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10.
I am sorry that you should have had to write again about your manuscript. I have read it myself on behalf of this house, and think very highly of it indeed; but I do not see that it has any of those selling qualities for which a publisher has naturally to look. Judged, indeed, from that standpoint, it has ["all" crossed out in ink here] the qualities which do not help a book: it is about Ireland, and it is always said that books about Ireland do not sell; and it is a collection of short stories. However, I admire it so much myself, and it has been so much admired by one or two other people who have read it, that we are willing to take the risk of its publication on the following terms:—
We will pay you a royalty on the published price of copies sold of ten per cent, thirteen copies counting as twelve, paying, however, no royalty on the first five hundred copies. And we should ask you to undertake to give this house the refusal of all your future work over a period of five years from the date of publication of "Dubliners" on the following terms: a royalty of ten per cent on the published price of the first thousand copies sold; of fifteen per cent on the next 3,000; and of twenty per cent thereafter. This last clause will give us some encouragement to push your work even if in itself the sale is not satisfactory, for if, as I do not doubt, you do good work in the future, we should be sure of having the opportunity of its issue.
If these terms are agreeable to you I will send you a detailed agreement for signature, and I would ask you to send us the one or two other stories that you mention. I may say that we should make the book a very attractive one.
With regard to the verse manuscript, I would suggest your leaving this matter over until after the publication of the stories. However, that is, of course, a point for you to decide. We would not wish to stand in your way if you had the opportunity of issuing it satisfactorily through some other house. Believe me, dear Mr. Joyce, Sincerely yours,
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