“The proper handling of an author’s books as a whole is his best and really his only good advertisement”

[For full, correct and critical edition of this letter, see Mehew 8, 2555.]

To Charles Baxter

[Baxter Letters, pp. 326-31: http://www.hathitrust.org]

[Vailima 16 April 1893]

My dear Charles,

Yours of 22^nd Feb. and 16^th March to hand.

I seem to have led you on the ice, and I do not know how to ask you to forgive me. I have no short story ready, and I fear am unable to prepare one for the mail. However, as I am in receipt of a letter from the editor, in which he says he will take my story, whenever it comes, I trust this will do no harm. I shall try to be more careful in the future. I see you are pitching in.

It is understood that Colvin has nothing to do with the Business.

“  “         “            “   Baxter   “       “       “   “    “     “   Proofs.

Est’ce clair?

About The Justice Clerk, I long to go at it,

Robert MacQueen, Lord Braxfield, the Scottish ‘Hanging Judge,’ (1722-1799), notorious for his brutality and coarseness, became Lord Justice Clerk in 1788. RLS wrote of him at length in ‘Some Portraits by Raeburn’ (1881). This historical personage furnished the conception of the chief character of RLS’s novel Weir of Hermiston, but by no means the details or incidents of the story, which is indeed dated some years after his death.

but will first try to get a short story done. Since January I have had two severe illnesses, my boy, and some heart-breaking anxiety over Fanny, and am only now convalescing. I came down to dinner last night for the first time, and that only because the service had broken down and to relieve an inexperienced servant. Nearly four months now I have rested my brains, and if it be true that rest is good for brains, I ought to be able to pitch in like a giant refreshed. Before the autumn I hope to send you some Justice Clerk, or Weir of Hermiston, as Colvin seems to prefer; I own to indecision.

RLS’s incomplete novel, The Weir of Hermiston, was to be posthoumosly serialised in Cosmopolis, January-April 1896.

Received Syntax,

William Combe, The Tours of Dr. Syntax, 1809-21, illustrated by Thomas Rowlandson.

Dance of Death,

William Combe, The English Dance of Death, 1815-16, illustrated by Thomas Rowlandson.

and Pitcairn,

Robert Pitcairn, Ancient Criminal Trials in Scotland, 3 vols., Edinburgh, 1833.

which last I have read from end to end since its arrival with vast improvement: what a pity it stops so soon! I wonder, is there nothing that seems to prolong the series? Why doesn’t some young man take it up? How about my old friend Fountainhall’s Decisions?

Sir John Lauder, Lord Fountainhall (1646-1722), Scottish jurist and Lord of Session, his Decisions of the Lords of Council and Session from June 6^th, 1678 to July 30^th, 1712, were published in Edinburgh, 1759-61.

I remember as a boy that there was some good reading there. Perhaps you could borrow me that, and send it on loan; and perhaps Law’s Memorials therewith,

and a book I’m ashamed to say I have never read, Balfour’s Letters.

Inclosed you will find a codicil to my will. It is hateful having to do this, but there are internal reasons that make me think it needful. If you think the will had better be reconstructed, do so. By the way, Graham suggests that I have probably an English domicile;

Graham Balfour (1858-1929), RLS’s cousin [https://en.wikipedia.org]

on consideration, I believe that must be so; so you had better keep that in view. You see there is no Samoan domicile; I am not in Samoa, quoad the law: I am in the Western Pacific under Sir John Thurston.

Sir John Bates Thurston (1836-97) acted as High Commissioner for the Western Pacific 1888-97. RLS’s activity in Samoan affairs had caused him to be threatened with deportation by Sir John Thurston, who was in consequence reprimanded by the Colonial office [https://en.wikipedia.org]

I agree with your decision as to the letters. I feel quite sure if I don’t live until my vogue is quite over, there is money to be picked up after I am grounded. Much of my correspondence to Colvin must be really interesting.

RLS’s Letters, 1899 Edition [www.abebooks.com]

RLS’s Letters, 1911 Edition [www.abebooks.com]

O – now see my profound wisdom in saying don’t quarrel with the little man, Pinkerton alias McClure –

Samuel Sidney McClure (1857-1949). He got the serial rights to RLS’s letters from the South Seas, serialised in Black and White magazine. Pinkerton, the character in The Wrecker, was based on him
[https://alchetron.com]

I receive at last, after twice dunning, my accounts from Charles Scribner’s Sons to Febry 1^st. In this they plead guilty to having sold 2,000 in sheets to Canada, for which they credit me $155. Then we approach the States, and behold they have sold 4866 copies to fifty millions of people who used to have ten, 12, and even 15 editions of my books produced for them simultaneously; of course that was cut-throat overproduction, but 5,000 is not good enough. I propose never to be in account again with any born American. I shall write them that they must buy David Balfour outright (I trust the American copyright has been looked after properly), and if they won’t come down with the dust, I’ll try McClure.

My whole income in the States came to 1720; I’ll send you the document, though; not the individual slips: they are too bulky, and only annoy anyway.

It is funny about the three names they couldn’t find for D. Balfour:

[https://lettersofrobertlouisstevenson.wordpress.com/2022/01/01/this-is-a-map-of-the-environs-of-edinburgh-circa-1750/]

no landsman ever thinks of looking at a chart, and these names are on every chart, and in every pilot book. What a charming graceful note from George Barclay!

[Rest dictated to Belle]

I have just held a council of war, with the result shown in the enclosed copy of letter to Burlingame.

Edward Livermore Burlingame (1848-1922), founding editor-in-chief of Scribner’s Magazine since 1886. The magazine had been serialising RLS’s novel The Wrecker, August-July 1892 [https://images.findagrave.com]

I have reached this ultimatum with difficulty; I am not even sure that my position in the matter is wholly honorable; and I see I shall require to give you a pretty full history of my relations with Messrs. Scribners. My introduction to them was like a burst of sunlight. At last I got some money from the States! Under these circumstances, and there being no legal status upon either side, the business has gone on in the loosest possible manner. When a new book was on the stocks, I mentioned it in the course of ordinary correspondence; and when it was ready, they brought it out. There has never been a bargain signed between us: all was a matter of understanding. On the passage of the Copyright Bill I however wrote and announced that I required a higher per cent in royalty.

Late 19th-century newspaper advertisement for copyright registration services. The US Senate passed the first international copyright bill, which came into effect on 1 July 1891 [https://upload.wikimedia.org]

This they granted for future works, apparently with the understanding (which was not wholly without justification) that any work already mentioned in our correspondence had been offered by me and accepted by them on the old terms. Legally, therefore, it should seem that I was quite free, and so were they – that I was quite free to take David Balfour where I please, and they to cease paying royalties on my past works. This is the least of my troubles: it appears they did not amount last year to more than a hundred pounds, and this with exceptionally good sales of Across the Plains

and A Child’s Garden.

The point is, am I bound in honour? One thing of two: either their returns are dishonest, or they’re publishers so incompetent that I should be a buzzard and a stock to let them wreck me longer. I am sure McClure would make a spirited offer for the copyright of D.B., but what I would really like is to put that work in the hands of Mark Twain, to whom I shall write by this mail an obscure letter preparing him for a possible communication from you.

Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910), known by his pen name Mark Twain, American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. RLS was of course unaware that his firm, Charles L. Webster and Co., was joining the other bankrupts of 1893 and failed disastrously in 1894 [www.facebook.com]

The points you are to consider then are: 1^st. Am I free in honour to shake the Scribners? 2^nd. Suppose they do not offer a sufficient sum, should you try McClure or Harper for another sum down;

Harper & Brothers building, 31 Pearl Street, Manhattan, New York, ca. 1870 [https://visualizingnyc.org]

31 Pearl Street, Manhattan, New York, today.

or 3^rd. Should we delay the book a little and put it in the hands of Mark Twain?

For my own part I should be very well pleased to get 1500 or even a thousand down, and there is no doubt that the money down would be welcome this year. For the future I think it would be well to get into relations with Mark Twain. His address is [address in RLS’s hand] Hartford, Connecticut.

Mark Twain’s house, Farmington Avenue, Hartford, Connecticut, ca. 1880. He lived there from 1874 to 1891, when he had to close down this expensive home in response to the dwindling income. He was offered the publication of a series of six European letters. Twain, his wife and their daughter stayed mainly in France, Germany, and Italy until May 1895, with longer spells at Berlin (winter 1891–92), Florence (fall and winter 1892–93), and Paris (winters and springs 1893-94 and 1894–95). During that period, Twain returned four times to New York due to his enduring business troubles. He rented “a cheap room” in September 1893 at $1.50 per day (equivalent to $45 in 2021) at The Players Club, which he had to keep until March 1894; meanwhile, he became “the Belle of New York,” in the words of biographer Albert Bigelow Paine.^{[52]: 176–190} [https://lostnewengland.com/]

Mark Twain’s house, Farmington Avenue, Hartford, Connecticut, today [https://lostnewengland.com/]

I hope to goodness I have managed to get this out reasonably clear, my head being in a far from clear state. It should not be forgotten that it will be of advantage in the future to have Kidnapped and D.B. in the same hands –

not of course that I should directly, but always bear in mind that the proper handling of an author’s books as a whole is his best and really his only good advertisement.

April 17^th.

Here is another thing in which you can perhaps help me, though I don’t want it to be in any way a trouble to you. Not being able to trace my descent beyond a very little way back, I have taken it into my head to trace the surname itself. It promises to become much more interesting than I had thought. For instance, I have collected out of Pitcairn quite a large number of appearances of Stevensons from North Ayrshire,

North Ayrshire and Arran, Scotland [https://en.wikipedia.org/]

Westlothian

West Lothian [https://en.wikipedia.org/]

and Berwick,

Berwick-upon-Tweed (South Berwick), Northumberland [https://it.wikipedia.org/]

and Perth;

Perth and Kinross, Scotland [www.dreamstime.com]

also one appearance of a MacSteen, which is very suggestive. These appearances give us at least an idea of the distribution of the Clan.

Stevenson Tartan [https://scottishkiltshop.com/]

I have found two lairds in the time of Mary: Stevenson of that ilk and Stevenson of Hirdmanshiels, both apparently substantial men. Query, whether barons? Whether both in the east country? And what became of them? These are questions which somebody in Scotland should be very easily able to answer. With the premature stopping of Pitcairn, I am left gaping. Hence my demand for Fountainhall. But perhaps experts could suggest some other works to dig in. You see my idea is to make this a first chapter of my family history, giving an idea of the very small importance of the clan, of the sort of stations in society they occupied, and wherever the case is interesting in itself or characteristic of the time and country, briefly telling the story. I have come by accident through a correspondent on one very curious and interesting fact: namely that Stevenson was one of the names adopted by the MacGregors at the proscription.

Clan Gregor, also known as Clan MacGregor is a Highland Scottish clan that claims an origin in the early 9th century. The clan’s most famous member is Rob Roy MacGregor of the late 17th and early 18th centuries. RLS’s correspondent in New York was named George A. Macgregor Stevenson [https://en.wikipedia.org/]

The details supplied by my correspondent are both convincing and amusing, but it would be highly interesting to find out more of this. It has crossed my mind that perhaps some young man may be pursuing researches for some purpose of his own in the records of the 17^th Century. If there be such a one, he could be of great service to me with very little trouble to himself by keeping his weather eye lifting for the name of Stevenson. The place where any Stevenson dwelt and the trade that he followed would be always welcome in themselves, and of course if there were any interesting story in which he was mixed up, it would be pure gold.

[Last sentence and signature in RLS’s hand]

I say, go gently with the Scribner question; it is a case of ca’ canny! I believe.

R.L. Stevenson