HOW SOME POPULAR AUTHORS BEGAN LIFE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXV, Issue 10908, 12 November 1898, Page 2 (Supplement)

HOW SOME POPULAR AUTHORS BEGAN LIFE.

The chances which lead many of the most popular writers of to-day to enter the realms of fiction are as romantic as tlia tales they have since told us. It was at a convivial Bohemian supper that Walter isant met James Rice. During a conversation about one of Dickens' novels, .Kice, then a young journalist, said: I give you the plot of a story, will you write it up ?" ,! r - T ' answered Besant. And eady-Money Mortibov" was the result. VVhen still a youth, Mr. ZangwiU o wined the post of junior master in the Jews Free Schools. So congenial was his task that by dint of hard work he managed to pass the whole class cent, per jceht. in the test examination. And novel-readers would not now have the pleasure of his characters company if a slight bickering had not arisen between the head-master and himself, which decided him to turn to literature.

His first attempt took the form of a comic paper, of which Punch remarked that— it was the only comic that they dared to read without being afraid of copy' ing the jokes.'' It died. Undaunted, 1 Zangwill next turned his thoughts towards fiction, and took as his subject the present day life of the Jews. The subject was novel, and after reading his first volume the public, like Oliver Twist, asked for more.

Grant Allen's first book dealt with an abstruse scientific problem. He waited for the royalties to come, and tliey came at about four-and-six a month. Whilst pondering what he should do next he happened to see an advertisement in a contemporary offering £1000 for the most thrilling novel sent to them. He went for a long walk, and when he returned sat down and commenced " What's Bred in the Bone," sent it up, got the prize, and ever since the royalties have been coining in at four-and six a minute.

" When 1 was earning 17s a week packing parcels in Hachetto's Paris publishing house," says Emile Zola, " I one day happened to look at one of Flaubert's great novels. I took it home and learnt it off by heart. Then up in may garret I went down on my knees and made a vow to write t better book. It took me many years, but now I am succeeding." If literary success is to be judged by the number of copies sold, M. Zola has performed his vow, as his income is now £10,000 a year, and when he started it was 12s a week.

Whilst a draper's assistant measuring tape, the idea struck H. U. Wells that wg should appear very strange to any inhabitant from another planet. But then what would .our critic be like ? The idea haunted him, so he went to a lending library and took out some astronomical books. But the writers did not seem to know much about their subject. So M decided to write down what lie thought the Martians would look like. Then he wove a story into it, and since his first effort his only rivals have been his previous works. Jerome K. Jerome, when a very young man, was lured by the footlights on to the stage, but was off again in a week. Then the necessity of food stared him in the faMj and, like thousands before him, he turne to literature. His first little book, 'U" and Oft' the Stage," can still be picked up sometimes in out-of-the-way corners; hut if you want his recent ones, you must oru6t them from your bookseller, or go without. Rudyard Kipling started as an AngloIndian journalist, and his first verses appeared in the " Poet's Corner" in the' Ben* gal Gazette, " This is slightly too long w to-day, as I've got a large advertisemen to come in," was the editor's comment 0 one of his poems, "so cut it down to ha the length." And in that mutilated to Mr. Kipling's poem was read by the pa , "to make room for an advertise®® . And yet he is now the best-paid writer England.