The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1934-02-19

had precipitated a wild scramble
among newspaper publishers, book
publishers, syndicate managers
and magazine editors for first
rights Airplanes, transatlantic
telephones, radio and cables were
used in the negotiations.
Monte Bourjaily, general man
ager of United Feature Syndi-
cate, interviewed for The Times,
tells of the events leading up to
the forthcoming first publication.
Beginning With the manuscript
itself, Mr. Bourjaily points out
that its very existence was I'M
known to most of the worlds mil
lions of Dickens readers until last
December. There are few ref
erences to it in Dickensian Itera-
ture.
The manuscript was kept as a
precious secret in the Dickens
family for eighty-five years" said
Mr. Bourjaily. The author had
left it to his sister-in-laW, Geor-
ina Hogarth, who, in turn had be-
queathed it to Sir Henry Fielding
Dickens with the stipulation that
it was not to be published until
the last surviving child, and after
he died in London last December,
his widow announced that the
family had decided to offer the
manuscript for publication.
n
"THAT quiet little announce
Il ment was the signal that
set the publishing world aflre,"
said Mr.. Bourjaily. What the
value of publication rights would
be, nobody then knew. That was
something that would be de-
termined by competitive bidding.
From every corner of the globe,
agents set out by train, steamer
and airplane headed for London.
Within a few days, we realized
We were in the midst Of one of
the greatest literary land rushes
in history.
THE first thing we did was to
cable to E. L. Keen, our European
manager, then in Paris, to fly to
London to open negotiations with
Curtis Brown, Ltd, literary agents
for the Dickens family. From
then on Mr. Keen was in con-
slant touch with us by cable.
Sometimes there were as many
as ten messages a day being
cabled back and forth. Thousands
of words were used as instruc-
tons were transmitted and we
were apprised of new develop
ments in the negotiations. The
bidding had started modestly
enough, but swiftly it rose to pre-
cipitous heights.
Now here, in order to give the
picture to people who are not ac-
quainted with newspaper syndl-
Gates, 1 want to try to make some
business things clear. Everybody
understands in general why an
individual magazine or book pub
fishing concern or an individual
newspaper would be anxious to
get first publication rights to any
Dickens manuscript, but I be-
lieve general knowledge of syn
dicate's function is somewhat
vague.
THE syndicate exists to sell
features to newspapers. Some
features are prohibitively expen-
Sive if any one newspaper under
takes to buy them, but when the
syndicate buys an expensive lea-
ture, it is in position to sell pup
LEGATION rights to a number CT
newspapers and thus reduce the
cost to reasonable limits for each
newspaper"
"XXTHAT reasonable limits
w would be in the case of
the Dickens manuscript. nobody
knew" he continues. But what
we did know was that this OPP
portunity could come only once in
a lifetime. We did know that an
unpublished work by the author OF
David Copperf1eld,' The Pick
wick Papers, "A Christmas Carol
The Tale of Two Cities Oliver
Twist and the rest of the i'm
perishable Dickens stories would
be, on publication, an event OF
first magnitude.
Like everybody else concerned
in the bidding, we had not seen
the manuscript itself, but we did
not feel that we were guessing
about its value. We had too much
faith in the genius of the man
who had created Micawber, Sairy
Camp. Little Nell, Bill Sykes and
the whole immortal gallery OF
Dickens characters.
However, to make assurance
doubly sure, We got into touch by
telephone and telegraph with edi-
tors in key cities of the United
States. Canada and Latin Amer
lea. We needed their support if
We were to keep up the precipitouS
bidding.
And it was because these edi-
tors saw eye to eye with us on
the value Of publication rights
that We were enabled to keep in
the running. They stuck to us as
the bidding figures mounted and
there was a call constantly for
more money.
They saw eye to eye with us,
too. on the fact that this first
publication of The Life of Our
Lord would be a worldwide news
event. The custom had long de-
veloped IN the publishing business
that when a manuscript of i'm
portance was on the market, the
magazines bought first rights.
IF a leading novelist of today
turns out a new story, the usual
order of procedure is for the
author to sell serial rights to a
magazine, then book publishing
rights, and then. later, what are
called second serial rights TO news
papers. In this fashion, the au-
thor would cash in for the most
money.
In stepping into the bidding on
the Dickens manuscript, We were
upSetting a custom that had be-
come pretty we'll standardized.