PRICE AND QUALITY IN NOVELS.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 525, 4 June 1909, Page 3

PRICE AND QUALITY IN NOVELS.

{Spme- of'tho -boolc trada papers-and their correspondents:Hsays an' English journal)- ore busily, discussing the., sevehgenny novel, and .on the ...one hand. .wo are asked• to : regard it as ft'.beneficent institution for-the dissemination, of sound atfa .profit- to all concerned, and on the- other as, suioide on the part of the publishers and; _ destructionto most of the authors; Thero is no great harm, it is agreed, in . cheap editions' • published some five or sis years" after the first edition, but. .when new or .nearly .new- books by Yrell-known writers are published at severipenbe to, compete with sixshilling .books : by: the unknown the conflict is 'unequal./ . If this prevails, 'the ten-denoy.^must-be,..it ,iis asserted, towards a great reduction in'the number of authors but. an immense..increase,inthe. circulation of the few popular., onul./A-'Partial'- analogy may bo found in' the cotton mills which turn out vast" quantities of : one kind and pattern at the minimum, of, cost' and, flood'the world with these to the disadvantage, of "the- maker,.of specialities.. As civilisation-or complexity increases we want our own particular . tastes considered, and so,; it is maintained,' sevenpenny copyright novel .will be : socially retrograde. r The six-shilling novel, however,' dies hard. It has ' survived sixpenny..paper, reprints, ' the, spread of ' libraries, ana 'an ..attempt to introduce a . lialfcrown -novel that should be' practically identical with it .in outer :form and as good in literary quality. It .would be a very severe blow to literature:;if only the authors who are cer-. tain of popularity could got published or' if novelists generally were to consider, popularity mora than they do now. We must have ,our specialities.. with ,a •' comparatively > small- - sale, and .those'-cannot-.possibly, pay- at\6evenpence. The problem woAla be: pretty simple! if alhthe cheap novels were bad,, but; gehiuses have a way: of. running into many and cheap editions sometimes and confounding, those who, think that'all ,virtues are austere.' TWo want; the kre'at, easy,. humane. writers .who . keep. us all akin, but we must have the peculiar, intimate ones'; too.;,