POPULAR NOVELISTS WHO WRITE AGAINST TIME

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXII, Issue XXI, 27 May 1899, Page 710

POPULAR NOVELISTS WHO WRITE AGAINST TIME

Although no English writer can rival in productiveness the late Mr Halsey, the sensational novelist of America, who left behind him no fewer than six hundred novels, ami made light of completing a novel of 100,000 words within a week, says a contributor to ‘Tit-Bits,’ we have many writers of fiction who have achieved marvellous records as writers. The average English novelist is content to produce one novel a year, a feat which cannot be despised when we consider that the average novel contains from one hundred and fifty thousand to two hundred thousand words, and that merely to copy it would represent a month’s hard work, writing five or six hours a day. Several of our novelists, however, have

produced three, four, and even five of these novels in a single year; three have a joint life record of 230 novels; and at least two have averaged two and a half novels for every year of their writing life. In the newest school of writers, Mr S. R. Crockett, the author of ‘The Stiekit Minister,’ takes the palm for fecundity, in numbers if not in the volume of his novels. His first novel, tht> famous ‘Stiekit Minister,’ was produced as recently as 1893; but its success was such a stimulus to Mr Crockett’s industry that 1894 saw four of its successors, and in six years its author has written and produced fifteen novels, or almost as many as Mr Blackmore has produced in thirty-five years. Mr Barrie is content with a much slower rate of production. He began well by publishing four novels in his first two years, but,singularly enough, his first really successful novel, ‘The Little Minister,’ seems to have given a check to his industry as a writer of fiction, for in all the intervening seven years only two of Mr Barrie’s novels have seen the light. Mr Tan Maclaren,’ like Mr Birrie. is content to go slowly and to produce one book a year; quite enough, bv the way, for thorough and conscientious work. Last year he produced two books, but one was merely’ a collection of short stories. - Among other leading writers of fiction who have averaged more than

one volume a year is Mr Jerome, whose record is sixteen novels in eleven years. Mr Stanley Weyman, one of the most painstaking of all our novelists, has published eleven novels in his nine years of writing, but he never attempted fiction until he wa; thirty-five, and had lost the first fervour of youth. Mr Frankfort Moore has published thirty-six noveis in twenty-four years and Mrs Macquoid fifty-seven in thirty- seven years. Mr George Gissing is responsible for seventeen books in fifteen years, and Mr Rider Haggard wrote twenty-one novels in seventeen years, four of which were published in 1888. In recent years the seductions of country life have been stealing over him, and sapping his literary energy. Between 1895 and 1898 he seems to have given the world nothing in book form from his pen.

Mr George Meredith has produced little more than one book in every two years of his writing life. Mis Humphrey Ward has been content with seven books in eighteen years. Mr Hardy has produced eighteen novels in thirty-four years, or a rough average of two years for ea •h book, and Mr Blackmore’s record is very similar, with sixteen novels in more than twice as many years. Of our older writers, Mr Henry takes the palm for industry, with a record of over one hundred books, an I is followed by Miss Braddon. with fifty-seven novels in thirty-eight years.