Famous Serials.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 29, Issue 41, 29 May 1917, Page 2

Famous Serials.

A STORY TRANSLATED INTO 22

LANGUAGES

It is said that the Old Lady of Shoe Lane, as the now defunct ‘Standard’ was nicknamed, was the first English newspaper to print a serial story, although to-day the papers which do not are to be counted on the fingers of one hand. The distinction of being the first weekly to do so belongs to the “Sunday Times.” The story was “Old St. Paul’s,” by Harrison Ainsworth, and the author of that stirring story got a thousand pounds for the serial rights. A well-known editor, now dead, tells a good story of when Trollope came to him to arrange for the appearance serially of “Doctor Thorn. The editor offered the author two thousand pounds, but the latter wanted three. To this the editor objected, and the novelist offered to toss for the other thousand. The editor objected, and the matter was settled amicably. “But I felt unsettled, goes on the editor. “I felt mean. I had refused a challenge. To relieve my mind I said ; ‘Now that is settled come over to my club, where we can have a quiet room to ourselves, and I will toss you for that thousand with pleasure. But Trollope wouldn’t.”

On June sth, 1851, commenced in the “National Bra,” of Washington, the world’s greatest serial. It has been translated .into twenty-two languages,- and in volume form achieved the largest circulation of any book in the world except the Bible. Its author was Harriet Elizabeth Beecher Stowe, and the serial was “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.’’ It was written as it ran, and the authoress intended to bring it to an end in twelve instalments. It ran to forty-three. For the serial rights Mrs. Stowe got £6O, and thought she had done well. On the book she made £4,000 in six months on a 10 per cent, royalty. The first title in “all the Year Round,” in the very first number, dated April 30th, 1859, is “A Tale of Two Cities,” and the opening words are, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” It ran for half a year, and was one of the most successful serials ever written. In the spring of 1886 a little manuscript arrived at the offices of the Religious Tract Society from a contributor who signed herself Hesba Stretton. It was a story entitled "Jessica’s First Prayer,” and was accepted by the editor of the “Sunday at Home” for his “Pages for the young.” He little dreamt what a sem sation that story would make. It ran to four instalments, and the public interest in it went up by leaps and bounds during these four weeks, for the magazine was then a weekly. When published in volume form the story reached a prodigious sale, and in the fifty years since it appeared as a little serial its sale has run to millions. It has been translated into scores of tongues, some of them of the most outlandish Even the Eskimo can read in his snow-built igloo in the ASS&ic regions and in his own tongue, noo, and so can the Zulu in his kraal. Yet there is not a word in it which a child of five could not understand, and the plot is as simple as a daisy. Perhaps these things, and the story’s natural pathos, account for its world wide vogue.