READ, NOT SEEN

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 63, 11 September 1937, Page 26

READ, NOT SEEN

AUTHORS' DILEMMA

SHOULD THEY ADVERTISE?

PUBLICITY AND FAME

(Written for the "Evening Post" by A.M.)

The plea that Miss Helen Simpson, the Australian writer, has made to authors to shun publicity and cultivate a feeling of mystery about themselves (referred to editorially in the "Evening Post" the other day) opens up a wide vista of reflection. The plea is not new. It may have been made in •: many literary ages. It was uttered in another form a few years ago by Mr. Charles Morgan, author of "The Fountain," when he said that writers ought to give up the social whirl of London and retire to the country to do some solid thinking. But today the question presses as never before, and from every side., There is such a dither of noise and distraction in the city that the unfortunate writer may be tempted to seek rural quiet. But how, he may ask himself, can he study mankind where there are so few to study? And if he leaves London, will he not be .out of the literary^ swim, overlooked by publishers, reviewers, and paragraphists? In the fierce race for a living and fame can he afford to bury himself in the country, or even in the town? More than ten thousand books are published in Britain every year; if a man is to live he must cultivate publicity in such a mob. , PATRON AND PRESS. In the old days publicity was simpler, though in that line success was often difficult enough. You sought a patron; lie pushed you and you buttered him up. Dr. Johnson gave that system a death-blow in his letter to Lord Chesterfield, that polished gentleman whose attitude to letters was indicated by his remark to the historian of Imperial Rome: "Still scribbling, Mr. Gibbon?" "Is not a patron, my lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and when he has reached ground encumbers him with help?" Today conditions are very different. The author is better. off in that his public is vastly larger, and publishers are many. So are the avenues of publicity. The patronage of a noble lord would not amount to a row of pins, except if he was Prime Minister; see Mr. Baldwin's recommendation of Mary Webb. On the other hand, the press of books is so greaj; that work may go unnoticed. What then is an author to do? He has many resources. He may cultivate the v Press. This is not so easy as it looks, for one of the duties of a sub-editor is to basket free advertisements. There are ways of indirect approach. He may seek the society of reviewers,-many of whom write under their own names. A reviewer may be perfectly honest, and yet, give a little preference to someone he knows. There is a good deal of log-rolling in London, and there are curious stories aoout connections between reviewers and publishers. Logrolling, of course, may be above board and praiseworthy, as when a number of leading literary men combined to make the novels of Leonard Merrick more popular. The aspirant may frequent .literary parties, sitting perhaps in Chelsea or Bloomsbury studios and listening to some fellow-campaigner recite free verse. Literary lunches and discussions are open to him, where he may speak and perhaps get a few lines in the Press reports. As he becomes known, he may achieve the rank of 'those mentioned at literary gatherings. Perhaps he has a streak of originality, a gift of paradox and epigram, which the papers will like. He may achieve publicity by being aggressively Left or Bight, or by displaying a Sitwell-like arrogance. Later, like Hall Came, he may keep a bust of Shakespeare in his study and cultivate the same appearance. Other methods are open to the young climber. He may stroll round London in scarlet plus fours and a purple sombrero. He may court prosecution by walking on forbidden grass or smoking in interdicted places. He may provoke authority by publishing a particularly frank novel or volume of verse (it would have to be very frank indeed), or capitalise the censoring of a play. "Punch" once presented a picture^of a playwight desolated by the information that the censor had not refused to license his work. THE COUNT OF MERIT.. And what is the result of the use of such adventitious aids to fame? No doubt harvests could be cited, but theyj are apt to be meagre and they wither quickly. You cannot go on advertising goods successfully unless there is value in them. You cannot go on getting results by booming yourself as a writer or log-rolling for someone else, if the writings are not what the public want. Modern literary history is.strewn with reputations that have had their hour and gone their way. Advertisement may bring a writer a certain amount of money and recognition, but if his work has not quality, it cannot bring him fame. Moreover, numbers of writers'can be cited who have won fame and fortune without recourse to self-adver-tisement. Shaw,- it is true, is the most successful advertiser of his time. Barrie, on the other hand, did not advertise, nor did Kipling. Barrie was a retiring man; Kipling, especially in his later years, was almost a recluse. He was hardly ever interviewed (the "Evening Post," by the way, had the distinction of capturing him), and I never saw any pictures of his study or his garden. Many authors, of course, have had hard struggles. Meredith had to wait years for recognition. Conrad was given a Civil List Pension. It is true that what may be called' luck ' does influence sales. "Lorna Doone" is said to have owed its start to the fact that its appearance synchronised with the marriage of the Queen's daughter to the Marquis of Lome, but does anyone suppose that but for this accident its merit would have gone unrecognised? The popularity of Mary Webb began with Mr. Baldwin's tribute—after her death—and Constance Holme, . the novelist of the Lake District, is only now coining into her own. Constance

Holme's ease is interesting as an ex- ( ample of the way in which the press of books may come between a fine writer and the public. I know several good judges of literature who did not discover her until she was published in an Oxford cheap series of "classics." Mary Webb has a larger public, but I doubt if she is a greater writer. We may admit delays: we may admit the possibility that occasionally merit or genius may sink in the flood; but as a rule real worth does in the end win recognition, and in that end, in the ultimate judgment of society, the cleverest advertising counts for nothing. RENDING THE VEIL. Helen Simpson says it is obviously to the interest of writers to keep up a feeling of mystery about themselves. In the past fifty years or so, there has been a rending of the veil. The public used to be presented only with the work of the artist. Now it knows what he is like, how his wife helps him, what he has for breakfast, his favourite authors, hlis hobbies, and the breed of his dogs. The effects of this are perhaps most striking in the theatre.. In those old days the theatre was a real place of mystery. It might be dingy and dirty, but it held otherworld delights. The woodland glade was real, and when the snow fell on the homeless betrayed heroine we didn't know that men were merely dropping pieces of paper from above. The players came from fairyland; they were like gipsies, a race apart, imbued with dark romance. Now the actor moves in the highest society and takes a title. We see pictures of his charming Thames-side home. We know what he thinks of the art of acting, and how he makes up. We have been behind the scenes and the line of kings in "Macbeth," stretching out to the crack of doom, has no terrors for us. Something has been gained, no doubt, but also something has been lost. The sense of wonder and mystery is weaker; the medium between actor and audience has become glass.

The author stands to lose—however much he may stand to gain—by this searchlight of publicity. First of all, the public is convinced there is a mystery about writing. It thinks in terms of divine fire and inspiration, whereas it should think—or at any rate it should not overlook these considera-tions-—in terms of the kitchen range and perspiration. That is to say, .writing is a business. Anthony Trollope said so bluntly—describing his daily routine of so many words —and the public was so much offended by this intrusion of the sordid into the aesthetic that his reputation suffered for years. Then the' author himself may not be all the fancy of the reader paints. It is sometimes better not to meet those who have charmed you with their words. They may be in-significant-looking; their manners may be crude, or their tempers temporarily frayed. In short, »the purveyor of shining romance may be as prosaic in face and form and demeanour as a cabin steward in rough weather. I have heard a man describe an eminent novelist of our time as he ate eggs for breakfast, and I don't think the sight would have edified his readers, Another thing: it is commonly supposed that authors like talking about literature, and strangers meeting them are inclined to rush the subject. It may be that they want to talk about anything but books; cricket, for example, or the brewing of beer, or pigs. Yes, encounter with authors is apt to be disconcerting.

The central truth of the matter is that what really matters is a man's work, not his views on marriage or his taste in tobacco or food, and his work can be judged without any information about the man himself.