I once employed a young man to block out some little books to be published under the nominal authorship of Solomon Bell: these I remodelled, and one or two volumes were issued. Some over-astute critic announced them as veritable _Peter Parleys_, and they had a sudden sale. The young man who had assisted me, and who was under the most solemn obligations to keep the matter secret, thought he had an opportunity to make his fortune; so he publicly claimed the authorship, and accused me of duplicity! The result was that the books fell dead from that hour; the series was stopped; and his unprinted manuscripts, for which I had paid him, became utterly worthless. A portion I burnt, and a portion still remain amidst the rubbish of other days.
In other instances I was attacked in the papers, editorially and personally, by individuals who were living upon the employment I gave them. I was in daily intercourse with persons of this character, who, while flattering me to my face, I knew to be hawking at me in print. These I regarded and treated as trifles at the time; they are less than trifles now. One thing may be remarked, that, in general, such difficulties come from poor and unsuccessful writers. They have been taught that publishers and booksellers are vampires, and naturally feed upon the vitals of genius; assuming--honestly, no doubt--that they are of this latter class, they feel no great scruple in taking vengeance upon those whom they regard as their natural enemies.
My editorial experience also furnished me with some amusing anecdotes. An editor of a periodical once sent me an article for the Token, entitled La Longue-vue; the pith of the story consisted in a romantic youth's falling in love with a young lady, two miles off, through a telescope! I ventured to reject it; and the Token for that year was duly damned in the columns of the offended author.
In judging of publishers one thing should be considered, and that is, that two-thirds of the original works issued by them are unprofitable. An eminent London publisher once told me, that he calculated that out of ten publications four involved a positive, and often a heavy, loss; three barely paid the cost of paper, print, and advertising; and three paid a profit. Nothing is more common than for a publisher to pay money to an author, every farthing of which is lost. Self-preservation, therefore, compels the publisher to look carefully to his operations. One thing is certain, he is generally the very best judge as to the value of a book, in a marketable point of view: if he rejects it, it is solely because he thinks it will not pay, not because he despises genius.