BOOKS THAT NEVER GET PUBLISHED.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 80, 28 December 1907, Page 13

BOOKS THAT NEVER GET PUBLISHED.

"At.this time there is a channeli for almost ovory kind and' dogreo of literary talent.. That which will not suffice for a book-, may. be enough ,to .produie_ a 'short story: what .is insufficient for- this purposo may bo put into a paragraph. . . . Every good'expression has its market value, and advertisers. mako fortunes out of phrases. Undor .these circumstances it'need n6t surprise us," writes a publishers' reader in tho "Now York Timos," "that , thousands of incompetent'.or half-competent persons yearly devote an amount of energy to tho production of .-.worthless' manuscripts wliichj if they : could he; transformed into electricity, ■would furnish power sufficient to operate several large factories. ' '"American manuscripts for the most part havo 'ono or tho other of two kinds of excellence. Thoy aro usually either very rich in inatorial and local colour, or else tlioy aro strong in fominino psychology . . . Perhaps the story which vexes the spirit of tho reader most is that which is strong in feminine psychology, and in nothing else. It is often just on tho border lino between good and bad.-' Its author is usually a woman of real culture and refinement, who writes With sincere emotion and in unexceptionable English. But, alas! tho story is invertcbrato; it has no rational plot. It is, in short, mcroly a symphony of moods. . . . ■ "English manuscripts differ from tho native product in comparative lack of subfetanco on.vividness. The averago British 'story submitted to tho American publisher is either a drab-coloured study of lifo, wantin"'in: the 'snap' which the public on this • siao of the water demands, or else a trei mendously ingenious piece : of sensationalism or : elaborate humour—a futilo flash in tho .jiani . . .

"I am usually asked: 'Of all tho manuscripts which como unsolicited from unknown writers, what proportion are good?' frankly, very fow. Authors who have a certain trick of writing seem all too easily content in the oxerciso of it, without much improvement. The advantage of the moderately successful writor over tho unsuccessful 0110 often seems to depend upon dovicos of so flight a nature that it would seem as if the weaker aspirant might oasily learn thorn., But for the most part ho appears to be incapable of it. "Associated'with this first query is a second: 'Are tnanuscripts ever oxtensively revised in. the shop?' Sometimes; but the. revision is usually designed to make a good story better, not to make a bad story good. "A third quostion that is bound to occur to one who knows tho quality of the general run of manuscripts is this: 'Why do not tho writers of trash know that' their stulf is bad?' In the first place, because, in spite of moro, or less-reading, they have nover con-, sidered in detail what constitutes a novel. But thero is a; deeper reason. Tho psychological feat which you expect tho poor writer to perform is in fact one of tho hardest in tho world. . . . Real' self-criticism is tho art of a strong and in every way an exceptional mind. Those who them selves have literary leanings frequently enquire whether a man should simply speak out what is ,in him or try to plcaso tho public. I answer, Both. He can hardly help writing what is in him, and ho ought to consider the public. . In conclusion, I must-say that gross illiteracy or; indecency aro not common attributes of the manuscripts submitted to the American'publisher,. and that the rejected story often contains good and momorablo passages which tho reader gladly ■ takes to heart."