The Story of the House of Cassell/Part 2, Chapter 9

 

CHAPTER IX

 

THE NOVELIST: "R. L. S." AND OTHERS

The most notable episode in the history of Cassell's as publishers of fiction is that which associates them with Robert Louis Stevenson. It was their high distinction to publish in book form his first story, "Treasure Island," and most of its successors.

How "Treasure Island" came to La Belle Sauvage in the spring of 1883 is told by Mr. P. Lyttelton Gell, who at that time was in editorial charge of the educational books. "I well recollect," he says, "the first introduction. W. E. Henley limped into my room and threw down a bundle of ragged, ill-printed, faded newspaper cuttings, crying 'Just read that and see if it is not the right stuff!' Next day, in his impetuous way, he hurled on to my table the few volumes of essays, etc., which R. L. S. had then published. Later Lord Milner called—we were going on the river—I had not finished work, and he sat down and read a volume. R. L. S. was new to him, and he was greatly struck."

The "ragged, ill-printed, faded newspaper cuttings" were the installments of "Treasure Island," from Young Folks, a story paper for boys run by Messrs. Henderson and Sons as an offshoot from the Weekly Budget, and now no longer in existence. The installments began on October 1, 1881, and ended on January 28, 1882. Cassell's made the author an offer which moved him to write to his father and mother the following letter:

"Chalet Solitude. 5th May, 1883.

"My Dearest People,—I have had a great piece of news. There has been offered for 'Treasure Island'—how much do you suppose? I believe it would be an excellent jest to keep the answer till my next letter. For two cents I would do so. Shall I? Anyway, I'll turn the page first. NO—well—A hundred pounds, all alive, O! A hundred jingling, tingling, golden, minted quid. Is not this wonderful? …—Your loving and ecstatic Son, Treasure Eilaan."

 

It is curious to notice that Stevenson was so enraptured with the prospect of receiving a round hundred pounds on publication that he ignored the fact that that sum was to be on account of royalty. It may be that he omitted this prosaic fact because it would not fit into his dithyramb. But it is more probable that he had so little faith in the success of the book that he did not reckon upon the sale reaching a point at which royalty would bring him still more of the "jingling, tingling, golden, minted quid." Certainly, he had at that time a very poor opinion of "Treasure Island," and Mr. Edmund Gosse tells us that the story, after its serial publication, had a narrow chance of being forgotten. From that fate it was saved by Henley's good offices.

It has been stated that the title of the book was changed to "Treasure Island" by Mr. James Henderson. On this point Mr. James Dow, who read the proofs of the story for Young Folks, bears the following testimony:

 

"Mr. Stevenson wrote on a sheet of notepaper (not his usual copy paper) four alternative titles—evidently for Mr. Henderson's selection—the first of which was 'The Sea Cook; or the Voyage of the Hispaniola.' All but the first were cancelled, and that was put in type as the heading of the story, though I was informed that it was only temporary, as the correct title would be supplied later. Eight or ten days afterwards I received from Mr. Henderson a slip proof on which he had deleted 'The Sea Cook' and above it written 'Treasure Island'; and so the story went to press."

 

Mr. Dow adds that in an interview he had with Stevenson he referred to a remark in the Saturday Review critique of the book—that "John Silver, Pirate," would not have been an inappropriate title, and that Stevenson replied, "But Mr. James Henderson wished the title to be 'Treasure Island,' and I deferred to him; he is the

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ROBERT LEWIS STEVENSON

 

proprietor." There seems to be no doubt, therefore, that the title "Treasure Island" was Mr. Henderson's choice, but it does not follow, of course, that it was his invention.

How Stevenson came to write "Treasure Island" he has himself related. In a letter to Henley, written in August, 1881, he says: "I am now on another lay for the moment, purely owing to Lloyd,^[1] this one; now see here, 'The Sea Cook, or Treasure Island: A Story for Boys.' If this don't fetch the kids, why, they have gone rotten since my day." Then follows an outline of what he proposes for plot and the names of his characters, and the letter proceeds: "Two chapters have been written and tried on Lloyd with great success.... No women in the story, Lloyd's orders; and who so blithe to obey? It's awful fun, boys' stories; you just indulge the pleasure of your heart, that's all; no trouble, no strain."

In the Idler, in 1894, Stevenson describes the actual beginning of the writing and the pleasure the story yielded to him and his father:

"At Castleton of Braemar, on a chill August morning, by the cheer of a brisk fire, and the rain drumming on the window, I began 'The Sea Cook,' for that was the original title. Day by day, after lunch, I read aloud my morning's work to the family. It seemed to me original as sin; it seemed to belong to me like my right eye. I had counted on one boy; I found I had two in my audience. My father caught fire at once with all the romance and childishness of his original nature. His own stories that every night of his life he put himself to sleep with dealt perpetually with ships, roadside inns, robbers, old sailors, and commercial travellers before the era of steam. He never finished one of these romances; the lucky man did not require to! But in 'Treasure Island' he recognized something kindred to his own imagination; it was his kind of picturesque: and he not only heard with delight the daily chapter, but set himself acting to collaborate. When the time came for Billy Bones's chest to be ransacked, he must have passed the better part of a day preparing, on the back of an envelope, an inventory of its contents, which I exactly followed; and the name

of 'Flint's old ship'—the Walrus—was given at his particular request. And now who should come dropping in, ex machina, but Dr. Japp, like the disguised prince who is to bring down the curtain upon peace and happiness in the last act; for he carried in his pocket, not a horn or a talisman, but a publisher—ready, in fact, to unearth new writers for my now old friend Mr. Henderson's Young Folks. Even the ruthlessness of a united family recoiled before the extreme measure of inflicting on our guest the mutilated members of 'The Sea Cook'; at the same time we would by no means stop our readings; and accordingly the tale was begun again at the beginning, and solemnly redelivered for the benefit of Dr. Japp ... when he left us, he carried away the MS. in his portmanteau."

Dr. Japp's own account of the visit was written to Sir Sidney Colvin:

"R. L. S. had often heard of me through his friends in Edinburgh, and when I printed a letter in the Spectator about Thoreau, he wrote to me wishing to know me personally.... Accordingly I went to the Cottage Castleton of Braemar as invited and stayed some days—days that are delightful to me to think of. The best part of the afternoon was the reading of a chapter of a romance of adventure ... and in Stevenson's little attic there, where he wrote and worked, I listened to the reading of those earlier chapters. And such reading—dramatic, varied skilfully in tone and inflection as his slim body gently swayed in his characteristic fashion; MS. in hand as he read; and now and then swaying too—as I shall never forget. His father was as keenly interested in the story as Sam (Lloyd) Osbourne was; his enjoyment was shown in his expression, and his judgment in occasional suggestions offered during the reading; and sometimes Mrs. Stevenson would put in a sagacious word, too. It was a delightful mélange every way. I had thus heard the whole of the story in the first pencil draft before I left. One half of the story, which had been revised carefully and recopied, I brought away with me in my portmanteau, with the view of ensuring that it should be printed, and not lost to the world as dozens of Mr. Stevenson's former story efforts had been."

It was Dr. Japp who disposed of the story, for serial use, to Mr. James Henderson.

In preparing "Treasure Island" for book publication Stevenson altered it a little. No member of the editorial staff who had to do with his books is left at the Yard, but some years ago a correspondent of the Academy wrote that the alterations were inconsiderable. "Here and there he struck out a paragraph, here and there added one. He softened down the boastfulness of Jim Hawkins's personal narrative, and Dr. Livesey, who was originally somewhat frivolous and familiar in his language, he made more staid, as became one of his own profession. In only one instance was a chapter heading altered—'At the Sign of the Spy Glass' being substituted for 'The Sea Cook.'"

One of the characters of the story was, in a sense, moulded from W. E. Henley, to whom Stevenson thus gaily confesses the sin: "I will now make a confession. It was the sight of your maimed strength and masterfulness that begot 'John Silver.' Of course, he is not in any other quality or feature the least like you; but the idea of the maimed man, ruling and dreaded by the sound, was entirely taken from you." There are still many in the House who remember the thump of Henley's crutches along the corridors, but the suggestion that Henley was "dreaded" is playfully aloof from truth.

Something must be said about the map that appears in "Treasure Island." No map was used in Young Folks, and it seems pretty certain that the one in the book was not done from the original sketch which Stevenson drew with such glee from young Lloyd Osbourne's rough outline, for there are those at La Belle Sauvage who remember a wordy storm which raged around its loss before it had been reproduced. Another was drawn, and the later destination of this second drawing was for long uncertain. Its existence, however, was traced in an unexpected manner. A few weeks before Christmas, 1915, a desire was expressed by a private person to secure and sell the map for the benefit of the Red Cross War Fund. Inquiries were made, but without success, among those still living who were associated with Stevenson's work, but on ranging farther afield the map was at last discovered. The reserve of nearly £100 put upon it by its possessor made it impossible to carry out the idea, but at any rate the fact that the map was still in existence was established.

Stevenson had strongly objected to the single woodcut which appeared in Young Folks, but he was particularly delighted when it was decided to illustrate his book. Writing to his father on October 28, 1885, he says: "An illustrated 'Treasure Island' will be out next month. I have had an early copy, and the French pictures are admirable. The artist has got his types up in Hogarth; he is full of fire and spirit, can draw and can compose, and has understood the book as I meant it, all but one or two little accidents, such as making the Hispaniola a brig. I would send you my copy, but I cannot; it is my new toy, and I cannot divorce myself from this enjoyment."

Since those days the book has been illustrated in black and white by Wal Paget and in colour by John Cameron, whose pictures have also appeared in a numbered édition de luxe. There are, further, a popular, a school, a library, and a pocket library edition, and altogether not far short of a million copies of the book bearing the imprint of the House have been sold. These figures do not include the very large American sales. The authorized American edition was published by Messrs. Scribner, in pursuance of an arrangement with the author; there was also a cheap pirated edition.

It is curious that the story which has so established itself in the affections of boys failed to please the readers of Young Folks while it was running through that paper. Its success in book form was the turning point in Stevenson's literary life. Up to that time no book of his had sold more than 750 copies. Now he had the assurance that he could support himself by his pen. Thus the House of Cassell is associated with the first vindication of his decision to devote himself to literature, and with the ending of the tacit reproaches of his people at the choice he had made.

The next story of Stevenson's to be published by the House was "Kidnapped," which was issued in July, 1886, after running through Young Folks. Its first title was "Balfour." Stevenson planned it as the result of the accidental inclusion, in a parcel of old trials sent down to him from London, of a report of "The Trial of James Stewart in Aucharn in Duror of Appin, for the Murder of Colin Campbell of Glenure." In this report was bound up a map of the Appin country, and Stevenson's imagination, as Mr. Gosse records, was always fired by a map. To his father he spoke of "Kidnapped" as in his judgment "a far better story, and far sounder at heart," than "Treasure Island." In another letter, written after the book was finished, he wrote: "I began 'Kidnapped' partly as a lark, partly as a pot-boiler; and I found I was in another world." In a letter to Mr. Gosse (July 17, 1886), he said of the book: "It is my own favourite of my works, not for craftsmanship, but for human niceness, in which I have been wanting hitherto; Alan and David I do really like."

The third of the Cassell Stevensons' was "The Black Arrow," published in July, 1888. It had been written in 1883, before "Kidnapped," in order to capture the fancy of the juveniles who took in Young Folks for Stevenson was piqued by the failure of "Treasure Island" to touch their imagination. He admits that he wrote in rivalry with Mr. Alfred R. Phillips, and he gracefully concedes that he did not displace that writer from his "well-won priority." His idea was to combine correct historical colouring with what he calls "tushery," i.e. clap-trap dialogue. He appears to have found little pleasure in the task, for he wrote to Henley:

"The task entirely crushes
The spirit of the bard;
God pity him who tushes—
His task is very hard."

And he took so little pride in the result of his efforts that he allowed five years to go by before issuing it as a book. He once said that he could amuse himself by re-reading all his other books, but could never give this a second reading. It was no doubt owing to the little interest he took in the task that he forgot to account for one of the four arrows, and had to be reminded of the omission by Mr. Dow, the proof-reader of Young Folks, in the following letter:

 

"Red Lion House.

"To the Author.

"Dear Sir,—At the risk of incurring your displeasure, I venture to point out to you what may be an intentional omission but which, I think, is probably an oversight. There were four black arrows, to be used with deadly intent. Three have been accounted for. In this concluding instalment the fourth is not mentioned; nor is there any indication of the fate of Sir Oliver, for whom the fourth arrow is evidently intended. This has occurred to me all the more forcibly because Sir Oliver's dreadful terror of a violent death has been on more than one occasion so vividly represented.

"Believe me, Sir, to be, not your critic, but your servant,

"The Reader, Y.F."

Of this very important service Mr. Dow received the following generous acknowledgment:

 

"La Solitude, Hyères-les-Palmiers, Var.

"To the Reader.

"Dear Sir,—To the contrary, I thank you most cordially; indeed, the story having changed and run away from me in the course of writing, the dread fate that I had originally designed for Sir Oliver became impossible, and I had, I blush to say it, clean forgotten him.

"Thanks to you, Sir, he shall die the death. I enclose to-night slips 49, 50, 51; and to-morrow or next day, after having butchered the priest, I shall dispatch the rest.

"I must not, however, allow this opportunity to go by without once more thanking you—for I think we have, in a ghostly fashion, met before on the margin of proof—for the unflagging intelligence and care with which my MS. is read. I have a large and generally disastrous experience of printers and printers readers. Nowhere do I send worse copy than to Young Folks for with this sort of story I rarely rewrite; yet nowhere am I so well used. And the skill with which the somewhat arbitrary and certainly baffling dialect was picked up, in this case of the 'Black Arrow,' filled me with a gentle surprise.

"I will add that you have humiliated me: that you should have been so much more wide awake than myself is both humiliating and—I say it very humbly—perhaps flattering.

"The reader is a kind of veiled prophet between the author and the public—a veiled, anonymous intermediary: and it pleases me to greet and thank him.—Your obliged servant,

"Robert Louis Stevenson

"(alias Captn. George North)."

Mr. Dow adds: "Months afterwards, when travelling by short stages from Edinburgh to Bournemouth, he stopped in London to see me, and unheeding Mr. Henderson's entreaties not to attempt to mount the flights of stairs necessary (he was exceedingly ill), said 'I will ascend the stairs and see the reader, though I die for it!' But he was so exhausted by the effort that when he entered the reading-closet he was speechless."

The fourth of the Cassell Stevensons, "The Master of Ballantrae," was published in August, 1889, having begun to appear serially in Scribner's Magazine in November, 1888. It was begun at Saranac, in the last months of 1887, was taken across the American Continent to San Francisco, and was finished at Honolulu. Stevenson always referred to it as "my favourite." "Catriona," the last complete romance Stevenson wrote, was published in September, 1893, after having run in serial form as "David Balfour: Memoirs of his Adventures at Home and Abroad." It was written at Vailima amid fierce distractions, for the Samoans were seething with civil war, and constantly appealing to Tusitala for counsel and help. As Mrs. Stevenson says: "His every action misconstrued and resented by the white inhabitants of the island, the excitement and fatigue of my husband's daily life might have seemed enough for any one man to endure without the additional strain of literary work."

In the years that intervened between "The Master of Ballantrae" and "Catriona," four other books of Stevenson's had issued from the Cassell Press. The first was a private edition, now exceedingly rare, "The South Seas," of which but twenty-two copies were printed and only seven passed into circulation. This was followed by "The Wrecker," in which Lloyd Osbourne collaborated with his stepfather. "As for the manner," Stevenson wrote to his cousin, R. A. M. Stevenson, "it is superficially all mine, in the sense that the last copy is all in my hand. Lloyd did not even put pen to paper in the Paris scenes or the Barbizon scene.... I had the best service from him on the character of Nares." The story was finished at Vailima in the autumn of 1891, ran through Scribner's Magazine, and was published as a volume in 1892. "A Footnote to History"—which R. L. S., in a letter, dubbed "a history of nowhere in a corner, for no time to mention"—came next, in 1892, and then, in 1893, the fantastic and fascinating "Island Nights' Entertainments," by Stevenson and his wife.

It was Cassell's who arranged for the complete edition of Stevenson's works which followed the famous first collected edition, the "Edinburgh." A desire had been expressed from time to time for a fresh complete edition, and one or two attempts had been made to arrange for one, but nothing matured until it occurred to the House that Stevenson's various publishers might co-operate in its production. The chief of them, besides Cassell and Co., were Messrs. Chatto and Windus, Mr. Wm. Heinemann, and Messrs. Longmans, Green and Co., who all entered readily into the scheme. The edition was called the "Pentland," after the beloved hills of Stevenson's youth, and an issue limited to 1,500 copies was arranged for. The series was medium octavo in size, and contained twenty volumes, the price of the whole set being £10 10s.

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Sir Rider Haggard, K. B. E. Col. Burnaby

 

net. Some matter which had not appeared in the Edinburgh edition was included.

Leading features of the edition, which was completed in 1907, were Mr. Gosse's graceful Preface, his Introductions to the various works, his bibliographical notes, and a series of plates—portraits of Stevenson, scenes connected with his life, and other subjects of interest to Stevenson's admirers. Mrs. Stevenson and Mr. Lloyd Osbourne lent willing assistance, and the difficulties inherent to such a project were thus readily overcome.

There is a curious parallelism between the publishing history of "King Solomon's Mines" and of "Treasure Island." In neither case had the author any great faith in the success of his creation; and "sundry publishers," Sir Rider Haggard says, "turned up their experienced noses" at "King Solomon's Mines" before it was offered to Cassell's. Stevenson, as we have seen, was overjoyed at the prospect of getting £100 for his story, and would probably have accepted that sum even if it had been unaccompanied by a royalty; Rider Haggard nearly accepted a small sum for the copyright of his book, and, as he himself tells the story, only elected to publish on the royalty system on the unsolicited advice of a subordinate member of the staff while the latter's principal was giving instructions for the agreement to be drawn up.

Again, it was W. E. Henley who brought the story to Cassell's and strongly recommended acceptance. Mr. W. W. Hutchings, who at that time was assistant to John Williams, the acting Chief Editor, writes: "There seems to have been a fine consistency about Henley's manner of offering MSS. to the House, I recollect his hobbling into Williams's room one afternoon in 1886 and flinging the MS. of 'King Solomon's Mines' down on the table with a half-defiant' There's a good thing for you!' Williams took home the MS. that evening and found that Henley was right."

Both books, too, are fortunate in their titles. "King Solomon's Mines" has, it is true—so its author says—been bought by old ladies under the impression that it is a Scriptural tale, and it has been included in theological catalogues; but this is one of the cases in which ambiguity in a title is a merit rather than a disadvantage.

Finally, similar legends have grown around the terms for the publication of the two books. It has been repeatedly stated, on the strength of his letter to his father and mother, that Stevenson sold the book rights of "Treasure Island" for £100; and in a popular weekly it was recently said that Cassell's gave the author of "King Solomon's Mines" £50 for the copyright, and afterwards sent him a cheque for £1,000 as a gift. It is true that the amount paid down in this instance was £50, but it was in advance of royalty, and the periodical cheques sent to Sir Rider Haggard ever since, amounting in the aggregate to some thousands of pounds, have been in satisfaction of his legal rights.

"King Solomon's Mines" is published in several different forms. Thirteen others of Sir Rider Haggard's books appear in the Cassell List—"The Brethren," "The Ghost Kings," "Benita," "The Yellow God," "Morning Star," "Marie," "Child of Storm," "The Wanderer's Necklace," "The Ivory Child," "Love Eternal," "When the World Shook," "The Ancient Allan," and "The Virgin of the Sun."

The connexion between the House and Sir James Barrie came about through the Speaker, to which he was a frequent contributor. He was often present at the weekly conferences of the literary staff of that review, and was on the friendliest terms with Sir Wemyss Reid, and thus it was that several of his books were issued by Cassell's—"The Little Minister" in 1891, "Sentimental Tommy" in 1896, and "Tommy and Grizel" in 1900. Successful as they were, it cannot be doubted that the stage is a better medium for the expression of their author's freakish and whimsical genius than the novel.

Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch's association with Cassell's was much closer and more protracted than Sir James

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H. G. WELLS

 

Barrie's. The first book of his to appear in the List was "Dead Man's Rock," which was in the "Treasure Island" succession, and bore one of the best titles which even "Q." has hit upon. "I began as pupil and imitator of Stevenson," he has himself admitted, "and was lucky in my choice of a master." But with the appearance of "Troy Town," in the following year, it became clear that as a story-writer he had found in the life of the delectable Duchy his true theme. A long succession of other stories from his pen followed. "Q." was on the staff of the Speaker from the beginning until 1899, but in 1891 he left London for Fowey, and thenceforward his work in journalism and literature was done there. "Adventures in Criticism" was the happy title of a collection of his critical contributions to the Speaker. In the years when he read MSS. for the House his bright and witty reports, written in his singularly neat characters, formed a delightful break in the business at the weekly meetings of managers. The reports were never lacking in sympathy, and the writer of these lines often wished that they could have come to the knowledge of young authors whose writings showed promise although they were not good enough to gain acceptance.

Max Pemberton published through Cassell's his first great success, "The Iron Pirate," and the List contains as many as twelve other books of his. The House published, in the last decade of the nineteenth and the first decade of the twentieth century, some of the ingenious mystery stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and E. W. Hornung, the romances of Maurice Hewlett, Stanley Weyman, and Anthony Hope, and the novels of Mrs. Humphry Ward and Barry Pain. Novels, however, in spite of the presence in the List of the distinguished names that have been mentioned, were never one of the House's "leading lines," to use the trade slang, until Mr. Newman Flower became Chief Editor in 1913. Since then most of our foremost novelists have published through Cassell's. H. G. Wells came into the List in 1916 with what few will fail to regard as the best of war novels, "Mr. Britling Sees it Through." The House has also published several of this many-sided author's philosophical and social works.

Among other famous novelists who have entered the Cassell fold are—place aux dames!—Ethel M. Dell, the Baroness von Hutten, Baroness Orczy, Gertrude Page, May Sinclair, and Sheila Kaye-Smith; Arnold Bennett, "Bartimeus," E. F. Benson, J. D. Beresford, Algernon Blackwood, G. K. Chesterton, James Oliver Curwood, Warwick Deeping, Robert Hichens, Compton Mackenzie, W. B. Maxwell, Sax Rohmer, H. A. Vachell, and Hugh Walpole. The House also published Alfred Noyes's first novel, "Walking Shadows."

1. His stepson, Lloyd Osbourne.