Evening journal., 1915-04-05
New News Of Yesterday
Literary Earnings in the
Last Century
By Holland.

Il have often thought that had Har4
riot Beecher Stowe been properly adj
vised when making arrangements for
the publication of Uncle Toms Cabin
she would have had the prestige of
having received larger amount of
money for single work than any
American author. man or woman. re-
ceived in the aggregate for all their
work, at least up to about 1875" said
the late Parke Goodwin to me at a
time when he was telling me some of
his experiences as one of the editors
of Putnam's Magazine in the mid
years OF the past century. Associated
with Mr.. Goodwin in the editOrship
was George William Curtis.
Il have been told that Mrs. Stowe
was paid only a small amount per
column for the story of Uncle Toms
Cabin as it appeared week by week
in newspaper published in Wash
ipgton. She did not have good busi-
ness advice when she made the ar
rangement for the publication in book
form. II may be that neither she nor
her publisher nor any publisher real
lied at the time what the enormity
OF the sales of the book were TO be
No one thought of telling her to Sc
cure the dramatic rights i'm the book.
Ii never occurred to anybody that
these rights would be worth anything.
yet, ] suppose millions were made out
OF the production of Uncle Toms
Cabin as play. Not one penny of
fhfu did
while | am talking TO you about
tie earnings of writer's in the United
States in the first seventy-fve years
of the nineteenth century il occurs
to me that / have seen it stated that
James Parton received the largest
money returns of any American au-
thor. Parton once told me that his
earnings on his writings averaged
about $1,000 80 year That was a
large amount for the days when Par
ton became active as an author.
Washington Irving, | believe, re-
ceived more for his life of Washing
ton than for all his other writings
put together, but that was because ne
made contract with the publisher for
so much money. part of which was
to be paid in advance and part upon
the completion of the work. The
largest single sum ever paid up to
that time for story was paid by
Robert Bonner to Henry Ward Beech
er for the novel called Norwood /
happened TO know that the lump sum
was $4,000. and I doubt if any Amer
ican author up to that time ever gain
cd as much money as that for a sin
gle work.
Bonner earned more credit than he
ever received for his encouragement
to American authors. He paid literally
and in doing that set the standard.
He once told me that he never made
q large payment for book TO be pub
lished serially in his newspaper OF
even for single article without real
izing in a little while that he more
than got his money back. He paid
Charles Dickens $4,000 for the Ameri-
can rights of a short story. and the
publication of that story much more
than paid Mr.. Bonner back again the
$4,000 that he expended.
when ! was editor OF Putnam's
Magazine the money customarily paid
for an article was IS magazine
page. Sometimes It was a little more
than that The Harpers paid Thack-
cray considerably more than that for
his serial story OF The Virginians.'
but they didn't get their money back
on this investment. for IL was the
poorest of Thackeray's stories"
Copyright. 1915. by f. J. Edwards.
All rights reserved)
Tomorrow Mr.. Edwards will tell
How New York City Made a Serious
Blunder."