HOW A NOVELIST MAKES HIS NAME.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVI, Issue 9325, 30 March 1889, Page 2 (Supplement)

HOW A NOVELIST MAKES HIS NAME.

Ix Tins ley's Magazine for February, Mr. William Tinsley gives some interesting recollections of his dealings in former years with various now-celebrated writers :— "OCIDA" AND TICK PALL MALL GAZETTE. Of" Ouida," Mr. Tinsley s{ teaks as follows : —"Perhaps Lord Strangford's savage attack upon some of Ouida s' earliest novels in the Pall Mall Gazette gave the lady more notoriety than she gained from any other notice,good or bad, of her work. The Pall Mall Gazette at that time was a great power in the Fourth Estate. There was hardly a good house, club, or institution in the three kingdoms where it was not seen and read ; and the remarkable review of ' Ouida'mentioned above, even though it was of the most scathing kind, brought her many thousands of readers at once. It is often wonderd by readers of her novels how it is that she obtains such a masculine grasp of character, certainly exaggerated, but with ii substratum of truth. 1 am told that occasionally she used to invite young officers of the Guards, and young gentlemen of a sporting tendency,' to dine with her and her mother. After dinner, when they lighted up their weeds and pipes, site would say, "Now, gentlemen, suppose my mother and myself are out of the room. Seat yourselves : smoke and drink as if you were at the club ; talk as if you were in the smoking-room there ; never think about us." And they did so. Let her readers judge as to whether this is likely to have been the case or not. All I know is that I have seen the mewi of a dinner for a number of persons, and at the back of the card, in ' Ouida's' bold handwriting, is written thus : ' On est prie d'attendre ef d" fumcr."'

MR. BLACK AND THE SATURDAY REVIEW. Of Mr. Black'.-? early failures, and of the manner in which ho ultimately found success, Mr. Tinsley says : —"I published William Black'.-; first throe-volume novel in March, 180S, entitled 'Love or Marriage,' but it proved much too pyschological for ordinary render* ; consequently it failed to be anything like a success. However, I felt sure that Black was ;v very clever young man ; and although I had lost money by ' Love or Marriage,' I agreed to publish for him another novel that ha had ready for the press. The title, 'In Silk Attire," was more taking, and the subject-matter more likely to please novel-readers than that of the former book. I quickly got the new novel out, and it soon found many more readers than 'Love and Marriage. 1 His next novel, 'The Monarch of Mincing Lane,' did no pood to the magazine, and was nob by any means a great success in the three-volume form ; so Black elected to bring out his next novel, 'The Maid of Kilmcney,' without his name on the titlopage. It was published by Messrs.- Sampson Low and Co. Black fancied ho had enemies on the Press, and one on the Saturday Review especially ; so, as he felt sure his new book was a good one, he was content to drop for the time an}' reputation he had made by his first books, and start afresh. The plan succeeded very well indeed. A friend of Black's reviewed the book in the Saturday Review; the Proas ww almost unanimous in saying that it was a delightful novel; the publishers advertised a fresh edition almost every week for several months, and if there had been anything like a largo number of copies in each edition, there would have been as many copies sold in three volumes of Black's fourth novel as there were of ' Lady Audley's Secret,' ' The Woman in White,' ' Adam Beds,' and 'Lothair' altogether. However, the manoeuvring by editors, reviewers, and publishers was remarkably well done ; and when the novel was an assured success. Black was not long in letting the world know that he was the author of ' The Maid of Kilmeney.'"