A New York correspondent says that when Edgar Saltus was writing his latest book, “ Mary Magdalene," he went into seclusion, denied himself to all callers, and, day and night, for six weeks threw himself heart and soul into his work. When he came forth, he says: "I had turned from agnosticism, and was almost a Christian."

Alfred Balch has in Lippincott's for July an article, "English and American Newspapers," pointing out the differences in the organizations and methods of the newspapers of these two countries.

A. H. McGuffey, the compiler of the wellknown "McGuffey Readers," is a Cincinnati lawyer.

A Miss Minna Irving, who is called "the poetess of Tarrytown," has brought a suit for $5,000 damages against a next-door neighbor for literary losses incurred through the howling of said neighbor's dogs.

An ancient citizen of Concord has furnished this glimpse of Hawthorne: "I never could get him to say anything till after three o'clock in the afternoon; he was writing and thinking about his books, you know, mornings. Why, he'd go as near to me as that tree (pointing to one three feet off) and never see me mornings. But after three o'clock, when I was working 'round, he'd sit on a sawhorse and talk."

The late Prince Napoleon left more than five trunks full of important papers. Frederick Masson is to edit them, and will endeavor to make his work rather a history than a volume of memoirs, and to bring out the true character, plans, and hopes of the Prince.

"Literary Industries," a new volume by Hubert Howe Bancroft, is announced as nearly ready for publication by Harper & Brothers. The work is largely autobiographical, and contains the story of the conception of Mr. Bancroft's great history, the manner of its composition, and the methods by which the materials for its completion were collected. There are many interesting reminiscences also of the famous men with whom Mr. Bancroft was from time to time thrown in contact, and numerous literary digressions, which give additional zest to an already entertaining narrative.

The original agreement for "Barnaby Rudge' between Charles Dickens and Bentley, the publisher, has just been sold in London. From this it appears that Dickens received $20,000 for the copyright.

"The Relations of Literature to Society" are considered in an entertaining way in the North American Review for July, by Mrs. Amelia E. Barr, who contends that good writers receive all the attention from the social world that they deserve.

A gentleman in Portland, Me., has become the possessor of the desk on which John G. Whittier wrote his earliest poem. He received it from the poet himself. It is described as a very old piece of furniture, being an heirloom in the Whittier family, and having seen, possibly, 200 years of service.

The Magazine of American History (New York) closes its twenty-fifth volume with an admirable June issue.

Mr. Gladstone is said to be a comparatively poor man. He writes for the magazines because he needs the $1,000 he gets for an article.

The frontispiece to Harper's Magazine for July is a fine portrait of Oliver Wendell Holmes, engraved by Closson from a recent photograph. George William Curtis, in an interesting and appreciative article on Dr. Holmes and his works, takes occasion to review the condition of American literature sixty years ago, when the "Autocrat of the Breakfast Table " gave his first paper to the public.

A French journal states that the sale of Victor Hugo's works still continues to be very large. During the past five years the proceeds from his various works have amounted to 1,483,373 francs, with one or two items unreported.

W. B. Shubrick Clymer (who wrote the recent "Note on Jane Austen" in Scribner's Magazine) contributes a similarly well-considered literary essay on Landor to Scribner's for July.

Mary Hartwell Catherwood, author of that remarkable story, "The Romance of the Dollards," begins a serial story," The Lady of Fort St. John," in the Atlantic Monthly for July. In the same number is an admirable article on 'English Railway Fiction," by Agnes Repplier.

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The anonymous novel, "All for Him: Eros and Anteros," translated from the twentyseventh French edition by Frederick Lyster, is by Albert Delpit. It has also been translated by R. H. Merriam, under title of "His Two Loves," with author's name.

The J. Dewing Company, book publishers and dealers in fine art goods at San Francisco, has issued a circular to its creditors offering fifty cents on the dollar. The outstanding obligations of the firm are said to aggregate $200,000.

A new literary society, known as the Papyrus Club, was formed June 11 by the authors, publishers, artists, and booksellers of Chicago. The objects of the club are to bring together in closer and more friendly relations the authors, artists, publishers, and booksellers of Chicago and the great Northwest. At present those different professions are so entirely unacquainted with each other that authors are sending their works to Boston, New York, and Philadelphia to find a market; and publishers, on the other hand, are looking to the East for writers when men of talent and ability are to be found at their very doors.

John Greenleaf Whittier has sent an autograph copy of "The Kansas Emigrant's Song" to the Kansas State Historical Society. The venerable poet, who is nearly eighty-four years old, pathetically writes: "My sight has failed so much that I fear my writing will be unreadable. I would not have tried to copy anything for any other purpose."

Among other good advice in Mr. Howe's article in the Cosmopolitan on "The Great Unpublished" is the following cheerful advice to unsuccessful authors: "Learn to write and cultivate an original, or, at least, a correct style, and think your story out before you write it. Let it be moral in tone, if this be morally possible. Remember that comedy and tragedy lie side by side in life, and do not try to separate them. Tell your story straightforwardly, and avoid padding. Don't forget that love-making is not love-vaunting; write of the real people around you, and let imaginary people alone."

Richard Watson Gilder, editor of the Century, has been confined to his home recently by illness.

Walter Besant tells an odd story of English journalistic methods. A certain writer sent an article signed and with an attractive title — first to one journal and when it was declined to another. Both times it came back to him after a longish interval, " marked by the inky thumb of the compositor." The author put away his manuscript. Then he meditated. Then he began to take the two journals. In a fortnight he found his article in each of the papers, unsigned and under another title.

The "Idler" of the Publishers' Circular says that Hall Caine, author of "The Deemster," is suffering from "extreme nervous exhaustion, the result of overwork." A story which he agreed to write for Tillotson's Syndicate has been postponed for a year, and "The Scapegoat," undertaken for the Illustrated London News, is at a stand. He is recovering, however.

The Publishers' Weekly is printing a series of articles on "The Profession of Book-selling," the object of which is to give plain directions to apprentices and clerks in the book trade as to the most practical methods of doing their work.

The issue of the Chicago Times for June 19 included 124 pages probably the largest single issue of a newspaper ever published. All the paper but a dozen pages, however, was made up of a delinquent tax-list, which the business manager of the Times probably regards as a triumph of journalism.

The concluding sentences of a letter from Mr. Walter Besant to the London Times, written in reply to a letter from “Ouida,” run thus: "Not a good book comes up but all the younger writers read it eagerly to learn something from it; they know how to distinguish art from trade, and they cannot think of the latter until the first is attended to. Lastly, the publicyour readers steadily refuse to read anything that is not good. We are not, in fact, exactly arrived at the Kingdom of Heaven, but we are going along as well as can be expected; and if Dickens and Thackeray are dead, we have still got men and women who, though not on their level, are able to please, amuse, and instruct the world in fiction as well as in all other branches of literature."

THE

RITER:

The frontispiece of this month's WRITER is a portrait of an unknown author-in the popular sense of the term, at least; yet Jennie M. Drinkwater (whose full name is Jennnie M. Drinkwater Conklin) has written more than a dozen books, all of which have been financially successful. Of several editions of 30,000 each have been sold, and it is within the bounds of truth to say that of all her works at least 200,000 copies have been published and sold. Her peculiar line of work is that which publishers designate as "Sunday-school Juvenile," that is to say, books for the young, but more especially for girls. These books are written, of course, with an eye to the moral and spiritual development of their readers, an end which may be attained readily in a book which holds

No. 8.

the young reader's attention. To do this requires an art quite as definite as that of the story-writer in any other field, and of this art the subject of this sketch has made herself mistress.

Her stories are true to life, as she watches it in others. Her characters are living people, a fact in consequence of which she is enabled to invest the story of their lives with a realism and a human interest which would be wanting were her characters creations of her fancy. Deriving her inspiration, as she does, from every-day life, it is not remarkable that she should receive letters from girls who have been helped by her books. "To all the girls who have written to me" is the dedication of her book, "Other Folk." More than one has said, "You have written my life."

Miss Drinkwater is a thorough American, having been born on the coast of Maine about fifty years ago. Her home is now in Madison, N. J. Story-writing came natural to her, and in early life she was a constant contributor to leading papers. Always fond of reading, at the age of twelve she became inspired with the thought of writing a book herself. At odd moments she made her first attempt at storywriting; story-telling she had begun before, gathering about her the younger children to listen to the adventures of some small heroine. Her earliest recollections of books are of the Bible and The Pilgrim's Progress." Now she can look back and see how the thread of these early influences is woven into the warp and woof of her stories. Having had from her earliest reading an absorbing interest in biography, one of her first inspirations in bookmaking (she preters to speak of it as "bookgrowing") was the thought of biography - to

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