WHAT THE PUBLISHERS PAID DICKENS.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 8759, 22 April 1890, Page 3

WHAT THE PUBLISHERS PAID DICKENS.

Dickens, at his death, left £80.000, a considerable slice of which came from books. The stipulated payment for his first great success, "The Pickwick Papers," was £14 for each monthly part. This sum wag afterwards incieased to £15; and as tho popularity of the work became assured, the publisher presented him at intervals with several cheques, amounting in the aggregnte to £3000.

For " Nicholas Nickleby " Messrs Chapmin and Hall gave him £3000, and from the same firm he received a similar amount for " Barnaby Rudge." Of the profits on the sale of " The Christmas Carol," his half share, contrary to his expectations, amounted to £726, for he had looked forward to a clear £1000. For the sale of " Dombey and Son " he realised, during the first halfyear of its publication, £2820.

For " Edwin Drood " he was paid £7500 for 2500 copies; the publishers and author agreeing to share equally in the profits of all sales beyond that number. The number of copies sold while Dickens was yet alive reached 50,000. The sum paid for early sheets of this work sent to America was £1000.

.For "Martin Chuzzlewit " it was arranged that he should receive £200 for each of the 20 monthly parts (in all £-1000), and on the completion of the work a fourth of the value of the existing stock and half of the future interest. For a short story, not longer than half of ono of the numbers of the last-mentioned work, the editor of the New York Ledger sent him £1000.

It is curious to contrast this liberal treatment with that which he received, when unknown to fame, from the editors of the Old Monthly Magazine. For those of his " Sketches by Boz," which ho contributed to that periodical, he got nothing beyond the mere pleasure of seeing them in print. The conductors of the Evening Chronicle, on the staff of which he was engaged as Parliamentary reporter, and to which the " Sketches " were afterwards transferred, behaved somewhat better. In consideration of his extra services they raised his salary from £5 to £7 per week. The 4< Sketches " were subsequently collected and sold to Macrone, the publisher, for £400.