The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920, 1919-06-08

arrant trash) Meanwhile, should the beginner sub
NIT a gloomy cross section of cross roads life in
darkest Nebraska, he won't get it back simply be-
cause it is gloomy, or simply because imaginative
romances of Wall and Forty streets or bust
ness stories of sixteenth century Paris happen to
be IN overwhelming demand. Instead, provided his
Nebraskan explorations are any good, he will be
given his head and run for the publisher money.
We violate no publishers advertised confidence In
saying So We infer it from examination of their
wares. .~-
Who Are the copyistsa -,
Incidentally, we doubt that conspiracy among
publishers in restraint Of individuality in new nov
eliStS was ever so serious matter as some people
would have one believe Certain houses have always
been conservative, it true But to say that house
is conservative means that there is another house
which is liberal minded in comparison When all
in game playing safe, nobody is safe; and have
there not always been prosperous houses buttressed
by occasional lucrative successes-the latter made
by taking chance on a manuscript that was diff
ferent in some resperti Follow my leader is game
which authors can play at. When a Dava Hdr4an
or a Mrs Wigs arrives in its hundredth edition,
and rabble of limitations stumbling after, are
we to suppose that all the initiating publishers took
all the hapless initiative writers by the scruff of
the neck and stood over them while Davy Harnu,s
Miss Wriggs was sweated QUIT
At the same time, wherever the responsibility be-
longs, there haze been despotic modes IN American
fiction. Probably the authors whose novels set them
were responsible; and there is no knowing how soon
some super-BestS Seller will appear, and spoil the
present almost Arcadian opportunity. Until then
the field seems open in every direction. Not exactly
L. Al,
an 80 900 word manuscript at the bottom of trunk
can fish it out and sell it willy-niily We should be
sorry if these remarks were so construed, to the
burdening of the mails, the maddening of weary
publishers readers during the dog days, and new
burnings of old wounds in many breasts.
What we do mean is this: If anybody has any
kind of notion for story $4,000 words long, and if
he believes in it and in himself, let him not be dis
couraged from starting to write, or scrivener s.
palsied as he goes along by fear that no matter
how well executed his novel will not be the kind the
publishers want. The publishers don't know what
they want. They experimenting In the hope
that they will learn Two or three seem to be hav-
ing shot at everything that stirs, with the thought
that these scattergun tactics will sooner later
bag prize.
A Case in Point
We remember especially, one of the spring 'snew
novels-a first novel, by author, whose name was
unknown. Its idea is original to fault. The work
manship is by no means bad; indeed, much of this
book as a whole is distinctly good and promising.
Yet if friend of ours had written it, and had
asked us to read it in manuscript and say what we
thought of its chances of being published could
not in conscience have said thought it had any.
1t is markedly different, and markedly unpleas-
ant in the popular sense. Its author selected for
his hero one of those peculiarly sensitive selfcen
tired individuals whose stone bruises from life be-
come calloused with what the doctors call obses-
sions His were hypochondriasis and untruthful-
ness Author deSpised hero as only person can
despise this type who knows little about it from
inside, and whose scorn is phase of selfpity. He
drew him strongly, faithfully reentlessly. He put
him through a somewhat fantastic romance
wrongside out, which ended with murder and a
suicide
Personally we should have been sorry to see the
novel rejected. Professionally, we shouldn't have
bet cancelled stamp that it could be accepted.