XVI.
GROWING PROSPERITY
The years 1902 and 1903 were busier years than ever for the Fiction Factory. Nineteen-two is to be remembered particularly for opening a new departure in the story line in The Argosy, and for placing the first book with the G.W. Dillingham Company. Nineteen-three claims distinction for seeing the book brought out and for boosting the Factory returns beyond the three-thousand-dollar mark. But it must not be inferred that the book had very much to do with this. Edwards’ royalties for the year were less than $100.
In September, 1902, Edwards made one of his customary “prospecting” trips to New York. If there was anything in omens his stay in the city promised dire things. On the second day after his arrival he went to Coney Island with a friend. Together they called on the seventh son of a seventh son and had their palms read. The dispenser of occult knowledge assured Edwards that the future was very bright, that Tuesday was his lucky day and that Spring was the best time for him to consummate his business undertakings. That day, as it happened, was Tuesday. In the teeth of this promising augury, and within ten minutes after leaving the palmist’s booth, some Coney Island “dip” shattered Edwards’ confidence in Tuesday by annexing his wallet. The wallet, as it happened, contained all the money Edwards had brought from home, with the exception of a little loose change.
This was the second time Edwards had been all but stranded in the Metropolis, and this time the stranding was more complete. When he cast up accounts that evening he found himself with a cash balance of $1.63. Fortunately Mrs. Edwards was not along. He had left her at home with the understanding that she was to come on later. When a writer has come within hailing distance of the bread line there remains but one thing to do, and that is to start the Factory going with day and night shifts.
Edwards called on Mr. White, of The Argosy, and outlined a serial story. He was told to go ahead with it. For five days Edwards hardly stirred from his room. At the end of that time he had completed “The Desperado’s Understudy,” and had sold it to Mr. White for $250, spot cash.
After completing this serial, Edwards outlined to Mr. White a novelette which would furnish The Argosy with something new in the fiction line. The plot was based on a musical extravaganza which he had written, several years before, in collaboration with Mr. Eugene Kaeuffer, at one time connected with The Bostonians. Nothing had ever come of this ambitious effort, although book and musical score were completed and offered to Mr. McDonald of The Bostonians and to Mr. Thomas Q. Seabrooke. Mr. White liked the idea of the story immensely and gave Edwards carte blanche to go ahead with it.
This story, “Ninety, North,” paved the way for other fantastic yarns which made a decided hit in The Argosy and so pointed Edwards along a fresh line of endeavor which proved as congenial as it was profitable.
Several months before he visited New York Edwards had sold to The McClure Syndicate, a juvenile serial which may be referred to here as “The Campaign at Topeka.” For this he had been offered $200, which offer he promptly accepted. He had not received a check, however, and was at a loss to understand the reason. To this day the reason remains obscure, although later events pointed to a misunderstanding of some kind regarding the story between the Syndicate and one of its readers. Before Edwards left New York he was paid the $200. More than a year afterward he was informed that the serial had been sold to the Century Company for St. Nicholas, and that after publication in that magazine it was to be brought out in book form.
It was Mr. T.C. McClure who put Edwards in touch with the Dillingham Company and referred him to them as prospective publishers, in cloth, of the successful Syndicate story, “A Tale of Two Towns.” Edwards submitted galley proofs of the serial to Mr. Cook of the Dillingham Company, and ultimately signed a contract to have the book published on the usual royalty basis of ten per cent.
For Harte & Perkins, during the year, the Factory ground out nickel novels, juvenile serials, one sketch for the trade paper and a few detective stories. On Nov. 28, after he had returned home from New York, he was notified:
“Much as I regret to inform you of it, by a recent purchase of copyright stories we are placed in a position where we will not require any further material for any of our five-cent libraries for some time to come, so we must discontinue orders to you for all this material.”
Edwards, in a way, had become hardened to messages of this kind. The Argosy was an anchor to windward, and he resolved to give his attention to serials for Mr. White. In December, 1902, and January and February, 1903, he wrote and forwarded “Ninety, North,” a second fantastic story called “There and Back,” and the Arizona serial “Grains of Gold.” All three of these stories were sold at once, bringing in $700. In a letter dated Oct. 14, 1903, Mr. White had this to say about “There and Back:”
“Thanks for letting me see the enclosed letter regarding ‘Ninety, North.’ I am equally pleased with yourself at its significance. I am wondering whether you have heard much about your story ‘There and Back?’ My impression is that that has been one of the most popular stories you have ever written for The Argosy. When I see you I will tell you an odd little circumstance that occurred in connection with its run in the magazine.”
The circtunstances referred to by Mr. White took place in Paris. One of The Argosy’s readers happened to be in a café, looking over proofs of a forthcoming installment of “There and Back” while at her luncheon, when she heard the story being discussed, in complimentary terms, by a number of Frenchmen at an adjoining table. Strange indeed that Frenchmen should be interested in an American story, and stranger still that The Argosy’s reader should be reading an installment of the very same story while men in that foreign café were discussing it!
The first installment of “There and Back,” Mr. White informed Edwards, had increased The Argosy’s circulation seven thousand copies. [*]
[* “There and Back” went through the Fiction Factory in twelve days.]
On March 2 Harte & Perkins requested Edwards to continue work on the old Five-Cent Library. By taking up this work again he would be diminishing the Factory’s serial output, but he reflected that his fertility in the matter of serials would soon have Mr. White over-supplied. Therefore Edwards decided to go on with the nickel weeklies.
In March, as Mr. MacLean of The Popular Magazine once put it, Edwards “came out in cloth,” the Dillingham Company issuing “A Tale of Two Towns” on St. Patrick’s Day.
What are the feelings of an author when he opens his first book for the first time? If you, dear reader, are yet to “get out in cloth” for the first time, then some day you will know. But, if you value your peace of mind, do not build too gorgeous an air castle on the foundation of this printed thing. Printed things are at the mercy of the reviewers and, in a larger sense, of the great reading public. The reviewers, in nearly every instance, were kind with “A Tale of Two Towns.” In many quarters it was praised fulsomely, but the book did not strike that fickle sentiment called popular fancy. In six months, Mr. Cook, of the Dillingham Company, wrote Edwards that “A Tale of Two Towns” was “a dead duck.” In the December settlement, however, the remains yielded royalties of $96.60. For two or three years the royalties trailed along, and finally the edition was wound up with a payment of $1.50. Sic transit gloria!
During January, 1903, a theatrical gentleman requested Edwards to dramatize a book which Messrs. Street & Smith had issued in paper covers. “You can change the title,” the gentleman suggested, “and slightly change the incidents. In that way it won’t be necessary to write Street & Smith for permission or, indeed, to let them know anything about it.” Edwards knew, however, that nothing will so surely wreck a writer’s prospects as playing fast and loose with editors and publishers. He refused to consider the theatrical gentleman’s proposition. Instead, he forwarded his Argosy story, “The Desperado’s Understudy,” upon which Mr. White had given him dramatic rights, and offered to make a stage version of it. The offer was accepted and a play was built up from the story. The theatrical gentleman was pleased and said he would give $1,500 for the dramatization. Then, alas! the theatrical gentleman’s company went on the rocks at the Alhambra Theatre, in Chicago, and Edwards had repeated his former playwriting experience.
The two years’ work figured out in this wise:
1902:
23 Five-Cent Libraries @ $40 each $ 920.00
8 detective stories @ $40 each 320.00
4 juvenile serials @ $100 each 400.00
1 sketch for trade paper 10.00
"The Desperado's Understudy," 250.00
"The Campaign at Topeka," 200.00
Short stories 67.00
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Total $ 2167.00
1903:
42 Five-Cent Libraries @ $40 each $ 1680.00
2 detective stories @ $40 each 80.00
"Ninety, North," 150.00
"There and Back," 250.00
"A Sensational Affair," short story, 15.00
"Grains of Gold," 300.00
"Fate's Gamblers," [*] 100.00
"The Morning Star Race," short story, 15.00
"A Game for Two," 200.00
Royalties on book, "A Tale of Two Towns," 96.60
"The Point of Honor," 150.00
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Total $ 3036.60[* This story sold through Kellogg Newspaper Company, Chicago. The two short stories sold to the late lamented Wayside Tales, Detroit, Mich.]
As several gentlemen in these times, by the wonderful force of genius only, without the least assistance of learning, perhaps without being able to read, have made a considerable figure in the republic of letters; the modern critics, I am told, have lately begun to assert, that all kind of learning is entirely useless to a writer, and indeed, no other than a kind of fetters on the natural sprightliness and activity of the imagination, which is thus weighed down, and prevented from soaring to those high flights which otherwise it would be able to reach.
This doctrine, I am afraid, is at present carried much too far; for why should writing differ so much from other arts? The nimbleness of a dancing-master is not at all prejudiced by being taught to move; nor doth any mechanic, I believe, excercise his tools the worse by having learnt to use them. – Fielding, “Tom Jones.”
