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George Gissing and Late Victorian Publishing, 1880-1903

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George Gissing and Late Victorian Publishing, 1880-1903 The Commerce of Literature: George Gissing and Late Victorian Publishing, 1880-1903 Frederick Nesta Submitted to the University of Wales in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Aberystwyth 2007 Summary The Commerce of Literature: George Gissing and Late Victorian Publishing, 1880-1903 examines the economic and commercial background of late Victorian publishing and the changing commercial environment for authors. George Gissing (1857-1903) is best know today for his 1891 novel New Grub Street , the quintessential novel of authorship and publishing in the nineteenth century. The records, copyright ledgers, and contracts of Gissing’s major publishers demonstrate how the complexity of publishing after 1880, particularly the growth of an international market, required professional assistance from literary agents to secure the rights and rewards that authors were increasingly demanding. Contracts also underwent a transformation, and Gissing’s provide examples of how they were changed by new markets and the rise of the agent. Serialization of novels in popular and literary magazines and the publication of short stories were also important outlets in the late 19 th century. Gissing’s letters, dairy, and his records of payments show how important such activity could be for a late-nineteenth century novelist. In 1894 the dominance of the three-volume novel ended when the circulating libraries refused to accept them. The three-volume format was and still is defended on the grounds that it was almost always profitable for publishers and encouraged them to take risks on new novels. This thesis uses an examination of publishers’ accounts to show that the format only made money if the copyright payments were kept below £150 and the majority of the edition was sold. Many new novelists, such as Gissing, only saw their way into print if they agreed to subsidize their first novel. An esteemed but never a popular novelist, Gissing’s literary earnings were still within a middle-class income range and demonstrated that the newly developed profession of authorship was increasingly viable. Acknowledgements There has been a long and circuitous route to the beginning and completion of this thesis and many people to thank for steering me to it. First thanks goes to Franlee Frank, my mentor as an apprentice bookseller, who gave me copy of that classic of bookselling, Christopher Morley’s The Haunted Bookshop (Doubleday, 1919). Looking for more books by Morley I went to the Gotham Bookshop in New York where Alfred M. Slotnick (1916-1980) told me that if I read Morley I had to read Gissing to understand why the Haunted Bookshop was situated on Gissing Street. I left with The Odd Women and soon found myself going back to the Gotham for more Gissing novels and then biographies and critical works, not only on Gissing but also on Victorian publishing in general. I did not know then that Al Slotnick was a leading Gissing bibliographer and responsible for assembling much of the outstanding Gissing collection now owned by Pierre Coustillas. I had, of course read several of Coustillas’ works on Gissing and wrote to him before beginning this thesis. He was and has been very encouraging and supportive and it has been an honour to work with him in Gissing matters. Another Gissing collector and scholar, Professor John Spiers, has also been of great assistance in providing references and encouragement. I spent much time at the National Library of Scotland and found the collections and staff very helpful. I am also grateful to several colleagues from Edinburgh who do research in George Gissing or on his publishers and who have been helpful in supplying leads and encouragement: Professor David Finkelstein, Professor of Media and Print Culture, Queen Margaret University College, Edinburgh; Dr Bill Bell, Senior Lecturer, University of Edinburgh; and Dr Jonathan Wild, Lecturer, University of Edinburgh. I have also benefited from discussing the topic with Professor Simon Eliot, Chair in the History of the Book, Institute of English Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London and in discussing the three-volume novel with Dr. John Sutherland, emeritus Lord Northcliffe professor of modern English literature at University College London. The Smith, Elder materials used for this thesis were housed in the archives of the publishing house of John Murray and I am very grateful to the Archivist, Virginia Murray, for allowing me access to them and for locating Gissing letters and contracts that had previously been undiscovered. I must also thank the librarians and archivists at the Lilly Library at Indiana University, and my colleagues at the Research Libraries of the New York Public Library and its Berg Collection. At the University of Wales I must certainly thank my advisor for all these years, Dr. Chris Baggs, for his patience, his sound advice, and his close reading of all these chapters and tables. Mr. Gwilym Huws, who was Head of the Department of Information Studies when I began this thesis encouraged me to have every chapter presented as a paper or publication and I think having the thesis vetted by outside audiences not only helped me in writing it but also brought me into contact with the wider network of book historians and Gissing scholars. I would also like to thank Dr. Christine Urquhart, Director of Research at Aberystwyth for her advice and assistance in the registration and documentation and other details of student life that can be difficult to follow from half a world away. And finally, of course, I benefited most from the encouragement and the fine editorial hand of my wife, Dr Maureen Buja and this work is dedicated to her. A version of chapter 2, ‘Smith, Elder & Co. and the Realities of New Grub Street ’ was read at the twenty-first annual British Book Trade History Conference, Edinburgh, July 2004, under the title ‘Smith, Elder & Co. and the Realities of New Grub Street’. It was subsequently published under that title as a chapter in John Hinks and Catherine Amstrong (Eds.), Worlds of Print: Diversity in the Book Trade (London: The British Library and Oak Knoll Books, 2006), as part of the Print Networks series. A version of the section on Thyrza from Chapter 2 was published in the Gissing Journal 40.1 (2004) under the title ‘The Thyrza Contract and Two Unpublished Letters’ . Chapter 3, ‘The Age of the Middleman: George Gissing and His Literary Agents’ was read under the title ‘The Commerce of Literature: George Gissing and His Literary Agents’ at the City of Literature: The Rise of the Literary Profession in the 18th and 19th Centuries , Edinburgh University School of Literatures, Languages, and Cultures, 4 June 2005. Material from this thesis was used in preparing for a panel convened by the author titled ‘Gissing Abroad and Gissing in Libraries’ at the twelfth annual conference of the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing (SHARP), Lyon, France, July 20-July 24 2004. Panel members were Chris Baggs, University of Wales, Aberystwyth and Pierre Coustillas, University of Lille. My paper was later published as “George Gissing, International Copyright and Late Victorian Publishing” The Gissing Journal 40.4 (2004). Chapter 5, ‘Economics of the ‘Triple-headed Monster”’ was presented as “The Myth of the Triple-Header Monster: The Economics of the Three-volume Novel” at The Birth of the Bestseller conference, Bibliographical Society of America, New York, 29- 31 March 2007 and has been accepted for publication in Publishing History . The discoveries related to hidden profits made by George Bentley on The Emancipated described in Chapter 7 will also be forthcoming as “Bentley’s Emancipated Profit” in the Gissing Journal . Table of Contents Introduction.......................................................................................................................................1 A Survey of the Literature...............................................................................................................9 Chapter 1: ‘A Man of His Day’: George Gissing and Victorian Publishing ..........................21 Chapter 2: Smith, Elder & Co. and the Realities of New Grub Street...................................32 Chapter 3: The Age of the Middleman: George Gissing and His Literary Agents...............75 Chapter 4: Changing Modes of Production: Gissing’s Contracts..........................................116 Chapter 5: The Economics of the ‘Triple-headed Monster’ ..................................................129 Chapter 6: The Schoolmaster’s Vision: Gissing’s Serial & Periodical Publications............153 Chapter 7: Light Upon Dark Places...........................................................................................177 Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................213 Addendum .....................................................................................................................................214 Table 1: Gissing’s Contracts........................................................................................................217 Table 2: Gissing’s Lawrence and Bullen contracts ..................................................................227 Table 3: Gissing’s Three-volume Novels..................................................................................231 Table 4: Smith, Elder Three-volume Novel Sales 1858-1865................................................233
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