August 18, 2025 • 25 mins
Have you ever been curious about how your favorite authors embarked on their writing journeys? Did they dive headfirst into the world of literature, or did they pour their hearts into their stories after long days at the office? Some faced countless rejections, while others tasted success almost immediately. In this captivating collection, we hear directly from the authors themselves—like Bret Harte, Arthur Conan Doyle, R.M. Ballantyne, and H. Rider Haggard—as they share the pivotal moments that launched their literary careers. Join us as we explore the diverse experiences that shaped some of the most beloved writers in history. - Summary by Lynne Thompson
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter thirteen of my first book. This is a liprivox recording.
All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
information or to volunteer, please visit liprivox dot org. Recording
by Avay in September two thousand nineteen, my first book
by various, Chapter thirteen, The Premiere and the Painter by
(00:26):
eizangwill as it is scarcely two years since my name,
which I hear is a nom de plume, appeared in
print on the cover of a book. I may be
suspected of professional humor when I say I do not
really know which was my first book. Yet such is
the fact my literary career has been so queer that
(00:49):
I find it not easy to write my autobibliography. What
is a pound, asked Sir Robert Peel in an interrogative mood,
futile as pilot. What is a book? I ask, and
the dictionary answers with its usual dogmatic air. A collection
of sheets of paper or a similar material, blank, written
(01:12):
or printed, bound together. At this rate, my first book
would be That Romance of school Life in two volumes,
which written in a couple of exercise books circulated gratuitously
in the schoolroom and pleased our youthful imaginations with teacher
baiting tricks we had not the pluck to carry out
(01:33):
in the actual I shall always remember this story, because,
after making the tour of the class, it was returned
to me with thanks and a new first page, from
which all my graces of style had evaporated. Indignant inquiry
discovered the criminal. He admitted he had lost the page
and had rewritten it from memory. He pleaded that it
(01:57):
was better written, which in one sense was true, and
that none of the facts had been omitted. This ill
treated tale was published when I was ten, But an
old schoolfellow recently wrote to me reminding me of an
earlier novel written in an old account book. Of this
I have no recollection, but as he says, he wrote
(02:19):
it day by day at my dictation, I suppose he
ought to know. I am glad to find I had
so early achieved the distinction of keeping an amenduensis. The
dignity of print I achieved not much later, contributing verses
and virtuous essays to various juvenile organs. But it was
(02:39):
not till I was eighteen that I achieved the printed
first book, The Story of this first book is peculiar,
and to tell it in an approved story form, I
must request the reader to come back two years with me.
One fine day, when I was sixteen, I was wondering
about the Ramsgate sands looking for Tool. I did not
(03:01):
really expect to see him, and I had no reason
to believe he was in Ramsgate. But I thought if
providence were kind to him, it might throw him in
my way. I wanted to do him a good turn.
I had written a three act fascical comedy at the
request of an amateur dramatic club. I had written out
(03:21):
all the parts, and I think there were rehearsals, but
the play was never produced. In the light of after knowledge,
I suspect some of those actors must have been of
quite professional caliber. You understand therefore why my thoughts turned
to Tool. But I could not find Tool. Instead, I
found on the sands a page of a paper called Society.
(03:46):
It is still running merrily at a penny, but at
that time it had also a Saturday edition at threepence.
On this page was a great prize competition scheme, as
well as details of a regular weekly competition. The competitions
in those days were always literary and intellectual. But then
popular education had not made such strides as to day.
(04:09):
I sat down on the spot and wrote something which
took a prize in the weekly competition. This emboldened me
to enter for the great stakes. There were various events
I resolved to enter for two. One was a short
novel and the other a comedietta. The five pounds humorous
(04:30):
story competition I did not go in for. But when
the last day of sending in manuscripts for that had passed,
I reproached myself with not having dispatched one of my manuscripts.
Modesty had prevented me sending in old work, as I
feel assured it would stand no chance. But when it
was too late, I was annoyed with myself for having
(04:51):
thrown away a possibility. After all, I could have lost nothing.
Then I discovered that I had mistaken the last date
and that there was still a day. In the joyful reaction,
I selected a story called Professor Grimmer and sent it
in judge of my amazement. When this got the prize
five pounds and was published in serial form, running through
(05:14):
three numbers of Society. Last year, at a press dinner,
I found myself next to mister Arthur Goddard, who told
me he had acted as competition editor, and that quite
a number of now well known people had taken part
in these admirable competitions. My painfully labored novel only got
honorable mention at my Comedietta was lost in the post.
(05:39):
But I was now at the height of literary fame,
and success stimulated me to fresh work. I still marvel
when I think of the amount of rubbish I turned
out in my seventeenth and eighteenth years. In the scanty
leisure of a harassed pupil teacher at an elementary school,
working hard in the evenings for a degree at the
(05:59):
long University to boot. There was a fellow pupil teacher,
let us call him Why, who believed in me, and
who had a little money with which to back his belief.
I was for starting a comic paper. The name was
to be Grimaldi, and I was to write it all
every week. But don't you think your invention would give way?
(06:21):
Ultimately asked why. It was the only time he ever
doubted me. By that time I shall be able to
afford the staff, I replied triumphantly. Why. I was convinced,
But before the comic paper was born. Why had another
happy thought. He suggested that if I wrote a Jewish story,
(06:42):
we might make enough to finance the comic paper. I
was quite willing. If he had suggested an epic, I
should have written it. So I wrote the story in
four evenings. I always write in spurts, and within ten
days from the inception of the idea, the book was
on sale in a coverless pamphlet form. The printing cost
(07:04):
ten pounds. I paid five the five I had won.
Y paid five, and we divided the prophets. He has
since not become a publisher. My first book, price one
penny Net, went well. It was loudly denounced by those
it described, and widely bought by them. It was hawked
(07:25):
about the streets. One little shop in White Chapel sold
four hundred copies. It was even on smith's bookstalls. There
was great curiosity among Jews to know the name of
the writer. Owing to my anonymity, I was enabled to
see those enjoying its perusal, who were afterwards to explain
to me their horror and disgust at its illiteracy and vulgarity.
(07:49):
By vulgarity, vulgar Jews mean the reproduction of the Hebrew
words with which the poor and the old fashioned interlarged
their conversation. It is as if English speaking Scotchmen and
Irishmen should object to dialect novels reproducing the idiom of
their uncultured countrymen. I do not possess a copy of
(08:10):
my first book, but somehow or other I discovered the
manuscript when writing Children of the Ghetto. The description of
market day in jury was transferred bodily from the manuscript
of my first book, and is now generally admired. What
the profits were I never knew, for they were invested
(08:30):
in the second of our publications, Still jealously keeping the
authorship's secret, we published a long comic ballad which I
had written on the model of bab which is we
determined to launch out in style, and so we had
gorgeous advertisement posters printed in three colors, which were to
be stuck about London to beautify that great dreary city.
(08:53):
Why saw the black hair of fortune almost within our grasp?
One morning our head master walked into my room with
a portentously solemn air. I felt instinctively that the murder
was out, but he only said where is why, though
the mere coupling of our names was ominous for our
(09:13):
publishing partnership, was unknown, I replied, how should I know?
In his room, I spose. He gave me a peculiar,
skeptical glance. When did you last see why? He said,
yesterday afternoon, I replied, wonderingly. And you don't know where
(09:33):
he is now? Haven't an idea? Isn't he in school? No,
he replied, in low awful tones. Where then, I murmured,
in prison? In prison, I gasped, In prison, I have
just been to help bail him out. It transpired that
(09:56):
Why had suddenly been taken with a further happy thought,
contemplation of those gorgeous, tricolored posters had turned his brain, and,
armed with an amateur paste pot and the ladder, he
had sallied forth at midnight to stick them about the
silent streets so as to cut down the publishing expenses.
(10:16):
A policeman observing him at work had told him to
get down, and why, being legal minded, had argued it
out with the policeman the hautomba from the top of
his ladder. The outraged majesty of the law thereupon hailed
why off to the cells. Naturally, the cat was now
out of the bag, and the fat and the fire
(10:38):
to explain away the poster was beyond the ingenuity of
even a professed fiction bonger straightway. The committee of the
school was summoned in hot haste and held debate upon
the scandal of a pupil teacher being guilty of originality,
And one dry afternoon, when all nature seemed to hold
its breadth, I was called down to interview a member
(11:00):
of the committee. In his hand were copies of the
obnoxious publications. I approached the great person with beating heart.
He had been kind to me in the past, singling
me out on account of some scholastic successes for an
annual vacation at the sea side. It has only just
struck me, after all these years, that if he had
(11:23):
not done so, I should not have found the page
of Society, and so not have perpetrated the deplorable compositions.
In the course of a bad quarter of an hour,
he told me that the ballad was tolerable, though not
to be endured. He admitted the meter was perfect, and
there wasn't a single false rhyme. But the prose novelette
(11:46):
was disgusting. It is such stuff, said he, as little
boys scribble upon walls. I said, I could not see
anything objectionable in it. Come now, confess you are ashamed
of it. He urged, you only wrote it to make money.
If you mean that I deliberately wrote low stuff to
(12:07):
make money, I replied, calmly, it is untrue. There is
nothing I am ashamed of. What you object to is
simply realism. I pointed out that Bret Hart had been
as realistic, but they did not understand literature on that committee.
Confess you are ashamed of yourself, he reiterated, and we
(12:29):
will look over it. I am not, I persisted, though
I foresaw only too clearly that my summertification was doomed
if I told the truth. What is the use of
saying I am the head master? Uplifted his hands in horror.
How after all your kindness to him, he can contradict you,
(12:52):
he cried, When I come to be your age, I
conceded to the member of the committee, it is possible.
I mean, look back on it with shame. At present
I feel none. In the end, I was given the
alternative of expulsion or of publishing nothing which had not
passed the censorship of the committee. After considerable hesitation, I
(13:15):
chose the letter. This was a blessing in disguise, for
as I have never been able to endure the slightest
arbitrary interference with my work, I simply abstained from publishing. Thus,
although I still wrote mainly sentimental verses, my nocturnal studies
were less interrupted. Not till I had graduated and was
(13:37):
of age did I return to my inky Vomit. Then
came my next first book, a real book at last.
In this also I had the collaboration of a fellow teacher,
Louis Cowen by name. This time my colleague was part author.
It was only gradually that I had been admitted to
(13:58):
the privilege of communion with him, for he was my
senior by five or six years, and a man of
brilliant parts, who had already won his spurs in journalism,
and who enjoyed deservedly the reputation of an admirable criton.
What drew me to him was his mordant wit to
day alas wasted on anonymous journalism. If he would only
(14:21):
reconsider his indetermination, the reading public would be the richer. Together,
we planned plays novels, treatises on political economy, and contributions
to philosophy. Those were the days of dreams. One afternoon
he came to me with quivering sides and told me
that an idea for a little shilling book had occurred
(14:43):
to him. It was that a radical prime minister and
a conservative workingman should change into each other by supernatural means,
and the working man be confronted with the problem of governing,
while the prime minister should be as comically out of
place in the East End environment. He thought it would
make a funny Arabian Nights sort of burlesque, and so
(15:05):
it would have done. But unfortunately I saw subtle possibilities
of political satire in it, nothing less than a reductio
ad absordom of the whole system of party government. I
insisted the story must be real, not supernatural. The prime
minister must be a Tory weary of office, and it
(15:26):
must be an ultra radical atheistic artisan, bearing a marvelous
resemblance to him who directs and with complete success to
conservative administration. To add to the mischief, owing to my
collaborator's evenings being largely taken up by other work, seven
eighths of the book came to be written by me,
(15:47):
though the leading ideas were of course threshed out and
the whole revised in common. And thus it became a
vent hole for all the ferment of a youth of
twenty one, whose literary faculty had further more been pent
up for years by the potential censorship of a committee.
The book, instead of being a shilling skit, grew to
(16:08):
a ten and sixpenny, for that was the unfortunate price
of publication. Political treatise of over sixty long chapters and
five hundred closely printed pages. I do all the characters
as seriously and complexly as if the fundamental conception were
a matter of history. The outgoing premiere became an elaborate
(16:30):
study of a nineteenth century hamlet, The Bethnal Green life
amid which he came to live, was presented with photographic
fullness and my old trick of realism. The governmental maneuvers
were described with infinite detail, Numerous real personages were introduced
under nominal disguises, and subsequent history was curiously anticipated in
(16:53):
some of the Female Franchise and Home Rule episodes. Worst
of all, so super so was the satire that it
was never actually stated straight out that the Premiere had
changed places with the Radical working Man, so that the
door might be left open for satirically suggested alternative explanations
(17:14):
of the metamorphosis in their characters, and as moreover, the
two men reassumed their original roles for one night only,
with infinitely complex effects. Many readers, otherwise unimpeachable, reached the
end without any suspicion of the actual plot, and yet,
on their own confession, enjoyed the book. In contrast to
(17:39):
all this elephantine waggery, the half dozen chapters near the commencement,
in which my collaborators sketched the first adventures of the
Radical Workingman in Downing Street were light and sparkling, and
I feel sure the shilling skitty originally mediated would have
been a great success. We christened the book the Premiere
(18:00):
and the Painter ourselves. J. Freeman Bell had its typewritten
and sent it round to the publishers into enormous quarto volumes.
I had been working at it for more than a year,
every evening after the hellish torture of the day's teaching,
and all day every holiday. But now I had a
good rest while it was playing its boomerang prank of
(18:22):
returning to me once a month. The only gleam of
hope came from Bentley's, who wrote to say that they
could not make up their minds to reject it, but
they prevailed upon themselves to part with it at last,
though not without asking to see mister Bell's next book.
At last it was accepted by Spencer Blackett, and though
(18:43):
it had been refused by all the best houses, it
failed failed in a material sense, that is for there
was plenty of praise in the papers, though at two
long intervals to do us any good. The Athenaeum has
never spoken so well of anything I have done since
the late James Runkiman. I learned after his death that
(19:05):
it was he raved about it in various uninfluential organs.
It even called forth a leader in the family Herald.
And there are odd people here and there who know
the secret of j. Freeman Bell, who declared that iizangwill
will never do anything so good. There was a cheaper edition,
(19:25):
but it did not sell much then, though now it
is in its third edition, issued uniformly with many other
books by Heinemann, and absolutely unrevised. But not only did
the Premiere and the Painter fail with the great public?
At first? It did not even help either of us
one step up the leather never got us a letter
(19:46):
of encouragement nor a stroke of work. I had to
begin journalism at the very bottom, and entirely unassisted, narrowly
escaping canvassing for advertisements, for I had by this time
thrown up my scholastic position, and had gone forth into
the world penniless and without even a character. Branded as
(20:08):
an atheist because I did not worship the lord who
presided over our committee, and a revolutionary because I refused
to break the law of the land. I should stop
here if I were certain I had written the required article.
But as the Premier and the Painter was not entirely
my first book, I may perhaps be expected to say
(20:32):
something of my third first book, and the first to
which I put my name, the Bachelor's Club. Years of
literary apathy succeeded the failure of the Premier and the Painter.
All I did was to publish a few serious poems,
which I hope will survive time, A couple of pseudonymous
stories signed the Baroness von s and a long philosophical
(20:56):
essay upon religion, and to lend a hand in the
right place of a few playlets. Becoming convinced of the
irresponsible mendacity of the dramatic profession, I gave up the stage, too,
vowing never to write except on commission. I kept my vow,
and yet was played ultimately, and sank entirely into the
(21:17):
slough of journalism, glad enough to get there inter alia,
editing a comic paper, not Grimaldi but Ariel, with a
heavy heart. At last, the long apathy wore off, and
I resolved to cultivate literature again. In my scraps of time.
It is a mere accident that I wrote a pair
(21:37):
of funny books, or put serious criticism of contemporary manners
into a shape not understood in a country where only
the dull are profound and only the ponderous are earnest.
The Bachelor's Club was the result of a whimsical remark
made by my dear friend either of Bartholomew's, with whom
I was then sharing rooms in Bernard Street, and who
(22:00):
helped me greatly with it, and its publication was equally accidental.
One spring day in the year of Grace eighteen ninety one,
having lived unsuccessfully for a score of years and seven
upon this absurd planet, I crossed Fleet Street and stepped
into what is called success. It was like this mister J. T. Graine,
(22:23):
now of the Independent Theater, mediated a little monthly called
The Plagueoer's Review, and he asked me to do an
article for the first number, on the strength of some
speeches I had made at the Plague Goers Club. When
I got the proof, it was marked please return at
once to six Boovery Street, my office boy being out
(22:44):
and Booverye Street being only a few steps away, I
took it over myself and found myself, somewhat to my surprise,
in the office of Henry and Company, publishers, and in
the presence of mister J. Hanniford Bennett, an active partner
in the firm. He greeted me by name, also to
my surprise, and told me he had heard me speak
(23:07):
at the Plagoer's Club. A little conversation ensued, and he
mentioned that his firm was going to bring out a
library of wit and humor. I told him I had
begun a book avowedly humorous, and had written two chapters
of it, and he straightway came over to my office,
heard me read them, and immediately secured the book. The
(23:29):
then editor ultimately refused to have it in the Whitefriar's
Library of Wit and Humor, and so it was brought
out separately. Within three months, working in odds and ends
of time, I finished it, correcting the proofs of the
first chapters while I was writing the last. Indeed, ever
since the day I read those two chapters to mister
(23:51):
Hannaford Bennett, I have never written a line anywhere that
has not been purchased before it was written. For to
my undying astonishishment, two average editions of my real first
book were disposed of on the day of publication, to
say nothing of the sale in New York. Unless I
had acquired a reputation of which I was totally unconscious.
(24:13):
It must have been the title that fetched the trade,
or perhaps it was the illustrations by my friend mister
George Hutchinson, whom I am proud to have discovered as
a cartoonist for Ariel. So here the story comes to
a nice sensational climax. Rereading it, I feel dimly that
(24:34):
there ought to be a moral in it somewhere, for
the benefit of struggling fellows scribblers. But the best I
can find is this that if you are blessed with
some talent, a great deal of industry, and an amount
of conceit mighty enough to enable you to disregard superiors, equals,
and critics, as well as the fancied demands of the public,
(24:57):
it is possible, without friends or introduction, or bothering celebrities
to read your manuscripts, or cultivating the camp of the
log rollers, to attain, by dint of slaving day and
night for years during the flower of your youth, to
a fame infinitely less widespread than a prize fighter's, and
(25:17):
a pecuniary position which you might, with far less trouble,
have been born to. End of Chapter thirteen.
Chapter thirteen of my first book. This is a liprivox recording.
All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
information or to volunteer, please visit liprivox dot org. Recording
by Avay in September two thousand nineteen, my first book
by various, Chapter thirteen, The Premiere and the Painter by
(00:26):
eizangwill as it is scarcely two years since my name,
which I hear is a nom de plume, appeared in
print on the cover of a book. I may be
suspected of professional humor when I say I do not
really know which was my first book. Yet such is
the fact my literary career has been so queer that
(00:49):
I find it not easy to write my autobibliography. What
is a pound, asked Sir Robert Peel in an interrogative mood,
futile as pilot. What is a book? I ask, and
the dictionary answers with its usual dogmatic air. A collection
of sheets of paper or a similar material, blank, written
(01:12):
or printed, bound together. At this rate, my first book
would be That Romance of school Life in two volumes,
which written in a couple of exercise books circulated gratuitously
in the schoolroom and pleased our youthful imaginations with teacher
baiting tricks we had not the pluck to carry out
(01:33):
in the actual I shall always remember this story, because,
after making the tour of the class, it was returned
to me with thanks and a new first page, from
which all my graces of style had evaporated. Indignant inquiry
discovered the criminal. He admitted he had lost the page
and had rewritten it from memory. He pleaded that it
(01:57):
was better written, which in one sense was true, and
that none of the facts had been omitted. This ill
treated tale was published when I was ten, But an
old schoolfellow recently wrote to me reminding me of an
earlier novel written in an old account book. Of this
I have no recollection, but as he says, he wrote
(02:19):
it day by day at my dictation, I suppose he
ought to know. I am glad to find I had
so early achieved the distinction of keeping an amenduensis. The
dignity of print I achieved not much later, contributing verses
and virtuous essays to various juvenile organs. But it was
(02:39):
not till I was eighteen that I achieved the printed
first book, The Story of this first book is peculiar,
and to tell it in an approved story form, I
must request the reader to come back two years with me.
One fine day, when I was sixteen, I was wondering
about the Ramsgate sands looking for Tool. I did not
(03:01):
really expect to see him, and I had no reason
to believe he was in Ramsgate. But I thought if
providence were kind to him, it might throw him in
my way. I wanted to do him a good turn.
I had written a three act fascical comedy at the
request of an amateur dramatic club. I had written out
(03:21):
all the parts, and I think there were rehearsals, but
the play was never produced. In the light of after knowledge,
I suspect some of those actors must have been of
quite professional caliber. You understand therefore why my thoughts turned
to Tool. But I could not find Tool. Instead, I
found on the sands a page of a paper called Society.
(03:46):
It is still running merrily at a penny, but at
that time it had also a Saturday edition at threepence.
On this page was a great prize competition scheme, as
well as details of a regular weekly competition. The competitions
in those days were always literary and intellectual. But then
popular education had not made such strides as to day.
(04:09):
I sat down on the spot and wrote something which
took a prize in the weekly competition. This emboldened me
to enter for the great stakes. There were various events
I resolved to enter for two. One was a short
novel and the other a comedietta. The five pounds humorous
(04:30):
story competition I did not go in for. But when
the last day of sending in manuscripts for that had passed,
I reproached myself with not having dispatched one of my manuscripts.
Modesty had prevented me sending in old work, as I
feel assured it would stand no chance. But when it
was too late, I was annoyed with myself for having
(04:51):
thrown away a possibility. After all, I could have lost nothing.
Then I discovered that I had mistaken the last date
and that there was still a day. In the joyful reaction,
I selected a story called Professor Grimmer and sent it
in judge of my amazement. When this got the prize
five pounds and was published in serial form, running through
(05:14):
three numbers of Society. Last year, at a press dinner,
I found myself next to mister Arthur Goddard, who told
me he had acted as competition editor, and that quite
a number of now well known people had taken part
in these admirable competitions. My painfully labored novel only got
honorable mention at my Comedietta was lost in the post.
(05:39):
But I was now at the height of literary fame,
and success stimulated me to fresh work. I still marvel
when I think of the amount of rubbish I turned
out in my seventeenth and eighteenth years. In the scanty
leisure of a harassed pupil teacher at an elementary school,
working hard in the evenings for a degree at the
(05:59):
long University to boot. There was a fellow pupil teacher,
let us call him Why, who believed in me, and
who had a little money with which to back his belief.
I was for starting a comic paper. The name was
to be Grimaldi, and I was to write it all
every week. But don't you think your invention would give way?
(06:21):
Ultimately asked why. It was the only time he ever
doubted me. By that time I shall be able to
afford the staff, I replied triumphantly. Why. I was convinced,
But before the comic paper was born. Why had another
happy thought. He suggested that if I wrote a Jewish story,
(06:42):
we might make enough to finance the comic paper. I
was quite willing. If he had suggested an epic, I
should have written it. So I wrote the story in
four evenings. I always write in spurts, and within ten
days from the inception of the idea, the book was
on sale in a coverless pamphlet form. The printing cost
(07:04):
ten pounds. I paid five the five I had won.
Y paid five, and we divided the prophets. He has
since not become a publisher. My first book, price one
penny Net, went well. It was loudly denounced by those
it described, and widely bought by them. It was hawked
(07:25):
about the streets. One little shop in White Chapel sold
four hundred copies. It was even on smith's bookstalls. There
was great curiosity among Jews to know the name of
the writer. Owing to my anonymity, I was enabled to
see those enjoying its perusal, who were afterwards to explain
to me their horror and disgust at its illiteracy and vulgarity.
(07:49):
By vulgarity, vulgar Jews mean the reproduction of the Hebrew
words with which the poor and the old fashioned interlarged
their conversation. It is as if English speaking Scotchmen and
Irishmen should object to dialect novels reproducing the idiom of
their uncultured countrymen. I do not possess a copy of
(08:10):
my first book, but somehow or other I discovered the
manuscript when writing Children of the Ghetto. The description of
market day in jury was transferred bodily from the manuscript
of my first book, and is now generally admired. What
the profits were I never knew, for they were invested
(08:30):
in the second of our publications, Still jealously keeping the
authorship's secret, we published a long comic ballad which I
had written on the model of bab which is we
determined to launch out in style, and so we had
gorgeous advertisement posters printed in three colors, which were to
be stuck about London to beautify that great dreary city.
(08:53):
Why saw the black hair of fortune almost within our grasp?
One morning our head master walked into my room with
a portentously solemn air. I felt instinctively that the murder
was out, but he only said where is why, though
the mere coupling of our names was ominous for our
(09:13):
publishing partnership, was unknown, I replied, how should I know?
In his room, I spose. He gave me a peculiar,
skeptical glance. When did you last see why? He said,
yesterday afternoon, I replied, wonderingly. And you don't know where
(09:33):
he is now? Haven't an idea? Isn't he in school? No,
he replied, in low awful tones. Where then, I murmured,
in prison? In prison, I gasped, In prison, I have
just been to help bail him out. It transpired that
(09:56):
Why had suddenly been taken with a further happy thought,
contemplation of those gorgeous, tricolored posters had turned his brain, and,
armed with an amateur paste pot and the ladder, he
had sallied forth at midnight to stick them about the
silent streets so as to cut down the publishing expenses.
(10:16):
A policeman observing him at work had told him to
get down, and why, being legal minded, had argued it
out with the policeman the hautomba from the top of
his ladder. The outraged majesty of the law thereupon hailed
why off to the cells. Naturally, the cat was now
out of the bag, and the fat and the fire
(10:38):
to explain away the poster was beyond the ingenuity of
even a professed fiction bonger straightway. The committee of the
school was summoned in hot haste and held debate upon
the scandal of a pupil teacher being guilty of originality,
And one dry afternoon, when all nature seemed to hold
its breadth, I was called down to interview a member
(11:00):
of the committee. In his hand were copies of the
obnoxious publications. I approached the great person with beating heart.
He had been kind to me in the past, singling
me out on account of some scholastic successes for an
annual vacation at the sea side. It has only just
struck me, after all these years, that if he had
(11:23):
not done so, I should not have found the page
of Society, and so not have perpetrated the deplorable compositions.
In the course of a bad quarter of an hour,
he told me that the ballad was tolerable, though not
to be endured. He admitted the meter was perfect, and
there wasn't a single false rhyme. But the prose novelette
(11:46):
was disgusting. It is such stuff, said he, as little
boys scribble upon walls. I said, I could not see
anything objectionable in it. Come now, confess you are ashamed
of it. He urged, you only wrote it to make money.
If you mean that I deliberately wrote low stuff to
(12:07):
make money, I replied, calmly, it is untrue. There is
nothing I am ashamed of. What you object to is
simply realism. I pointed out that Bret Hart had been
as realistic, but they did not understand literature on that committee.
Confess you are ashamed of yourself, he reiterated, and we
(12:29):
will look over it. I am not, I persisted, though
I foresaw only too clearly that my summertification was doomed
if I told the truth. What is the use of
saying I am the head master? Uplifted his hands in horror.
How after all your kindness to him, he can contradict you,
(12:52):
he cried, When I come to be your age, I
conceded to the member of the committee, it is possible.
I mean, look back on it with shame. At present
I feel none. In the end, I was given the
alternative of expulsion or of publishing nothing which had not
passed the censorship of the committee. After considerable hesitation, I
(13:15):
chose the letter. This was a blessing in disguise, for
as I have never been able to endure the slightest
arbitrary interference with my work, I simply abstained from publishing. Thus,
although I still wrote mainly sentimental verses, my nocturnal studies
were less interrupted. Not till I had graduated and was
(13:37):
of age did I return to my inky Vomit. Then
came my next first book, a real book at last.
In this also I had the collaboration of a fellow teacher,
Louis Cowen by name. This time my colleague was part author.
It was only gradually that I had been admitted to
(13:58):
the privilege of communion with him, for he was my
senior by five or six years, and a man of
brilliant parts, who had already won his spurs in journalism,
and who enjoyed deservedly the reputation of an admirable criton.
What drew me to him was his mordant wit to
day alas wasted on anonymous journalism. If he would only
(14:21):
reconsider his indetermination, the reading public would be the richer. Together,
we planned plays novels, treatises on political economy, and contributions
to philosophy. Those were the days of dreams. One afternoon
he came to me with quivering sides and told me
that an idea for a little shilling book had occurred
(14:43):
to him. It was that a radical prime minister and
a conservative workingman should change into each other by supernatural means,
and the working man be confronted with the problem of governing,
while the prime minister should be as comically out of
place in the East End environment. He thought it would
make a funny Arabian Nights sort of burlesque, and so
(15:05):
it would have done. But unfortunately I saw subtle possibilities
of political satire in it, nothing less than a reductio
ad absordom of the whole system of party government. I
insisted the story must be real, not supernatural. The prime
minister must be a Tory weary of office, and it
(15:26):
must be an ultra radical atheistic artisan, bearing a marvelous
resemblance to him who directs and with complete success to
conservative administration. To add to the mischief, owing to my
collaborator's evenings being largely taken up by other work, seven
eighths of the book came to be written by me,
(15:47):
though the leading ideas were of course threshed out and
the whole revised in common. And thus it became a
vent hole for all the ferment of a youth of
twenty one, whose literary faculty had further more been pent
up for years by the potential censorship of a committee.
The book, instead of being a shilling skit, grew to
(16:08):
a ten and sixpenny, for that was the unfortunate price
of publication. Political treatise of over sixty long chapters and
five hundred closely printed pages. I do all the characters
as seriously and complexly as if the fundamental conception were
a matter of history. The outgoing premiere became an elaborate
(16:30):
study of a nineteenth century hamlet, The Bethnal Green life
amid which he came to live, was presented with photographic
fullness and my old trick of realism. The governmental maneuvers
were described with infinite detail, Numerous real personages were introduced
under nominal disguises, and subsequent history was curiously anticipated in
(16:53):
some of the Female Franchise and Home Rule episodes. Worst
of all, so super so was the satire that it
was never actually stated straight out that the Premiere had
changed places with the Radical working Man, so that the
door might be left open for satirically suggested alternative explanations
(17:14):
of the metamorphosis in their characters, and as moreover, the
two men reassumed their original roles for one night only,
with infinitely complex effects. Many readers, otherwise unimpeachable, reached the
end without any suspicion of the actual plot, and yet,
on their own confession, enjoyed the book. In contrast to
(17:39):
all this elephantine waggery, the half dozen chapters near the commencement,
in which my collaborators sketched the first adventures of the
Radical Workingman in Downing Street were light and sparkling, and
I feel sure the shilling skitty originally mediated would have
been a great success. We christened the book the Premiere
(18:00):
and the Painter ourselves. J. Freeman Bell had its typewritten
and sent it round to the publishers into enormous quarto volumes.
I had been working at it for more than a year,
every evening after the hellish torture of the day's teaching,
and all day every holiday. But now I had a
good rest while it was playing its boomerang prank of
(18:22):
returning to me once a month. The only gleam of
hope came from Bentley's, who wrote to say that they
could not make up their minds to reject it, but
they prevailed upon themselves to part with it at last,
though not without asking to see mister Bell's next book.
At last it was accepted by Spencer Blackett, and though
(18:43):
it had been refused by all the best houses, it
failed failed in a material sense, that is for there
was plenty of praise in the papers, though at two
long intervals to do us any good. The Athenaeum has
never spoken so well of anything I have done since
the late James Runkiman. I learned after his death that
(19:05):
it was he raved about it in various uninfluential organs.
It even called forth a leader in the family Herald.
And there are odd people here and there who know
the secret of j. Freeman Bell, who declared that iizangwill
will never do anything so good. There was a cheaper edition,
(19:25):
but it did not sell much then, though now it
is in its third edition, issued uniformly with many other
books by Heinemann, and absolutely unrevised. But not only did
the Premiere and the Painter fail with the great public?
At first? It did not even help either of us
one step up the leather never got us a letter
(19:46):
of encouragement nor a stroke of work. I had to
begin journalism at the very bottom, and entirely unassisted, narrowly
escaping canvassing for advertisements, for I had by this time
thrown up my scholastic position, and had gone forth into
the world penniless and without even a character. Branded as
(20:08):
an atheist because I did not worship the lord who
presided over our committee, and a revolutionary because I refused
to break the law of the land. I should stop
here if I were certain I had written the required article.
But as the Premier and the Painter was not entirely
my first book, I may perhaps be expected to say
(20:32):
something of my third first book, and the first to
which I put my name, the Bachelor's Club. Years of
literary apathy succeeded the failure of the Premier and the Painter.
All I did was to publish a few serious poems,
which I hope will survive time, A couple of pseudonymous
stories signed the Baroness von s and a long philosophical
(20:56):
essay upon religion, and to lend a hand in the
right place of a few playlets. Becoming convinced of the
irresponsible mendacity of the dramatic profession, I gave up the stage, too,
vowing never to write except on commission. I kept my vow,
and yet was played ultimately, and sank entirely into the
(21:17):
slough of journalism, glad enough to get there inter alia,
editing a comic paper, not Grimaldi but Ariel, with a
heavy heart. At last, the long apathy wore off, and
I resolved to cultivate literature again. In my scraps of time.
It is a mere accident that I wrote a pair
(21:37):
of funny books, or put serious criticism of contemporary manners
into a shape not understood in a country where only
the dull are profound and only the ponderous are earnest.
The Bachelor's Club was the result of a whimsical remark
made by my dear friend either of Bartholomew's, with whom
I was then sharing rooms in Bernard Street, and who
(22:00):
helped me greatly with it, and its publication was equally accidental.
One spring day in the year of Grace eighteen ninety one,
having lived unsuccessfully for a score of years and seven
upon this absurd planet, I crossed Fleet Street and stepped
into what is called success. It was like this mister J. T. Graine,
(22:23):
now of the Independent Theater, mediated a little monthly called
The Plagueoer's Review, and he asked me to do an
article for the first number, on the strength of some
speeches I had made at the Plague Goers Club. When
I got the proof, it was marked please return at
once to six Boovery Street, my office boy being out
(22:44):
and Booverye Street being only a few steps away, I
took it over myself and found myself, somewhat to my surprise,
in the office of Henry and Company, publishers, and in
the presence of mister J. Hanniford Bennett, an active partner
in the firm. He greeted me by name, also to
my surprise, and told me he had heard me speak
(23:07):
at the Plagoer's Club. A little conversation ensued, and he
mentioned that his firm was going to bring out a
library of wit and humor. I told him I had
begun a book avowedly humorous, and had written two chapters
of it, and he straightway came over to my office,
heard me read them, and immediately secured the book. The
(23:29):
then editor ultimately refused to have it in the Whitefriar's
Library of Wit and Humor, and so it was brought
out separately. Within three months, working in odds and ends
of time, I finished it, correcting the proofs of the
first chapters while I was writing the last. Indeed, ever
since the day I read those two chapters to mister
(23:51):
Hannaford Bennett, I have never written a line anywhere that
has not been purchased before it was written. For to
my undying astonishishment, two average editions of my real first
book were disposed of on the day of publication, to
say nothing of the sale in New York. Unless I
had acquired a reputation of which I was totally unconscious.
(24:13):
It must have been the title that fetched the trade,
or perhaps it was the illustrations by my friend mister
George Hutchinson, whom I am proud to have discovered as
a cartoonist for Ariel. So here the story comes to
a nice sensational climax. Rereading it, I feel dimly that
(24:34):
there ought to be a moral in it somewhere, for
the benefit of struggling fellows scribblers. But the best I
can find is this that if you are blessed with
some talent, a great deal of industry, and an amount
of conceit mighty enough to enable you to disregard superiors, equals,
and critics, as well as the fancied demands of the public,
(24:57):
it is possible, without friends or introduction, or bothering celebrities
to read your manuscripts, or cultivating the camp of the
log rollers, to attain, by dint of slaving day and
night for years during the flower of your youth, to
a fame infinitely less widespread than a prize fighter's, and
(25:17):
a pecuniary position which you might, with far less trouble,
have been born to. End of Chapter thirteen.
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