ELKIN MATHEWS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18465, 28 January 1922, Page 2

ELKIN MATHEWS.

A MAN OF THE EIGHTEEN-NINETIES. By Constant Readeb. The tidings to hand by a recent mail of the death of Mr Elkin Mathews, publisher and bookseller, recall memories of a day towards the end of July, 1914, when, turning out of Piccadilly and walking through Burlington Arcade, I crossed the road into Cork street, and presently entered a quaint, old-fashioned ■ little bookshop on : the right hand side ot fife street. There I; found Air ■Elkin Mathews, introducing myself as a book lover from New Zealand, and it was not long before, I .was listening to all sorts of entrancing literary reminiscences first hand from the lips of a man personally acquainted with the writers of the renaissance period known as the eighteen- ; nineties. 1 perched myself on a high stool, l he sat on a table, the hours flew all too ] swiftly until, when it was too late, remem--1 bering an appointment to lunch with a lady, [ I abruptly fled. Notwithstanding this misj chance, I again foregathered at Cork street, and to-day when the voice of Elkin Mathews , is silent for ever I feel impelled to try and reconstruct the substance of those conversations. - i

■ I Mr Elkin Mathews -was tho original j founder of “The Bodley Head” press in ! Vigo street, in the West End of London, j He may be said to bo the pioneer among J modern’ publishers in regarding books os | something more than merchandise, and he I was over on tho look-out to encourage new i and original talent.- The eighteen-nineties t was tho period when a band of young ( writers, freed from the conservatism of 1 outworn literary traditions, began to find | themselves: If waS, however, qriq -thing 1 to write and quite another to get pubj lished, . and ,to Mr Elkin Mathews belongs the credit of being first in the field with ! tho books of men, then untried and unj known, who afterwards became famous, and whoso names are now household words, j One of the earliest ventures of the ncwlyostablishcd firm was to undertake to issue Oscar Wilde’s volume of poems. Thereby hangs a tale -which may best be introduced by reprinting the following letter: — "The Bodley Head, ' Vigo street, London W., ■ 1 October 24, 1891.’, POEMS. Dear Sir, —I undertake to issue your volume of Poems on the following terms with my imprint for, 230 * copies—viz.: To instruct printer to supply Title Pago On receipt of Artist’s Design for cover •. at cost of £5 ss, Block be prepared for ■ same, the cost of which as- well as that of Title Page, Binding, Advertising to be fil^t’'oharges 'on'the amount received for copies sold, i The cost - of advertising not to exceed £5 ss. s For my Commission I agree to take 20 per cent, on the net published price, it being agreed that the book shall be brought out as a net one, tho price to be fixed when bound. After the above charges have been : met- tho -Balance to be-remitted quarterly, i. the -first Balance to bo struck Six Months ’, after publication. ;VV "Tam, ;; v Yours faithfully, Elkin Mathews. Oscar Wilde, Ebq. ■ Wilde’s poems were originally published in 1881 by David Bqguo, a fourth- and fifth edition of 500 copies being printed on January 24, 1882. In August,„ 1882, Boguo became bankrupt, his stock being ;taken over by Messrs Cliatto and -W Indus, who, however, did not ■ issue /Wilde’s poems under their l imprint. . , , . ■ ' . ; In' January. 1892, a partnership was entered into .between Elkin Mathews and John Lane, and Wilde’s '‘Poems”, was the first volume issued under tbeirqjoint imprint, this consisting of 220 ori'USo copies, the balance of the 500 printed in'lßß2. This explains the following-letter:— .■ !■ The Bodloy Head, Vigo street, London W., February. 25, 1892. POEMS.

~ rMy Dear Sir, —I hope by the tim© this letter'reaches you that, Mr Ricketts will have ' received specimen; cases. I saw , one to-day done up in the darker cloth, ■ and-the gold Resign I • *,would strongly urge you & select this • cloth,; “colour trossing to see pkleiooloursd findings get i~. dirty : after very little use. ' Tne : binders tell me , (presuming 230 were sent) the 220.. copies 'will fall short ■ by 10 on account of soiled, injured, and • missing sheets. They have rendered me a list of the-latter.,. I regret that I was out when you called some days ago, hut you see the matter will now be steadily pushed on to a oon{dufiion. ’ I ant,, ‘ - Yours faithfully, Elkin Mathews. Oscar Wilde, Esq. The book came out in pale violet cloth boards, with gilt lettering and designs.and decorated end papers, all by Charles Ricketts. The anouncement of publication in Messrs Elkin Mathews and John Lane’s catalogue was as follows: — Wilde (Oscar) Poems. Printed at the Chiswick Press with" decorated title page and end papers, the binding, “The Seven Trees,” in gold oh Iris cloth ; designed by ■ C. S. Ricketts. ’ ,’Two hundred copies, each signed by the author. Post, octavo, 15s net. , The young firm of Elkin Mathews and John Lino, taking advantage of Oscar Wilde’s popularity, made a specialty of his books. The “Poems,” issued in May, 1692, was followed in November, 1683, with an edition of 500 copies of “Lady Windermere’s Fan,” and this issue, together with other forthcoming plays, yvaa announced os

follows; ’ .Wilde (Osoar). / Dramatic works, now • printed for the first time with a specially designed Title page, and binding to each volume, by Charles Shannon. Five bundled copies; 7s 6d net per volume. Also 50 copies large paper; 15s net per volume. ’ Volume I:' “Lady Windermere’s Fan”; A Comedy in Four Acts (Ready). Volume II: “A Woman of No Importance”: A Comedy in Four Acta (Shortly). • , Volume III; ‘The Duchess.of Padua”; ■ A Blank Verse Tragedy in Five" Acts (In preparation).... “A Woman of No Importance,” which was’ published in October, 1894, was issued with the imprint of “John Lane, at the sign of the Bodley Head,” the partnership between Elkin Mathews _ and John Lane having been dissolved in August, 1894, when Wilde’s 'works wore assigned by arrangement to Mr John Lane. The author’s imprisonment in 1895 prevented tho_ publication’/ of “The Duchess of Padua,” .which was not, issued in book form " until 1908. ■ "

Two other Wilde hooka published by. Elkin Mathews anil John Land before the dissolution of partnership were “ The Sphinx,” issued in June, 1894, trated by Aubrey Beardsley. Perhaps the most interesting Wilde reminiscence with which Mr Elkin Mathews was concerned relates to “ The Portrait ’of Mr W. H.” Ah. essay bearing this title was originally contributed by Wilde _to Blackwood, and was published in the issue of that magazine for •fuly,/-18°9. ■ Tlio essay was' afterwards elaborated, and towards the end of 1893 was announced by, Messsrs Elkin Mathews and John Lane as being '“in rapid preparation” from the Bodley Head, Vigo street. The announcement reads as follows:—; Wilde (Oscar). The incomparable and ingenious history of Mr W. H., being the true secret of Shakespeare’s sonnets, now ; for the first time here .fully set forth, with initial letters arid cover design by Charles Ricketts. Five hundred Copies; 10s 6d not. Also, 50 copies, largo paper, 2i» net. : ~ For some reason, probably owing to the dissolution of partnership, publication of the book was , delayed, until on 1 April 6, 1895, came the sensation of Wilde’s arrest. At once his plays, two or throe of which were running at the London theatres, were withdrawn, and the publishing trade generally dropped Wilde’s books like so many hot potatoes. " On the day of the arrest, the manuscript of ‘‘The Portrait of Mr W. 11,” consisting of a copy of Blackwood’s magazine, with marginal alterations and inserted pages, is said to have been returned by the publisher—presumablyMr John Lane —to Wilde’s house at Tite’street, Chelsea, and since, that time all trace of it was lost. A few months ago the missing manuscript, or at least one believed to be authentic, was offered to a New York publisher; Mr Mitchell Kennerioy, and has been issued by him in a limited edition. Mr Ricketts had prepared as a frontispiece for the projected volume a “faked” portrait of “Mr W H.” painted on an old panel. This was oatlogued in the sale of Wilde’s effects as;—

“125. An bid oil painting of Will Hewes, framed. It was purchaaod for a guinea, and its present whereabouts is unknown, i One of the principal witnesses against Wilde was Edward Shelley, who was employed as office boy' in the publishing house 9! Elkin Mathews and John Lane, and who is alleged by .those who. espoused Wilde’s cause to have been a blackmailer. In the course of the trial Mr Elkin Mathews was called to testify to the friendship between Wilde and Shelley, a friendship which he endeavoured to discourage as far as lay in his power so to do. When in the autumn of 1E94 Elkin Mathews and. John Lano parted' company, it was happily said that Parnassus was divided into two peaks: John Lane remained at the Boddey Hoad Press, while Elkin Mathews established himself on the opposite side of Vigo street—the move to Cork street was more recent—whence ho began to issue - that famous series of little paper covered booklets known the world over to all book lovers as "The Vigo Cabinet Series: An/Occasional Miscellany of Prose and Verse.” The great service which Elkin Mathews gave to the cause of English literature is to be foiind .in the encouragement he consistently accorded to the young poets. He was tho first publisher of) tho Rhymers’ Club books, and he issued John ,Gray’s first volume of poetry, and in ’so doing he incurred a debt of gratitude from the entire race of bibliophiles; The first book of the Rhymers’ Club came out in 1892, containing six poems by Ernest Dowson, the second book of tho club appearing ten years later with unbthor half-dozen- of- Dowson’s verso. In' his essay on Dowson Mr Arthur Symons has explained the origin and desires of the club, which, consisted of a band of young . poets who, meeting at the Cheshire Cheese in Fleet street, strove to recapture in London something of the Gallic spirit of art and_ the charm of open discussion in tho Latin quartier. It may be questioned whether in the better understanding thus l induced between the spirit of French and of English literature there was not laid the foundation of the entente oordiale which subsequently - eveptuated between ■ England and Frhnoe. . Be-that, as it may, -it is inetructivo/to recall the original membership of tho ..Rhymers’ Club: John .Davidson, Ernest Dowson, Edwin J; 1 Ellis,. George Arthur Greene, Lionel Johnson,- -Arthur Cecil' Hilliejr, Richard Le GalKeittte, Victor Plarr, Ernest Radford, Ernest Rhys, Thomas William Rolleston, Arthur Symona, John Todhunter, and ‘William Butler Yeats.; Besides these members, the club, which was without rules or officers, mitnbered several permanent guests, including John Gray, Edward Rees, J. S. Nettloehip. Morley Roberts, A. B. Chamberlain, Edward Garnett, and William Theodore Peters. .Oscar Wilde, though not a member of the dub, often attended the meetings and exercised

a great ihflder.ee over the Rhymers. " The first name on this list of visitors —John Gray—published his first volume of verse with Elkin Mathews and John Lane in 1893. In 1904 he edited tho ‘Last Letters of Aubrey Beardsley.’" He subsequently became a Catholic, priest “The narrow preen octavo of “Silverpoints,”’ says Mr Bernard Muddiman in "The Men of the Nineties.’ “with its lambent golden flames, strikes the eyes at once as some bizarre, and exotio work. It was one of the first limited editions do luxe that mark the new printing of the docqde, and is one of the most dainty little books ever issued by Elkin Mathews and John Lane. Most of the titles are in French, and these are imitations from Charles Baudelaire, Arthur Rimbaud, Stephane Mallarme, Paul , Verlaine, the gods ,of , the symbolic school at that period. Poems are dedicated (it was the habit of ’ the decade) to friends, including Pierre Louys, Paul Verlaine, Oscar Wilde, R. H. Shorard, Honri Teixiras do Mattoe, Ernest Dowson; etc. The predominant note is that of tiger’e blood and tigsr lilies. Honey, roses, whitebreasts, and golden’hair, with fierce' passion' and 'indolent langour, are the chotda' of the book’s ■ fusion. - All - ; the panoply of the now English art begotten from the French here burgons forth with the Satanic note that was then in the fashion.”

No hotter' guide to the poetry of that period is to bo found than in the book mta.i.of-Elkin Mathews and John Lane. _ Thfcfi. ‘rfyat of j Books in Belles Lettres,” isfye<j under dale March, 1834, is replete with interesting items. It contains the onnouheefyent ofj. “ The Art of Thomas Hardy,’,’ lion^l/ Johnson, a book of six essays which,, haye long been out. of print. The ,fourty edition'of Francis Thompson’s “Poems” 'is , also in the list as well as a translation of Dostoievsky’s “Poor Folk,”, with a preface by'■ George Moore. Among a number of flattering press notices is the testimony of Mr Israel Zangwill te this effect: “A ray of hopefulness is stealing" again into English poetry after the twilight greys of Clough, and Arnold, and Temnyson. Eyen' unbelief wears braver colours. Despite the - jeremiads, which are-.the-. dirges of the- elder gods, England is still a nest of singing biros (teste the Catalogue, of Elkin Mathews .and John, Lane). ' Nor did Elkin Matthews’s - services to literature end with the eighteen-nineties, a period brought abruptly to an end,-so-far as book production whs concerned, by the South African War. A glance down the first hundred issues of the “Vigo Cabinet Series’’ reveals some amazing surprises. It was Elkin Mathews who published the first edition of John Masefield’s “Salt Water Ballads”—copies of which are worth almost their weight in gold (I .have heard ' it whispered that a copy reposes somewhere on the shelves of the Dunedin Athenamm)— following it up with the famous/ “Ballads” and the “Tarpaulin Muster.” . And at the time of publication Masefield's talent was scarcely recognised, save by, a small circle of discerning poetry lovers; Number 7 of the “Vigo Cabinet' Series” was “Uriyn the Harper,” by. Wilfred • Wilson Gibson, the friend "and intimate of Rupert Brooke.' but .nearlv a quarter of a century was to elapse ■’before Gibson'‘gained recognition with the . ‘'Daily t Broad,” dramatic dialogues. Number 17 of' the series -was tha t marvellous

piece of.mysticism from -the',pen' of William ButlerYehts, “The Tables of the Law and the Adoration of . thaw Magi,” which fell on blind ,eyes.:.'dqaf..ears, and herd hearts until, as poet, Yeats took the world by; storm with “Innisfree.” Number. 24 of the “Vigo Cabinet” series was “The Shadow of the Glen iand Riders to the Sea,” but, - alas! it was not until J. M. Synge was gathered to his fathers that the genius of too Irish playwright w.as generally • acknowledged. Among, other literary treasures fimt given to, the* world, thanks to the ’patient .discernment of Elkin Mathews, may be tioned “Poems in Prose,” from Charles Baudelaise, translated by Arthur Symons; “Somd Poems- of Lionel Johnson,” with an introduction by Louise Imogen Gurney; “The Bridge of Fire,” by, James Flecker; "Rainbows and Witches,” by Will H. Ogilvie; . “Six Lyrics,” from the Ruthenian of Taras Shevchenko, translated by E. L. Voynich: and “Under - the Swedish Colours,” a, short anthology of Swedish poets; done into English vers© by Francis Judd.'"':. In the" “Vigo Verse, Anthology” Mr Elkin MathewS gathered into one little book, the cream of the first hundred ■ of his “Vigo Cabinet Series.” He has indeed deserved well of the poetiy lovers of this generation. This tribute to the memory of a prince

among publishers, a bookseller of the heat, would be incomplete -without reference to some of his more recent efforts. Thanks largely to the enterprise of Elkin Mathews, the weird, stories of Lord Dunsany have become ' known to a new generation of 'readers;- it was he who circulated- the sea songs of Cicc!y_ Fox Smith which, with their imitablc swing, have rivalled the verso of -Budyard Kipling himself. .Little -by little, volume by volume,' he redeemed the work of Lionel Johnson from_ the danger of oblivion, and. he did something to publish forth the fame of Gordon Bottomley , He mode known the poetry of Mary E. Coleridge, and those rare stories of Dowson’s entitled “ Dilemmas”; and ho did much more beside. Todaylttho competition among publishers is so keen*':and young men are springing uo on every nand to adventure forth as fresh firms; and woo all the most promising writers, that when ho died Elkin Mathews’ work was virtually done. But memory cues gratefully back to the little shop in Cork street and to the little benevolent looking man who always had an encouraging word and a pleasant smile for the literary aspirant, and who could always find time to discuss their schemes and plans with discernment and sympathy.