Some Notable Beginners in Chambers's Journal
Some Notable Beginners in Chambers's Journal is an article written by Charles E. S. Chambers (the editor) of the Chambers's Journal in the 19 january 1895 issue.
The article examines the overwhelming number of literary submissions received by 19th-century periodicals and the difficulty editors faced in selecting work of real merit, with particular attention to the literary debut and formative development of Arthur Conan Doyle.
Editions
- in Chambers's Journal (19 january 1895 [UK])
- Excerpts in The Journal of the Arthur Conan Doyle Society (september 1989 [UK])
Some Notable Beginners in Chambers's Journal
Oliver Wendell Holmes said once that every articulately speaking human being has in him stuff for one good novel; the 'Autocrat' might have safely added also a good supply of articles, poems, or essays. But how is he to get himself into print? Here the art, and artifice, and versatility of the writer tell. Compare the detective story by an actual member of the Force with one by Sherlock Holmes, and the difference will be seen in a moment. Apparently every editor has his own burden to bear, and can a tale unfold, from which we infer that said human being is striving to become articulate in the columns of all the journals and periodicals in the country. Even Reynolds receives, according to its editor, as many weekly poetical contributions as would fill a sack. The editor of a certain weekly periodical has a stereotyped form warning intending contributors that he has as many poems and short stories on hand as will supply him well on into the twentieth century. Another editor finds about one in fifteen contributions available. Contributions have come to Chambers's Journal from lords and labourers, priests and lawyers; and one day, as Mr Payn has recorded, came volunteer contributions from a bishop, a washerwoman, and a thief. It was remarked on one occasion that what has proved most worth reading has not always come from the best educated or most highly placed in life great names are not always a guarantee for good articles. The stream of voluntary contributions in 1872 averaged 200 per month, nineteen-twentieths of which went back. Ten years later (1882-83) the large number of 3225 manuscripts was received, only 330 of which had been accepted. Even if they were all of the highest merit, it is evident that only a small proportion could have been retained; and this stream still continues to flow in unabated volume.
There are various ways of conducting a periodical, one of the most thoroughgoing being that of Edward Cave, who was said never to have looked out of his window save for the benefit of the Gentleman's Magazine, which he had founded. One modern method is to intimate to volunteer authors that the editor cannot return rejected contributions under any circumstances. Naturally, would-be contributors look upon this as a one-sided arrangement, and think twice before they risk the experiment of losing sight of their manuscript. Such an editor, backed, as he thinks, by a competent staff, and scanning the literary horizon for rising authors whom he hastens to invite to contribute, feels sufficient unto himself and his magazine. But unless an editor makes superhuman exertions, and is continually getting new blood into the concern, his periodical suffers in regard to variety of interest and freshness. You get to know exactly what will be said, and how it will be said, by any given class of writers.
The founders of Chambers's evidently started with this idea of being sufficient unto themselves, but speedily altered their arrangements. A preliminary prospectus was issued stating that no communications in prose or verse' were wanted. Experience soon modified their attitude towards outside contributors, and a good article was accepted, if suitable, from whatever quarter it came. Started over sixty years ago, just seven months before Scott passed away at Abbotsford, Chambers's Journal is still in general circulation, and is still read to pieces at all the public libraries. Quite a host of ready and able pens have united in giving continuity of purpose, and variety, freshness, and breadth of interest to this periodical from the commencement. A glance over the five series now issued will supply also a good hint as to the changed and changing tastes of the reading public. Fiction and light literature bulk more largely now than ever before, and it may be that there is less patience even with the long serial, and a demand for the short story has set in.
In giving the editorial experience of close upon half a century, and in allusion to the trades-union or close corporation method of conducting a periodical, William Chambers wrote: Sooner or later the tone of such a periodical ceases to be fresh, and it sinks into the region of clique and coterie. The trouble of working the winnowing-machine with respect to outside contributions is sure to be repaid, sooner or later at least such has been our experience-by the acquisition of that priceless boon, an original writer.' It would be invidious to mention a long string of names of writers who have helped to make Chambers one of the best-read periodicals in the country; but a mention of one or two of the casual contributors, who have since risen to eminence, may be of interest, and help to show how the first tiny rill of a contribution afterwards broadened out to a larger stream of useful effort, with the sunshine of public favour upon it.
It is now nearly half a century since, in the casual way we have indicated, a contribution dropped in from George Meredith. The author of the Egoist and Richard Feverel had his first contribution printed in this Journal for July 7, 1849. It is entitled 'Chillianwallah,' and memorialises the bloody fight which took place at the village of that name in the Punjab, during the second Sikh war, on the 13th of January 1849. A few shots had been fired against our men while encamping, when Lord Gough gave orders for an attack; our soldiers moved forward through the jungle in the face of a masked battery. There was a panic among the cavalry, and the loss of almost the entire 24th Regiment. Yet the British troops maintained their position at the end of the day. The place is known in the neighbourhood as Katalgarh, or the house of slaughter.' An obelisk has been erected on the spot to the British officers and men who fell during the engagement. The poem is written as a dirge over the dead, and is in sad and solemn strain, quite in keeping with the subject; but of course entirely unlike the well-known efforts of Rudyard Kipling, who would doubtless have made Tommy Atkins his spokesman. One is not always sure how and when to take Mr Payn seriously, and it is sometimes difficult to get a bottoming of fact in his otherwise delightful Literary Recollections. Certainly he does something less than justice to William Chambers in omitting to mention that he was a capable and successful editor, when the Journal was under his control, with a strong sense of what the public wanted and cared to read. However that may be, Mr Payn became a story-teller in connection with this Journal. Miss Mitford, his near neighbour when he was resident at Maidenhead, had done her best to keep him out of literature, and showered good advice upon him, when she saw all was of no avail. Be careful as to style,' wrote his literary god-mother; 'give as much character as you can, and as much truth, that being the foundation of all merit in literature and art.' An interview in Edinburgh with a so-called African lion-tamer, and the invention of an imaginary Count Gotsuchakoff, supplied the necessary hints and suggestions for the string of adventures in 'The Family Scapegrace.' This story was placed before Robert Chambers, and Mr Payn asked for an opinion. Those who have seen Mr Payn's handwriting will not be surprised at what followed. Mr Payn, as recorded in My First Book, says: 'He looked at the manuscript, which was certainly not in such good handwriting as his own, and observed slyly: "Would you just mind reading a bit of it?" The author read a little of it, although interrupted by the maid bringing in coals, with the result that Mr Chambers said: "I think it words I ever heard from the mouth of man,' will suit nicely for the Journal"-the pleasantest observes Mr Payn. Mr Payn's reputation as a story-teller was confirmed after the issue of 'Lost Sir Massingberd,' also in this Journal. After serial issue, "The Family Scapegrace,' disguised as Richard Arbour, was issued in one volume, but it excited no attention; although, on returning to the old title, it sold as well as any of the other numerous novels from the same hand.
To his credit, be it said, Mr Payn has taken cheerful views of authorcraft, and of life and literature generally. Now Mr Grant Allen warns intending literary aspirants off the premises by telling them that in no market can they sell their abilities to such poor advantage. 'Don't take to literature if you've capital enough in hand to buy a good broom, and energy enough to annex a vacant crossing.' Mr Payn, although he envies the judge and bishop who have five thousand pounds a year and a retiring pension, still thinks he has been exceptionally fortunate in receiving such small prizes as literature has to offer in the way of editorships and readerships; but the total income I have made by my pen has been but an average of fifteen hundred pounds a year for thirty-five working years. As compared with the gains of Law and Physic, and of course of Commerce, this is surely a very modest sum, though it has been earned in a most pleasant manner.' If Mr Payn, ranking in the first dozen of story-tellers, envies the judge or bishop, there are those doubtless who envy the author of Lost Sir Massingberd.
And now we have had Mr Stanley J. Weyman, who wrote of Oxford life for this Journal, rising up and calling Mr Payn blessed, because of the valuable hints received from him when he began novel-writing. 'He is father of us all,' said Mr Weyman to an interviewer the other day: Hornung, Gribble, Conan Doyle, Hope, and myself.'
It was not unnatural that Thomas Hardy, whose father and a brother have both been connected with the building trade at his native Dorchester, and who was himself trained as an architect, should take as the subject of his first contribution, 'How I Built Myself a House,' which appeared March 18, 1865. His maiden effort describes in a humorous vein how a Londoner, living already in a highly desirable semi-detached villa, and finding himself cramped for room, along with his wife, in the innocence of their hearts heedlessly consulted an architect, had a larger mansion built, and piled on the extras with a vengeance. How the future proprietor climbed to the top of the scaffolding near the chimneys, suffered from giddiness, and did not see or enjoy the view, is capitally told. The altering of the plans, as new ideas flowed in upon husband and wife, raised the cost several hundreds of pounds over the estimate. This shows a professional touch, and is realistically told; but it does not appear that Mr Hardy followed out this vein. The encouragement received for his novel Desperate Remedies in 1871, and the distinct success of one of his best books, Far from the Madding Crowd, in 1874, placed him in the ranks of our four or five most popular novelists of the day.
While a student of medicine at Edinburgh University, Dr A. Conan Doyle had his first short story accepted and printed in Chambers's Journal in 1879. It is entitled 'The Mystery of Sasassa Valley, a South African Story,' and occupies four pages. From this and his other contributions, 'The Bravos of Market Drayton,' 'The Surgeon of Gaster Fell,' and 'Captain Wilkie,' the story of a reclaimed thief and Salvation Army Captain, it was evident that Dr Doyle was a born story-teller. He had that reputation at school; and long ere he was in his teens, 'I had,'
he tells us, 'traversed every sea and knew the Rockies like my own back garden. How often had I sprung upon the back of the charging buffalo, and so escaped him! It was an every-day emergency to have set the prairie on fire in front of me in order to escape from the fire behind.'
At school, it was therefore quite natural that he should have an attracted and attentive audience when spinning yarns. But, as he remarks, 'it may be that my literary experiences would have ended there, had there not come a time in my early manhood when that good old harsh-faced school-mistress, Hard Times, took me by the hand. I wrote, and with amazement I found that my writing was accepted. Chambers's Journal it was which rose to the occasion, and I have had a kindly feeling for its mustard-coloured back ever since.'
The story 'Captain Wilkie,' which has just been printed, seems a kind of forecast of his Sherlock Holmes narratives, and contains a reference to the influence upon him by one of his Edinburgh teachers, Dr Joseph Bell, who was continually impressing upon his pupils the vast importance of marking little distinctions, and the endless significance, when followed out, of so-called trifles in appearance, manner, and conduct. In all probability Dr Bell never dreamt of the use one brilliant pupil would make of his lectures.
Mr D. Christie Murray lately held a Boston audience spell-bound for about an hour and a half, while relating the experiences of a war correspondent, and the Bohemian life at home and abroad, which had gone to make him a novelist. He told how the late Mr Robert Chambers, then conducting this Journal, wrote him the following note: 'SIR-I have read with unusual pleasure and interest, in this month's Gentleman's Magazine, a story from your pen entitled "An Old Meerschaum." If you have a novel on hand or in preparation, I should be glad to see it. In the meantime, a short story not much longer than "An Old Meerschaum" would be gladly considered by, yours very truly, ROBERT CHAMBERS.' This led to the publication, in succession, of 'A Life's Atonement,' 'Valentine Strange,' and 'The Silver Lever' in this Journal. The first story had been written, laid aside, and almost forgotten in the crowded life of a journalist and war correspondent. On re-writing some of it, and sending it in, the cheerful reply came back, that if the rest of it was as good as the beginning, it would be accepted. So Mr Murray worked away, during much hardship, at the remainder, and thus joined the crowded ranks of the modern novelists.
Here we must stop at the most interesting point, for it would be like telling tales out of school to gossip about early contributions of Mr Stanley Weyman, Sir Wemyss Reid, and of many another writer whose early but unacknowledged work first saw the light in Chambers's. Mr Leslie Stephen might not care to be reminded of the share he had, along with Mr Payn, in a forgotten Christmas number. It is true that authors seldom hide their lights under a bushel nowadays, when log-rolling has become so much of a fine art, and a reputation can be gained or lost in a few months. Thomas Carlyle's ambition was to write his books as soundly as his father built his bridges. For time tests all things, and however much or little may be in a name, good work will never go out of fashion.
