University of Virginia Library

III

In June 1882 Douglas printed his first of Howells' novels, A Chance Acquaintance and A Foregone Conclusion. Both volumes met with so cordial a reception, as Douglas said, that they had to be reprinted during the course of the year. By year's end, Douglas had added to his list A Counterfeit Presentment, Their Wedding Journey, The Lady of the Aroostook, Out of the Question, The Undiscovered Country,

and A Fearful Responsibility — and with these eight titles he launched his American Author series. Douglas could hardly have timed their publication better, for Howells' article on Henry James in the November 1882 issue of the Century Magazine was to make its author infamous among British readers. And along with talent, nothing sells books better than controversy.[15]

Howells had not been widely read in Britain before the 1880's, so he could hardly appear as anything other than an upstart brother Jonathan when, in the Century Magazine, he dismissed the lares of British fiction while praising his countryman Henry James: "The art of fiction has, in fact, become a finer art in our day than it was with Dickens and Thackeray."[16] It was this assertion and the outrage with which it was greeted that initially shaped Howells' reputation in England.[17] But by 1884 the fuss had subsided enough so that the Temple Bar was ready to recognize Howells' "European reputation" in a review concerned with the new school of fiction Howells had announced, and the Westminster Review suggested that Howells, with the help of his British publisher, might even deserve the recognition he had won: "Mr. Howells has had as friendly a reception from the British public within the past two or three years as he could well wish; the attractions of Mr. Douglas's pocket editions combining with those of the novelist's style, humour, and piquant narrative to lead even temperate novel-readers into prolonged dissipation."[18]

The question of Howells' merits aside, Douglas had clearly earned his share of this praise. He printed his American Author series on good paper and bound it in illustrated paper covers at 1s., in printed calico at 1/6, and in a strikingly handsome blue cloth with gilt tops at 2s. per volume. It rankled the Blackwood's reviewer that an American author received such treatment:

It was not only Howells on whom Douglas lavished his publisher's care, for it was in bringing out other writers (see the list, pp. 123-4 in the same format that he created the American Author series. Howells acted occasionally as Douglas's advisor here, and on 12 November 1883 Douglas wrote to thank Howells for "the great service you have done me in my business by sending the marked index [of the Atlantic Monthly] which I have already read rapidly over & shall very shortly read all the papers I can get hold of. . . . Your keeping me acquainted with anything good that appears will be of much service." During 1883 and 1884 Douglas added seventeen titles by nine different American authors, describing his intentions to Howells on 5 February 1885 as an endeavor "to give the very best specimens of your literature in the little series & [illegible word] make it of permanent value to our people."[19] Howells' influence is visible in the series; some of the authors were his friends and acquaintance — like Holmes, Curtis, Mitchell, and Aldrich — and it is likely that he would have drawn them to Douglas's attention, as he may also have recommended to him some of the books that came his way in reviewing for the "Editor's Study."[20]

If Douglas did not secure all the best American writing for his series, he did publish much that was very good, and with Howells, Cable, Holmes, and John Burroughs represented on the list with several titles each he had reason to be proud of the quality of his series. More than that, the emphasis on local color richly validated the promise of the series' title to be American. It is worth adding, finally, that the surviving evidence indicates that Douglas won the gratitude he deserved for his efforts on behalf of American writers. When, for instance, he brought out a four-volume collection of Holmes' poetry in 1892, he asked Holmes to write a preface for it. He got more than he asked for, as is evident from Douglas's letter about the preface to Holmes on 25 June 1892: "what you say of my work gratifies me extremely, but these words of praise however pleasant to me personally will I fear look egotistical in my own publication. I have always avoided any notice of this Head[?] preferring that the workmanship should speak for itself. If you agree with me perhaps you will delete the second paragraph, which however I am vain enough to tell you I shall preserve in my own private copy." Holmes made the change Douglas asked for but left a still generous compliment intact: "The proposal of Mr. Douglas to print an edition of my Poems gave me much pleasure, and I feel confident that they will be printed correctly and handsomely. The reader may find fault with them, but I am sure he will find pleasure in the form in which they are presented to his eye."[21]

Douglas lavished care on these books because it was in this cheaper form, aimed at a popular audience,[22] that he was most interested in publishing American writings. His correspondence with Howells makes it clear that if the trade editions of Howells' novels had had a disappointingly small sale, Douglas was all the more satisfied to keep on with the American Author series, about which he was optimistic from

the start. Douglas wrote to Howells on 28 January 1884 that Douglas had invested heavily in Howells' fiction in both 1882 and 1883. Typesetting and printing alone cost £508 in the first year and £405 in the second, and Douglas mentions spending almost £1000 on advertising; there are no figures available on paper and binding, nor on Douglas's overhead costs, but £3500 is a conservative estimate of his total expenses on Howells' books in the first two years.[23] The royalty statement he sent Howells in January 1884, which covered both the trade and American Author editions, indicates that he had recovered his expenses on Howells' titles in the series, including presumably the heavy investment in reprinting the books issued in 1882. It is unfortunate that no royalty statement survives for the year 1884, but it is evident that Douglas had reached his break-even point before sales began to slow down dramatically. And even after this Douglas's hopes for continued sales must in some measure have been realized, for on 22 November 1884, in writing Howells to explain that the regular trade editions of A Modern Instance and A Woman's Reason were not selling, he could report that he had "no reason to be dissatisfied as [to] the demand" for the cheaper editions.

The surviving royalty statements are spotty and sometimes not very informative because Douglas often paid Howells lump sums rather than a specified percentage on sales. In 1906, when Douglas was compiling his Scrap Book, he estimated that his total expenditure had been £16,000 and that he had divided the total profits of about £3000 evenly between himself and the authors. The only surviving records of payments made to Howells during the 1880's are those made in

1884 and 1886. The latter was for £20 (Scrap Book); assuming that this represents half profits and that of the total sold two thirds were bound in paper and one sixth each were bound in calico and blue cloth, the £20 suggests a sale of some 2100 volumes in 1885. Only one title was reprinted during 1885, A Chance Acquaintance, and only one new one was added, The Rise of Silas Lapham — and it was to be five years before Douglas could sell his initial printing of 5000 copies of this novel. Here again, the evidence of the printing records and of royalty payments indicates that after an initially brisk sale in 1882 and 1883 Howells' fiction in the American Author series moved more slowly.[24] The booming sales of 1882 and 1883 undoubtedly reflect the notoriety Howells won from his article praising Henry James at the expense of Dickens and Thackeray, but it is nonetheless clear from the printing records that Howells kept a modest but not unimpressive readership in Britain for the next fifteen or twenty years. For where titles in the trade editions were sold in the tens, those in the American Author series were sold in the hundreds. The chart facing this page indicates the course of these sales in so far as it is reflected in the orders Douglas placed with T. & A. Constable, his Edinburgh printers.

This chart indicates two general factors about the basis of Howells' reputation in Britain and raises a question about how Douglas's judgment as a publisher may have helped to shape that reputation. The first and most obvious factor in the record of Howells' sales in Britain is that three novels, Their Wedding Journey, A Chance Acquaintance, and A Foregone Conclusion, were vastly more popular than any of the other titles. Thirteen other of Howells' books appeared in the series, but these three novels alone account for about forty-three percent of the total sales and are the only ones to have any popularity after 1900. This suggests that Howells was, for many British readers, a one or two novel author; indeed, two of these novels — Their Wedding Journey and A Chance Acquaintance — share some of the same characters. A second factor is more striking: virtually all of Howells' popularity in Britain rested on what he had written in the 1870's, in the early part

of his career before his talent and vision fully matured. Only four of his later novels appeared in the American Author series, and only two of them were major novels — The Rise of Silas Lapham and Indian Summer. It is clear that British readers had a severely limited exposure to the amazing string of good novels that Howells wrote between A Modern Instance (1882) and The Quality of Mercy (1892).

The question of why Douglas did not publish works like Annie Kilburn or A Hazard of New Fortunes in the American Author series is an important one, because his decision not to include them kept Howells' most mature work out of the hands of most of his British readers. Unfortunately, the question cannot be answered with certainty. When Douglas added The Rise of Silas Lapham to the series in 1885, after two years during which nothing new by Howells had been offered, his print order was the largest initial one he had placed up to that time. He must have been optimistic about the book — as its subsequent reprintings indicate he had some reason to be. It is hard to imagine that the novels that followed, it, bespeaking a similar and maturing social concern, would not also have found readers in Britain. It may be, however, that the sales of Indian Summer, the next book of Howells' published in the series, discouraged Douglas from adding more of his works. Unfortunately, that novel, for all its excellence, lies outside Howells' main accomplishment as a novelist in the 1880's and offered no adequate measure of his potential popularity. If Douglas decided against publishing Annie Kilburn, April Hopes, and A Hazard of New Fortunes in the American Author series because Indian Summer was not successful, he made the mistake (visible only through the glass of hindsight) of measuring unlike novels against one another — a mistake the more regrettable because of the evident interest in The Rise of Silas Lapham.

However the fact is to be explained that so few of the books Howells wrote in the 1880's were published in the American Author series, it is fitting to emphasize that Howells himself was always more than satisfied with what Douglas could do for him and returned his loyalty in kind. On 28 February 1897 Howells wrote to tell Douglas he did not want to transfer his books to Harper's London office unless Douglas were losing money on them,[25] and a year later when Howells

did make the move he wrote to Douglas (25 March 1898) that he was "proud to think our relation has not been merely commercial, and I am glad to know that in any event we can always be friends." Howells' friendship with Douglas was to last until the latter's death — as indeed did the commercial connection, although on a much reduced scale. On 27 January 1905 Howells returned to Douglas the royalty check for the previous year's sales, saying that he was unwilling for Douglas to lose money on his books and offering — because Harper did not want to take over the stock — to buy the bound copies himself. A few days later, on 7 February, Howells wrote again, this time with the tenacity of a professional author, to suggest that the returned royalties be spent on advertising. This was of no avail and several years later, on 19 April 1913, Howells wrote that he wished he could suggest some way for Douglas to unload his unsaleable stock and authorized him to sell it without regard to himself. The last royalty payment came from Douglas's son on 4 February 1916 and brought with it news of Douglas's last illness — he was then ninety-three years old. Howells wrote back to acknowledge the check and to say that "unless you should make some strange unforeseen sale, you ought to consider me fully recompensed. Only yesterday, I was speaking to my daughter of your dear father. I wish you would give him my love; he is one of the dearest friends of my life."

DAVID DOUGLAS'S AMERICAN AUTHOR SERIES
Arranged by date publication in the series

                 

1882	W. D. Howells	A Chance Acquaintance, A Foregone Conclusion, The Lady of the Aroostook, Their Wedding Journey, The Undiscovered Country, A Fearful Responsibility, A Counterfeit Presentment, Out of the Question
1883	G. W. Cable	Old Creole Days
	G. W. Curtis	Prue and I
	John Burroughs	Winter Sunshine
	O. W. Holmes	The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, The Poet at the Breakfast Table, The Professor at the Breakfast Table
	Blanche Willis Howard	One Summer
	W. D. Howells	Venetian Life, Italian Journeys
	F. R. Stockton	Rudder Grange
	R. G. White	Mr. Washington Adams in England

                                                     

1884	John Burroughs	Locusts and Wild Honey, Wake-Robin, Birds and Poets, Fresh Fields, Pepacton
	J. C. Harris	Mingo and Other Sketches in Black and White
	G. P. Lathrop	An Echo of Passion
	F. R. Stockton	The Lady or the Tiger? and Other Stories
1885	T. B. Aldrich	The Queen of Sheba, Marjorie Daw and Other People
	W. D. Howells	The Rise of Silas Lapham
	Brander Matthews and H. C. Bunner	In Partnership
1886	T. B. Aldrich	Prudence Palfrey, The Stillwater Tragedy
	William Winter	Shakespeare's England
1887	G. W. Cable	Madame Delphine
	W. D. Howells	Indian Summer
	F. R. Stockton	A Borrowed Month and Other Stories
1888	William Winter	Wanderers
1889	T. B. Aldrich	Wyndham Towers
1890	W. D. Howells	The Shadow of a Dream
	M. E. Wilkins	A Humble Romance and Other Stories, A Faraway Melody and Other Stories
1891	W. D. Howells	An Imperative Duty
	William Winter	Gray Days and Gold
1892	James Lane Allen	Flute and Violin and Other Kentucky Tales, Sister Dolorosa and Posthumous Fame
	Matt Crim	In Beaver Cove and Elsewhere
	O. W. Holmes	Poetical Works
	Helen Jackson	Zeph: A Posthumous Story
1893	T. B. Aldrich	Two Bites at a Cherry and Other Tales
1896	W. D. Howells	Idylls in Drab
1898	W. D. Howells	An Open-Eyed Conspiracy
1902	T. B. Aldrich	A Sea Turn and Other Matters
1904	S. Weir Mitchell	A Comedy of Conscience