CENTURY OF PUBLISHING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20496, 22 February 1930, Page 8 (Supplement)

CENTURY OF PUBLISHING.

HOW " PICKWICK " BEGAN

Mr. Arthur Waugh is retiring from the managing directorship of Messrs. Chapman and Hall. Tho centenary of these publishers will bo celebrated this year, and Mr. Waugh is planning a, history of the firm during the last hundred years. In a long talk a representative of the London Observer had with him recently Mr. Waugh said

" I am very proud of the history of Chapman and llall, the early part of which is, of courso, bound up with tho story of Dickens. Tho first record I have been able to find is tho publication by the firm of |a religious annual. They were then booksellers at 186, Strand. That was in 1830. A year or so later Chapman and Ilall's reader, Charles Whitehead, started the Library of Fiction, n monthly magazine of stories, and in that series appeared ' The Tuggscs at Ramsgate,' by Charles Dickens, and later one or two other stories by the same young journalist. Then one of the partners conceived the idea of publishing a picaresquo novel about somo Cockney sportsmen —almost entirely for tho sake of tho illustrations by Robert Seymour. It was to come out in monthly parts. The question was: who was to write it? Theodore Hook was approached, and he refused. Leigh Hunt and Tom Hood also refused. Finally Whitehead said, ' there's that young fellow called Dickens, who wrote tho stories for tho Library of Fiction. Why not try him ?'

' Mr. Hall called on tlie 'young fellow ' at his rooms in Furnival's Inn, and directly Dickens saw him ho said, ' You aro associated with the most romantic incident in my life. In your shop I bought the monthly magazine in which appeared the first sketch I wrote.' As is described in Forster's life, Dickens walked all the way to Westminster Ilall with the book in bis hand and his eyes 'dimmed with tears of joy. and pride.' That was tho beginning of ' Pickwick Papers,' and it was Mr. Edward Chapman who really invented the appearance of Mr. Pickwick. Seymour's first sketch was of a tall, thin man, but Chapman, instancing Falstaff, said, ' Fat and humour go together,' and told the artist to model tho character on a certain man he knew.

" It might interest you to hear some of tho figures with regard to tho ' Pickwick Papers.' Tho arrangement was made to pay Dickens £9 9s for each instalment of sixteen pages, and ho exceeded his length at once, for there is a record that hq received £29 for the first two parts. 'Pickwick' did not go well at first. Four hundred copies were sold of tho first number, and tho total issue of tho first fh-e parts only amounted to 1500. <• " It is well known, of course, that it was Sam Wellcr who turned the tide. A short time after he was introduced the parts exceeded 40,000 a month, and when the twelfth number appeared, Chapman and llall sent Dickons a cheque for £SOO above his pay. Before tho serial publication ended they paid him £3OOO more than the agreed amount; but the publishers made £14,000 out of it. Nowadays," Mr. Waugh added, with a smile, " it is tho other way round: the authors and not the publishers inako most of the money!" „ " Did Chapman and Hall publish all of Dickens' books?" the interviewer asked " No, there was a quarrel over ' Martin Chuzzlewit,' and Dickens left the firm for some years j hut ho came back, and the company published all his other books, and eventually bought tho sole rights of everything lie had written. John ForStor, who was the reader for Chapman and' Hall, was tho go-between, and ho smoothed over all. the difficulties.