August 18, 2025 • 20 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 (00:01):
Chapter fifteen of my first book. This is a LibriVox recording.
All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording
by Jennifer Painter, My first book by various A Life's
(00:21):
Atonement by David Christy Murray.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
I began my first book more years.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Ago than I care to count, and naturally enough, it
took poetic form, if not poetic substance. In its original shape,
it was called marsh Hall and ran into four cantos.
On the eve of my twenty first birthday, I sent
the manuscript to Messrs Macmillan, who, very wisely, as I
(00:49):
have since come to believe, counseled me not.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
To publish it. I say this in full sincerity, though I.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Remember some of the youthful bombast, not altogether with out
of fiction. Here and there I can recall a passage
which still seems respectable. I wrote reams of verse in
those days, but when I came into the rough and
tumble of journalistic life, I was too occupied to court
the muses any longer, and found myself condemned to a
(01:17):
life of prose. I was acting a special correspondent for
the Birmingham Morning News in the year seventy three. I
think it was seventy three, though it might have been
a year later. And at that time mister Edmund Yates
was lecturing in America, and a novel of his, the
last he ever wrote, was running through our columns. Whether
(01:42):
the genial Atlas, who at that time had not taken
the burden of the world upon his shoulders, found his
associations too numerous and heavy, I can only guess. But
he closed the story with an unexpected suddenness, and the editor,
who had supposed himself to have a month or two
in hand in which to make arrangements for his next serial,
(02:05):
was confronted with the finny of mister Yates's work, and
was compelled to start a new novel at a week's notice.
In this extremity, he turned to me, I think young
un He said that you ought to be able to
write a novel. I shared his faith, and had indeed
already begun a story which I had christened Grace Forbeach.
(02:28):
I handed him two chapters, which he read at once,
and in high feather sent to the printer. It never
bade fair to be a mighty work, but at least
it fulfilled the meaning of the original edition of Pope's
famous line, for it was certainly all without a plan.
I had appropriate scenery in my mind, no end of
(02:51):
typical people to draw, and one or two moving actualities
to work from, but I had forgotten the plot. To
attempt to not without a definite scheme of some sort
is very like trying to make a Christmas pudding without
a cloth. Ruth Pinch was uncertain as to whether her
first venture at a pudding might not turn out a soup.
(03:13):
My novelistic effort, I am sorry to confess, had no
cohesion in it. Its parts got loose in the cooking,
and I have reason to think that most people who
tried it found the dish repellent. The cashier assured me
that I had sent down the circulation of the Saturday
Issue by sixteen thousand. I had excellent reasons for disbelieving
(03:35):
this circumstantial statement, in the fact that the Saturday Issue
had never reached that number. But I have no doubt
I did a deal of damage. There had been an
idea in marsh Hall, and what with interpolated ballads and
poetic excursions and alarums of all sorts. I had found
in it matter enough to fill out my four cantos.
(03:58):
I set out with the intent to work the same
idea through the pages of Grace Fourbeach. But it was
too scanty for the uses of a three volume novel,
at least in the hands of a tyro. I know
one or two accomplished gentlemen who could make it serve
the purpose admirably, and perhaps I myself might.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Do something with it at a pinch at this time
of day.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Anyhow, as it was, the cloth was too small to
hold a pudding, and in the process of cooking, I
was driven to the most desperate expedients to drop the
simile and to come to the plain facts of the case.
I sent all my wicked and superfluous people into a
coal mine, and there put an end to them by
an inrush of water. I forget what became of the hero,
(04:44):
but I know that some of the most promising characters
dropped out of that story and were no more heard of.
The sub editor used occasionally for my encouragement to show
me letters he had received denouncing the work and asking
Rotha when it would end. Whilst I am about grace Forbeach.
(05:04):
It may be worthwhile to tell the story of the
champion printer's error of my experience, I wrote at the
close of the story rather known troubles. Now the lover
asks not one, dear Frank, not one, and then in brackets,
thus I set the words white line. This was a
technical instruction to the printer, and meant that one line
(05:27):
of space should be left clear. The genius, who had
the copy in hand, put the lover's speech in type correctly,
and then setting it out as if it were a
line of verse. He gave me not one, dear Frank,
not one white line. It was a custom in the
printing office to suspend a leather medal by a leather
(05:48):
bootlace round the neck of the man who had achieved
the prize betise of the year. It was somewhere about
midsummer at this time, but it was instantly and unanimously
resolved that nothing better than this would or could be
done by anybody. The compositors performed what they called a
jerry in the blunderer's honor and invested him after an
(06:12):
animated fight with the medal. Grace Fourbeach has been dead
and buried for very nearly a score of years. It
never saw book form, and I was never anxious that
it should do so. But as it had grown out
of marsh Hall, so my first book grew out of it,
and oddly enough, not only my first, but my second
(06:34):
and my third. Joseph's Coat, which made my fortune and
gave me such literary standing as I have, was built
on one episode of that abortive story, and vow Strange
was constructed and written to lead up to the episode
of the attempted suicide on Wellbeck Head, which had formed
(06:55):
the culminating point in the poem. When I got to London,
I determined to try my hand anew and, having learned
by failure something more than success could ever have taught me,
I built up my scheme before I started on my book.
Having come to utter grief for want of a scheme
to work on, I ran, in my eagerness to avoid
(07:17):
that thought in the opposite extreme, and built an iron
band plot, which afterwards cost me very many weeks of
unnecessary and unvalued labor. I am quite sure that no
reader of a life's atonement ever guessed that the author
took one tithe or even one twentieth part of the
(07:38):
trouble it actually cost to weave the two strands of
its narrative together. I divided my story into thirty six chapters.
Twelve of these were autobiographical in the sense that they
were supposed to be written by the hero in person.
The remaining twenty four were historical, purporting to be written,
(07:58):
that is, an impersonal author. The autobiographical portions necessarily began
in the childhood of the narrator, and between them and
the history there was a considerable gulf of time. Little
by little, this gulf had to be bridged over until
the action in both portions of the story became synchronous.
(08:21):
I really do not suppose that the most pitiless critic
ever felt it worth his while to question the accuracy
of my dates, and I dare say that all the
trouble I took was quite useless. But I fixed in
my own mind the actual years over which the story extended,
and spent scores of hours in the consultation of old almanacs.
(08:44):
I have never verified the work since it was done,
but I believe that in this one respect, at least,
it is beyond Cavil. The two central figures of the
book were lifted straight from the story of marsh Hall,
and Grace Forbeach gave her quota to the narrative. I
had completed the first volume when I received a commission
(09:04):
to go out a special correspondent to the Rasho Turkish war.
I left the manuscript behind me, and for many months
the scheme was banished from my mind. I went through
those cities of the dead, Kesanlink, Kalofar, Khalova and Suppot.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
I watched the.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
Long drawn artillery duel at the Shipka Pass, made the
dreary month long march in the rainy season from Orkhani
to Plevna with the Army of Reinforcement under tchefket Pasha
and Chakia Pasha lived in the besieged town until Osmond
drove away all foreign visitors and sent out his wounded
(09:46):
to sow the whole melancholy road with corpses. I put
up on the heights of Tashkeshen and saw the stubborn
defense of Mahemet Ali, and there was pounced upon by
the Turkish authorities for a too faithful dealing with the
story of the horrors of the war, and was deported
to Constantinople. I had originally gone out for an American
(10:09):
journal at the instance of a gentleman who exceeded his
instructions in dispatching me, and I was left high and
dry in the Turkish capital, without a penny and without
a friend. But work of the kind I could do
was wanted, and I was on the spot. I slid
into an engagement with the Scotsman, and then into another
(10:31):
with The Times. The late mister MacDonald, who was killed
by the Pigot forgeries, was then manager of the leading
journal and offered me fresh work. I waited for it,
and a year of wild adventure in the face of
war had given me such a taste for that sort
of existence that I let A Life's Atonement slide and
(10:53):
had no thought of taking it up again. A misunderstanding
with the Times authorities, happily clear up years after, left
me in the cold, and I was bound to do
something for a living. The first volume of A Life's
Atonement had been written in the intervals of labor in
the gallery of the House of Commons, and such work
(11:14):
as an active hack journalist confined among the magazines and
the weekly society papers. I had been away a whole year,
and everywhere my place was filled. It was obviously no
use to a man in want of ready money to
undertake the completion of a three volume novel, of which
only one volume was written, and so I betook myself
(11:36):
to the writing of short stories. The very first of
these was blessed by a lucky accident. Mister George Augustus
Sala had begun to write for the Gentleman's Magazine a
story called, if I remember rightly, Doctor Cupid Saralah was
suddenly summoned by the proprietors of the Daily Telegraph to
(11:57):
undertake one of his innumerable journeys, and the copy of
the second installment of his story reached the editor too
late for publication. Just when the publishers of the Gentleman's
were at a loss for suitable copy, my manuscript of
an old Meerscham reached them, and to my delighted surprise,
(12:17):
I received proofs almost by return of post. The story
appeared with an illustration by Arthur Hopkins, and about a
week later there came to me, through Messrs Chatto and
Windus a letter from Robert Chambers, Sir, I have read
with unusual pleasure and interest in this month's Gentleman's Magazine,
(12:39):
A story from your pen entitled an Old Meerscham. If
you have a novel on hand or in preparation, I
should be glad to see it. In the meantime, a
short story not much longer than an Old Meerscham would
be gladly considered by yours, very truly, Robert Chambers p. S.
(13:02):
We published no author's names, but we pay handsomely. This
letter brought back to mind at once the neglected life's atonement.
But I was uncertain as to the whereabouts of the manuscript.
I searched everywhere amongst my own belongings in Vain, but
it suddenly occurred to me that I had left it
in charge of a passing acquaintance of mine, who had
(13:24):
taken up the unexpired lease of my chambers in Gray's Inn.
At the time of my departure for the Seat of War.
I jumped into a cab and drove off in search
of my property. The shabby old laundress who had made
my bed and served my breakfast was pottering about the rooms.
She remembered me perfectly well, of course, but could not
(13:47):
remember that I had left anything behind me when I
went away. I talked to manuscript, and she recalled, doubtfully
a quantity of waste paper, of the final destination of
which she knew nothing. I began to think it extremely
improbable that I should ever recover a line of the
missing novel. When she opened a cupboard and drew from
(14:09):
it a brown paper parcel, and opening it, displayed to
me the manuscript of which I was in search. I
took it home and read it through with infinite misgiving.
The enthusiasm with which I had begun the work had
long since had time to paul, and the whole thing
looked weary, flat, stale, and unprofitable. For one thing, I
(14:34):
had adopted the abominable expedient of writing in the present
tense so far as the autobiographical portion of the work
was concerned, and in the interval which had gone by
my taste had I suppose, undergone an unconscious correction.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
It was a dull business, But.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Despondent as I was, I found the heart to rewrite
those chapters. Charles Read describes the task of writing out
one's work a second time as nauseous, and I confess
that I am with him with all my heart. It
is a misery which I have never since in all
my work imposed upon myself.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
At that time I counted amongst my.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Friends an eminent novelist on whose critical faculty and honesty
I knew I could place the most absolute reliance. I
submitted my revised first volume to his judgment, and was
surprised to learn that he thought highly of it. His
judgment gave me new courage, and I sent the copy
into Chambers. After a delay of a week or two,
(15:38):
I received a letter which gave me I think a
keener delight than has ever touched me at the receipt
of any other communication. If wrote Robert Chambers, the rest
is as good as the first volume. I shall accept
the book with pleasure. Our price for the serial use
will be two hundred and fifty pounds, of which we
(15:59):
will pay one hundred pounds on receipt of completed manuscript.
The remaining one hundred and fifty pounds will be paid
on the publication of the first monthly number. I had
been out of harness for so long a time, and
had been by desoltry work able to earn so little,
that this letter seemed to open a sort of eldorado
(16:21):
to my gaze. It was not that alone which made
it so agreeable to receive. It opened the way to
an honorable ambition which I had long nourished, and I
slaved away at the remaining two volumes with an enthusiasm
which I have never been able to revive. There are
two or three people still extant who know in part
(16:42):
the privations I endured. Whilst the book was being finished.
I set everything else on one side for it in
cautiously enough, and for two months I did not earn
a penny by other means. The most trying accident of
all the time was the tobacco famine, which set into
towards the close of the third volume. But in spite
(17:03):
of all obstacles, the book was finished. I worked all
night at the final chapter and wrote finish somewhere about
five o'clock on a summer morning. I shall never forget
the solemn exultation with which I laid down my pen
and looked from the window of the little room in
which I had been working over the golden splendor of
(17:24):
the gorse covered common of Ditton marsh All. My original
enthusiasm had revived, and in the course of my lonely
labors had grown to a white heat. I solemnly believed
at that moment that I had written a great book.
I suppose I may make that confession now without proclaiming
myself a fool. I really and seriously believed that the
(17:48):
work I had just finished was original in conception, style,
and character. No reviewer ever taunted me with the fact.
But the truth is that our life's oftonement is a
very curious instance of unconscious plagiarism. It is quite evident
to my mind now that if there had been no
(18:09):
David Copperfield, there would have been no Life's atonement. My
Gascoyne is Steerforth, My John Campbell is David John's aunt
is Miss Betsy Trotwood. Sally Trowman is Peggotty. The very
separation of the friends, though brought about by a different cause,
(18:29):
is a reminiscence. I was utterly unconscious of these facts, and,
remembering how devotedly and honestly I worked, how resolute I
was to put my best of observation and invention into
the story, I have ever since felt chary of entertaining
a charge of plagiarism against anybody. There are, of course,
(18:51):
flagrant and obvious cases, but I believe that in nine
instances out of ten, the supposed criminal had worked as
I did, having so completed, deatly, absorbed and digested in childhood,
the work of an admired master, that he has come
to feel that work as an actual portion of himself.
A Life's Atonement ran its course through Chambers Journal in
(19:13):
due time, and was received with favor. Messrs Griffin and
Farron undertook its publication in book form, but one or
two accidental circumstances forbade it to prosper in their hands.
To begin with, the firm at that time had only
newly decided on publishing novels at all, and a work
(19:33):
under such a title and issued by such a house
was naturally supposed to have a theological tendency. Then again,
in the very week in which my book saw the Light,
Lothair appeared and for the time being swamped everything. All
the world read Lothair, all the world talked about it,
(19:54):
and all the newspapers and reviews dealt with it, to
the exclusion of the products of the smaller f Later on,
A Life's Attonement was handsomely reviewed, and was, indeed, as
I am disposed to think, praised a good deal beyond
its merits, but it lay a dead weight on the
hands of its original publishers until Messrs Chatto and Windus
(20:18):
expressed a wish to incorporate it in their Piccadilly series.
The negotiations between the two houses were easily completed. The
stock was transferred from one establishment to the other, the
volumes were stripped of their old binding and dressed anew,
and with this novel impetus, the story reached a second
edition in three volume form. It brought me almost immediately
(20:42):
two commissions, and by the time that they were completed
I had grown into a professional novel writer.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
End of Chapter fifteen.
Chapter fifteen of my first book. This is a LibriVox recording.
All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording
by Jennifer Painter, My first book by various A Life's
(00:21):
Atonement by David Christy Murray.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
I began my first book more years.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Ago than I care to count, and naturally enough, it
took poetic form, if not poetic substance. In its original shape,
it was called marsh Hall and ran into four cantos.
On the eve of my twenty first birthday, I sent
the manuscript to Messrs Macmillan, who, very wisely, as I
(00:49):
have since come to believe, counseled me not.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
To publish it. I say this in full sincerity, though I.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Remember some of the youthful bombast, not altogether with out
of fiction. Here and there I can recall a passage
which still seems respectable. I wrote reams of verse in
those days, but when I came into the rough and
tumble of journalistic life, I was too occupied to court
the muses any longer, and found myself condemned to a
(01:17):
life of prose. I was acting a special correspondent for
the Birmingham Morning News in the year seventy three. I
think it was seventy three, though it might have been
a year later. And at that time mister Edmund Yates
was lecturing in America, and a novel of his, the
last he ever wrote, was running through our columns. Whether
(01:42):
the genial Atlas, who at that time had not taken
the burden of the world upon his shoulders, found his
associations too numerous and heavy, I can only guess. But
he closed the story with an unexpected suddenness, and the editor,
who had supposed himself to have a month or two
in hand in which to make arrangements for his next serial,
(02:05):
was confronted with the finny of mister Yates's work, and
was compelled to start a new novel at a week's notice.
In this extremity, he turned to me, I think young
un He said that you ought to be able to
write a novel. I shared his faith, and had indeed
already begun a story which I had christened Grace Forbeach.
(02:28):
I handed him two chapters, which he read at once,
and in high feather sent to the printer. It never
bade fair to be a mighty work, but at least
it fulfilled the meaning of the original edition of Pope's
famous line, for it was certainly all without a plan.
I had appropriate scenery in my mind, no end of
(02:51):
typical people to draw, and one or two moving actualities
to work from, but I had forgotten the plot. To
attempt to not without a definite scheme of some sort
is very like trying to make a Christmas pudding without
a cloth. Ruth Pinch was uncertain as to whether her
first venture at a pudding might not turn out a soup.
(03:13):
My novelistic effort, I am sorry to confess, had no
cohesion in it. Its parts got loose in the cooking,
and I have reason to think that most people who
tried it found the dish repellent. The cashier assured me
that I had sent down the circulation of the Saturday
Issue by sixteen thousand. I had excellent reasons for disbelieving
(03:35):
this circumstantial statement, in the fact that the Saturday Issue
had never reached that number. But I have no doubt
I did a deal of damage. There had been an
idea in marsh Hall, and what with interpolated ballads and
poetic excursions and alarums of all sorts. I had found
in it matter enough to fill out my four cantos.
(03:58):
I set out with the intent to work the same
idea through the pages of Grace Fourbeach. But it was
too scanty for the uses of a three volume novel,
at least in the hands of a tyro. I know
one or two accomplished gentlemen who could make it serve
the purpose admirably, and perhaps I myself might.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Do something with it at a pinch at this time
of day.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Anyhow, as it was, the cloth was too small to
hold a pudding, and in the process of cooking, I
was driven to the most desperate expedients to drop the
simile and to come to the plain facts of the case.
I sent all my wicked and superfluous people into a
coal mine, and there put an end to them by
an inrush of water. I forget what became of the hero,
(04:44):
but I know that some of the most promising characters
dropped out of that story and were no more heard of.
The sub editor used occasionally for my encouragement to show
me letters he had received denouncing the work and asking
Rotha when it would end. Whilst I am about grace Forbeach.
(05:04):
It may be worthwhile to tell the story of the
champion printer's error of my experience, I wrote at the
close of the story rather known troubles. Now the lover
asks not one, dear Frank, not one, and then in brackets,
thus I set the words white line. This was a
technical instruction to the printer, and meant that one line
(05:27):
of space should be left clear. The genius, who had
the copy in hand, put the lover's speech in type correctly,
and then setting it out as if it were a
line of verse. He gave me not one, dear Frank,
not one white line. It was a custom in the
printing office to suspend a leather medal by a leather
(05:48):
bootlace round the neck of the man who had achieved
the prize betise of the year. It was somewhere about
midsummer at this time, but it was instantly and unanimously
resolved that nothing better than this would or could be
done by anybody. The compositors performed what they called a
jerry in the blunderer's honor and invested him after an
(06:12):
animated fight with the medal. Grace Fourbeach has been dead
and buried for very nearly a score of years. It
never saw book form, and I was never anxious that
it should do so. But as it had grown out
of marsh Hall, so my first book grew out of it,
and oddly enough, not only my first, but my second
(06:34):
and my third. Joseph's Coat, which made my fortune and
gave me such literary standing as I have, was built
on one episode of that abortive story, and vow Strange
was constructed and written to lead up to the episode
of the attempted suicide on Wellbeck Head, which had formed
(06:55):
the culminating point in the poem. When I got to London,
I determined to try my hand anew and, having learned
by failure something more than success could ever have taught me,
I built up my scheme before I started on my book.
Having come to utter grief for want of a scheme
to work on, I ran, in my eagerness to avoid
(07:17):
that thought in the opposite extreme, and built an iron
band plot, which afterwards cost me very many weeks of
unnecessary and unvalued labor. I am quite sure that no
reader of a life's atonement ever guessed that the author
took one tithe or even one twentieth part of the
(07:38):
trouble it actually cost to weave the two strands of
its narrative together. I divided my story into thirty six chapters.
Twelve of these were autobiographical in the sense that they
were supposed to be written by the hero in person.
The remaining twenty four were historical, purporting to be written,
(07:58):
that is, an impersonal author. The autobiographical portions necessarily began
in the childhood of the narrator, and between them and
the history there was a considerable gulf of time. Little
by little, this gulf had to be bridged over until
the action in both portions of the story became synchronous.
(08:21):
I really do not suppose that the most pitiless critic
ever felt it worth his while to question the accuracy
of my dates, and I dare say that all the
trouble I took was quite useless. But I fixed in
my own mind the actual years over which the story extended,
and spent scores of hours in the consultation of old almanacs.
(08:44):
I have never verified the work since it was done,
but I believe that in this one respect, at least,
it is beyond Cavil. The two central figures of the
book were lifted straight from the story of marsh Hall,
and Grace Forbeach gave her quota to the narrative. I
had completed the first volume when I received a commission
(09:04):
to go out a special correspondent to the Rasho Turkish war.
I left the manuscript behind me, and for many months
the scheme was banished from my mind. I went through
those cities of the dead, Kesanlink, Kalofar, Khalova and Suppot.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
I watched the.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
Long drawn artillery duel at the Shipka Pass, made the
dreary month long march in the rainy season from Orkhani
to Plevna with the Army of Reinforcement under tchefket Pasha
and Chakia Pasha lived in the besieged town until Osmond
drove away all foreign visitors and sent out his wounded
(09:46):
to sow the whole melancholy road with corpses. I put
up on the heights of Tashkeshen and saw the stubborn
defense of Mahemet Ali, and there was pounced upon by
the Turkish authorities for a too faithful dealing with the
story of the horrors of the war, and was deported
to Constantinople. I had originally gone out for an American
(10:09):
journal at the instance of a gentleman who exceeded his
instructions in dispatching me, and I was left high and
dry in the Turkish capital, without a penny and without
a friend. But work of the kind I could do
was wanted, and I was on the spot. I slid
into an engagement with the Scotsman, and then into another
(10:31):
with The Times. The late mister MacDonald, who was killed
by the Pigot forgeries, was then manager of the leading
journal and offered me fresh work. I waited for it,
and a year of wild adventure in the face of
war had given me such a taste for that sort
of existence that I let A Life's Atonement slide and
(10:53):
had no thought of taking it up again. A misunderstanding
with the Times authorities, happily clear up years after, left
me in the cold, and I was bound to do
something for a living. The first volume of A Life's
Atonement had been written in the intervals of labor in
the gallery of the House of Commons, and such work
(11:14):
as an active hack journalist confined among the magazines and
the weekly society papers. I had been away a whole year,
and everywhere my place was filled. It was obviously no
use to a man in want of ready money to
undertake the completion of a three volume novel, of which
only one volume was written, and so I betook myself
(11:36):
to the writing of short stories. The very first of
these was blessed by a lucky accident. Mister George Augustus
Sala had begun to write for the Gentleman's Magazine a
story called, if I remember rightly, Doctor Cupid Saralah was
suddenly summoned by the proprietors of the Daily Telegraph to
(11:57):
undertake one of his innumerable journeys, and the copy of
the second installment of his story reached the editor too
late for publication. Just when the publishers of the Gentleman's
were at a loss for suitable copy, my manuscript of
an old Meerscham reached them, and to my delighted surprise,
(12:17):
I received proofs almost by return of post. The story
appeared with an illustration by Arthur Hopkins, and about a
week later there came to me, through Messrs Chatto and
Windus a letter from Robert Chambers, Sir, I have read
with unusual pleasure and interest in this month's Gentleman's Magazine,
(12:39):
A story from your pen entitled an Old Meerscham. If
you have a novel on hand or in preparation, I
should be glad to see it. In the meantime, a
short story not much longer than an Old Meerscham would
be gladly considered by yours, very truly, Robert Chambers p. S.
(13:02):
We published no author's names, but we pay handsomely. This
letter brought back to mind at once the neglected life's atonement.
But I was uncertain as to the whereabouts of the manuscript.
I searched everywhere amongst my own belongings in Vain, but
it suddenly occurred to me that I had left it
in charge of a passing acquaintance of mine, who had
(13:24):
taken up the unexpired lease of my chambers in Gray's Inn.
At the time of my departure for the Seat of War.
I jumped into a cab and drove off in search
of my property. The shabby old laundress who had made
my bed and served my breakfast was pottering about the rooms.
She remembered me perfectly well, of course, but could not
(13:47):
remember that I had left anything behind me when I
went away. I talked to manuscript, and she recalled, doubtfully
a quantity of waste paper, of the final destination of
which she knew nothing. I began to think it extremely
improbable that I should ever recover a line of the
missing novel. When she opened a cupboard and drew from
(14:09):
it a brown paper parcel, and opening it, displayed to
me the manuscript of which I was in search. I
took it home and read it through with infinite misgiving.
The enthusiasm with which I had begun the work had
long since had time to paul, and the whole thing
looked weary, flat, stale, and unprofitable. For one thing, I
(14:34):
had adopted the abominable expedient of writing in the present
tense so far as the autobiographical portion of the work
was concerned, and in the interval which had gone by
my taste had I suppose, undergone an unconscious correction.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
It was a dull business, But.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Despondent as I was, I found the heart to rewrite
those chapters. Charles Read describes the task of writing out
one's work a second time as nauseous, and I confess
that I am with him with all my heart. It
is a misery which I have never since in all
my work imposed upon myself.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
At that time I counted amongst my.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Friends an eminent novelist on whose critical faculty and honesty
I knew I could place the most absolute reliance. I
submitted my revised first volume to his judgment, and was
surprised to learn that he thought highly of it. His
judgment gave me new courage, and I sent the copy
into Chambers. After a delay of a week or two,
(15:38):
I received a letter which gave me I think a
keener delight than has ever touched me at the receipt
of any other communication. If wrote Robert Chambers, the rest
is as good as the first volume. I shall accept
the book with pleasure. Our price for the serial use
will be two hundred and fifty pounds, of which we
(15:59):
will pay one hundred pounds on receipt of completed manuscript.
The remaining one hundred and fifty pounds will be paid
on the publication of the first monthly number. I had
been out of harness for so long a time, and
had been by desoltry work able to earn so little,
that this letter seemed to open a sort of eldorado
(16:21):
to my gaze. It was not that alone which made
it so agreeable to receive. It opened the way to
an honorable ambition which I had long nourished, and I
slaved away at the remaining two volumes with an enthusiasm
which I have never been able to revive. There are
two or three people still extant who know in part
(16:42):
the privations I endured. Whilst the book was being finished.
I set everything else on one side for it in
cautiously enough, and for two months I did not earn
a penny by other means. The most trying accident of
all the time was the tobacco famine, which set into
towards the close of the third volume. But in spite
(17:03):
of all obstacles, the book was finished. I worked all
night at the final chapter and wrote finish somewhere about
five o'clock on a summer morning. I shall never forget
the solemn exultation with which I laid down my pen
and looked from the window of the little room in
which I had been working over the golden splendor of
(17:24):
the gorse covered common of Ditton marsh All. My original
enthusiasm had revived, and in the course of my lonely
labors had grown to a white heat. I solemnly believed
at that moment that I had written a great book.
I suppose I may make that confession now without proclaiming
myself a fool. I really and seriously believed that the
(17:48):
work I had just finished was original in conception, style,
and character. No reviewer ever taunted me with the fact.
But the truth is that our life's oftonement is a
very curious instance of unconscious plagiarism. It is quite evident
to my mind now that if there had been no
(18:09):
David Copperfield, there would have been no Life's atonement. My
Gascoyne is Steerforth, My John Campbell is David John's aunt
is Miss Betsy Trotwood. Sally Trowman is Peggotty. The very
separation of the friends, though brought about by a different cause,
(18:29):
is a reminiscence. I was utterly unconscious of these facts, and,
remembering how devotedly and honestly I worked, how resolute I
was to put my best of observation and invention into
the story, I have ever since felt chary of entertaining
a charge of plagiarism against anybody. There are, of course,
(18:51):
flagrant and obvious cases, but I believe that in nine
instances out of ten, the supposed criminal had worked as
I did, having so completed, deatly, absorbed and digested in childhood,
the work of an admired master, that he has come
to feel that work as an actual portion of himself.
A Life's Atonement ran its course through Chambers Journal in
(19:13):
due time, and was received with favor. Messrs Griffin and
Farron undertook its publication in book form, but one or
two accidental circumstances forbade it to prosper in their hands.
To begin with, the firm at that time had only
newly decided on publishing novels at all, and a work
(19:33):
under such a title and issued by such a house
was naturally supposed to have a theological tendency. Then again,
in the very week in which my book saw the Light,
Lothair appeared and for the time being swamped everything. All
the world read Lothair, all the world talked about it,
(19:54):
and all the newspapers and reviews dealt with it, to
the exclusion of the products of the smaller f Later on,
A Life's Attonement was handsomely reviewed, and was, indeed, as
I am disposed to think, praised a good deal beyond
its merits, but it lay a dead weight on the
hands of its original publishers until Messrs Chatto and Windus
(20:18):
expressed a wish to incorporate it in their Piccadilly series.
The negotiations between the two houses were easily completed. The
stock was transferred from one establishment to the other, the
volumes were stripped of their old binding and dressed anew,
and with this novel impetus, the story reached a second
edition in three volume form. It brought me almost immediately
(20:42):
two commissions, and by the time that they were completed
I had grown into a professional novel writer.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
End of Chapter fifteen.
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