It maims or kills seven tenths of the contemporary literature that must be translated before it is available for publication here. Charles Reade, in that gallant and brilliant little book of his, "The Eighth Commandment," quotes from a letter written in Cologne, in 1851, the following passage:--
"About thirty years ago the first translations from English were brought to the German market. The Waverley Novels were extensively circulated, and read with avidity by all classes. Next came Bulwer, and after him Dickens and other writers. Rival editions of the same works sprang up by the half-dozen; the profits decreased, and the publishers were obliged to cut down the pay of the translators. I know that a translation-monger at Grimm pays about £6 for a three-volume novel.
"These works, got up in a hurry, and printed with bad type on wretched paper, are completely flooding the market; and, as they are much cheaper than original works, they are a serious obstacle to our national literature. Thus much for our share in the miseries of free trade[2] in translations.
"Now for yours. There are able men in Germany, who, were it made worth their while, could and would put the master works of your novelists and historians into a decent German garb. But under the present system these men are elbowed out of the field."
Change a few names in this passage, and it describes, with considerable exactness, the state of the translation market in the United States. Works, which in France charm the _boudoir_ and amuse the whole of the educated class, sink, under the handling of hasty translators and enterprising publishers, into what we call "Yellow-Covered Literature," which is to be found chiefly upon the wharves. Respectable publishers have a well-founded terror of French and German translations; since, after incurring the expense of translation, they have no protection against the publication of another version except "the courtesy of the trade,"--a code of laws which has not much force in the regions from which the literature of the Yellow Cover emanates. We are not getting half the good we ought from the contemporary literature of France, Germany, Sweden, Russia, Holland, Italy, and we never shall, until American publishers can acquire property in it by fair purchase, which the law will protect. The business of furnishing the American public with good translations from the French would of itself maintain two or three great publishing houses. There is a mine of wealth there waiting for the removal of the squatters and the recognition of the rightful title-deeds. What would California have been worth to us, or to itself, or to anybody, if its treasures had been _left_ to the hurried scratchings over the surface of uncapitalled prospecters? Capital and skill wait until the title is clear. Then they go in, with their ponderous engines, and pound the rocks till the gold glitters all over the heap.