PUBLISHERS' BLUNDERS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIX, Issue 77, 2 April 1910, Page 10

PUBLISHERS' BLUNDERS.

— -♦ Publishers, like other people, sometimes make mistakes. Mr. R. Cochrane, in the Book Monthly, recalls some famous examples. George Meredith, as publisher's reader to Chapman and Hall, gave an opinion emphatically against the acceptance of Mrs. Henry Wood's "East Lynne." The loss by this rejection has been estimated at £30,000 to this publishing firm, and of the connection, presuming thit they had issued her other novels, at -£100,000 James Payn declined "John Inglesant," as reader for Smith, Elder and Co., and it became a valuable property in the hands of Macmillan and Co. Edna Lyall's 'We Two" was rejected hy half-a-dozen publishers. A publisher s reader pronounced W. Clark j Russell's "Wreck of the Grosvenor" a catalogue of ship's furniture It is the boast of Mr. Hall Came that no novel of his has been hawked from publishing house to publishing house. Mr. G. R. Sims records that a story of his, "A Pleasant Evening," was declined by the Family Herald, Chambers' Journal, and All the Year Round. Mr. Rider Haggard's "Dawn" was declined by five or six publishers. When Norman Macleod was editor of Good Words, he arranged with a popu lar novelist for a serial, which on reading he found unsuitable. The publisher, Mr. Alexander Strahan, agreed in this verdict, and paid the forfeit of £500, returning the MS. to its author, Anthony Trollop©. J