AUTHORS AND PUBLISHERS.
[To THE EinTOR Or TEE SPECTATOR-1 Sta,—Will you allow me to offer one common.sense suggestion bearing on the discussion to which the recent conferences of the Inoorporated Authors' Society have given rise ? It is that the publisher (the speculating member in this fraternal partnership) should render an account to the author of the sum-total of his own gains or losses in the bringing out of any book. If the pub- lisher's gains were small or none, the author would be ready to sympathise,—he might, indeed, be induced to put away his pen and paper; anyhow, he could no longer air his supposed grievances. If, on the other hand, the publisher's gains were large, the author would have the melancholy satisfaction of
knowing that his work was not, front a pecuniary point of view,. all labour lost, but that it had made at least one person happy. As the publisher knows to a penny what the author receives, why may the latter have no accurate idea of how his "partner has fared in the transaction, beyond the general statement—so mysterious in its brevity,—" Your book has done very well ;"" or, "Your book has been a great loss to us ?"—I am, Sir, Jo., AN AUTHOR WHOSE IGNORANCE IS NOT ALWAYS BLISS.
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