NOTES.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 496, 1 May 1909, Page 11

NOTES.

Aspirants to literature who were depressed by the : consensus of authors to the. effect that • Mr. Hall Caine might count himself quite exceptionally lucky to. hive' made £300 during his first year of authorship may be inclined to pluck up heart of grace on reading, as they may in this- month's ."Book Monthly," the : experience of Sir. ' Albert Dorrington (says the ..'Manchester •! "Guardian").' Mr. . Dorrington' is an Australian man of letters who came to London :',with modest expectations and found at the end of his first year, ho'haii'made £700.-.. ; His methods, , so' far'as he.roveals them, are [too obvious .to account for. his success. He read the fiction ,'of u the. British and American magazines/ and resolved to produce something as unlike it as possible. ' Instead . of sending his 'work from to magazine, he placed it/with a literary agent. He looked as 'keenly after his American market as after his British. Many have done the same,' and" have .not sped 'bo well.. One would like to have heard more of hia "schools and schoolmasters.". He hints af first-hand knowledge of gcld : mining in,Nortli Queensland, and Woatralia, and one whe can write. of' the .'great water, famines, anc tho cattle-camps, of tho pearl luggers . o: Torres Straits,' and .the thieves;, haunl the northern Mits of the . Barrier Reef, ii at-the outset in possession of a body •' o: material for fiction ■ which constitutes hin an exceptional- case. : Such knowledge'mus ■ be either plucked where it grow or.gatheret from the months of men whom one doei not run up against at every turning in th< streets of London, so that Mr. Dorrington': case has nothing in it to encourage tho& whose initial ■ esjwrienoe of _ life has. beet ordinary and whoso material is home grown. .. ....; , , ■'. ■ . Mr. S. R. Crockett lets readers ,of th( "Bookman" into some of the secrets of his early literary lifo. For a time he edited a paper for £40: a jear, but then he. wrote most of .it himself,- so he does not think he was overpaid. ' From anothor paper he received 7s. 6cL a column of 1000 words foi his "Stickit Minister" .stories,' which m'akeE about a guinea astoiy. But, then, for. the latter ones-he ■wsa not- paid. He bargained for .£6O for the entire serial rights of "The Lilac Snnbonnot," but he never saw a' farthing of ;the .money. As Bopn, however,. as ho reached book' form he had no trouble, tho publisher being satisfied with ten editions of "lie Stickit Minister" in a year, and Mr. Crockett, for once, was astonished as well. ' ■ , The fact that "Walden," as we are familiar with this Transatlantic cla&ic, is imperfect, as stated at a reoent dinner of the Bibliophilo Society, of New York, will occasion surpriso among the numerous admirers of Thoreau in this country. , -It seemß fiat the earliest publisher of the work reduced 'it to the extent of ten to twelve thousand, words, and no edition is perfect. Thei manuscript of "Walden" was willed by Thoreau to a friend in Massachusetts, who; ignorant of ,its worth, carelessly • parted' with it:. Finally tho month script got into tho hands of an appreciative person, and, it has been stated, "Walden" as it originally came from its author's hinds will shortly b®, published.