Rensselaer Republican, Volume 19, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 September 1886 — Big Pay for Authors. [ARTICLE]

Big Pay for Authors.

During the early days of the New York Ledger Mr. Robert Bonner was noted for giving large sums of money to authors whose names were considered of more value than the amount of printed matter which was the result of their pens. Many of the writers to whom he paid what might appear to be almost fabulous sums were then not so well known by name as Mr. Gladstone is to-day;, but they were prominent enough for Mr. Bonner to desire that they should be recognized as contributors to his periodical. On one occasion he paid to Mr. Tennyson, now poet laureate of England, the large sum of $5,000 for a poem which only made twenty lines in that paper. This was at the rate of $250 a line—a price that would almost seem to be beyond the value of any written production. The same publisher, anxious to secure as a contributor the late Charles Dickens, paid him $3,000 for a sketchy story which barely filled six columns of the Ledger. This was at about the rate of $lO per line, and although the sketch was not the equal of many others which the author has had printed, with his name attached, in the English periodical All, the Year Hound, the money paid was not considered too much for the work of an author whose name had become so popular. Edward Everett was secured as an exclusive writer for the same periodical for one year at the rate of SIO,OOO. He was only required to furnish one article each week. This contribution rarely filled a column when set up in the bold type of that periodical. Rev. Henry Ward Beecher was paid $30,000 for “Norwood.” Mr. Beecher at that time was a very popular preacher, and his name in connection with the work made it much desired by readers of serial stories. Other less popular writers, whose names were not so prominently before the public, were also paid high prices for serial stories of merit, on condition that they should write exclusively for a special publisher. Book-writers have been engaged by serial-story publishers, merely for the purpose of getting their names associated with certain periodicals. Although the exact sum paid the war generals and naval officers who have been writing historical sketches of the late war in a leading magazine is not known, it is said that all received far more per line for their contributions than the “generous offer” made to Mr. -'Gladstone.— New York Mail Und Express.