of his successful literary
work.
Although Thackeray never COM
manded anything like the money his
contemporary did-having no more
than sixteen years of decided success
he was able to live in luxury and
left to his children an estate equiva-
lent to that which he himself had in
herited and squandered in his young
er days. He received only 100 gum
cas- apiece for the essays later collect
ed as the Roundabout Papers," and
$1,000 for Henry Esmond."
When Conan Doyle, practicing
physician, wrote "A Study in Scarlet"
the first introduction of Sherlock
Holmes, story Of some $4,000
words-after peddling it about from
publisher to publisher, he succeeded
In selling it for s14, at the rate of 81
q thousand words. In his latest work
he received as much single word as
was formerly paid him for the thou
sand, getting sixty cents word for
the American serial rights alone. Sew
enty thousand pounds probably repre-
sents the sum the Sherlock Holmes
books, together with the play, have
brought the author.
The greater part of the work Of
Rudyard Kipling was produced in the
days Of his obscurity, when some of
his finest stories went begging for
$50 apiece, and although he now
commands the highest rates, of late
years he has produced comparatively
little. For the serial rights of kim"
In England and this country he re-
ceived $4,000. He has accumulated
comfortable fortune and that is all.
Thomas Hardy and George Mere
Idith do not head the list of English
fiction money makers. Mrs. Hum
phrey Wards profits have been large
and constant. Robert Elsmere" was
not money winner, appearing before
but probably not one of her last seven
or eight novels has returned her less
than $4,000.
OF Katherine Cecil Thurston's ''The
Masquerade" 100000 copies were
sold in this country alone, and issued
under the title of John ChilcOte, M.
P.," in England the book brought its
author another comfortable fortune.
Beatrice Harraden made no money
from her great success, "Ships That
Pass in the Night" which went far
into the hundred thousands, because
In this country there was no copyright
and the English rights had been sold
outright by the author for $50.
William Dean Howells, holding first
rank as he does, has never had great
sale for any of his books. Mark
Twain, on the other hand, had high
iy remunerative income until, as with
Scott, financial disaster plunged him