The Camden chronicle. (Camden, Tenn.) 1890-current, 1910-07-01

have not been confined to the last ten
or fifteen years. Scott received his
$4,000 for single volume at time
when money went much further than
at present. When disaster came from
outside speculation literary labor
saved him; he earned for his creditors
nearly 100000 between January,
1926, and January, 1928.
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,
is said in his heyday to have pocketed
and squandered 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 "Comedie Humane"
yet to the end he was weighted with
debts, due to his visionary financial
schemes. In the '2Os of the last CEN
| tury 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
airy 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
1000 to 10000 francs a year, not
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
man of eXtravagant habits in money
matters. tits 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, a 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 e14, at the rate of So
a thousand words. In his latest work
he received as much single word as
was formerly paid him for the thou
sand, getting sixty cents a 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-
IL h,,
comfortable fortune and that is ALL
Thomas Hardy and George Mere
dith 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
the days of international copyright,
but probably not one of her last seven
or eight novels has returned her less
than $4,000.
OF Katherine Cecil Thurston's "The
Masquerader" 100000 copies were
sold in this country alone, and issued
under the title of John Chlcote, M.
p in England the book brought it's
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 $40.
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
ly remunerative income until as with
Scott, financial disaster plunged him
deep into debt. F. Marion Crawford