It is a pity that Mr. Cooper’s protest was not made with more moderation, for it was a protest worth making.  The books of the two Queens have not ruined the season, nor have they reduced the sales of popular novels by 90 per cent.; but they have upset trade quite unnecessarily.  The issue of “Queen Victoria’s Letters” at six shillings was a worthy idea, but its execution was thoughtlessly timed.  The volumes would have sold almost equally well at another period of the year.  As for “Queen Alexandra’s Gift-Book,” I personally have an objection to the sale of books for charity, just as I have an objection to all indirect taxation and to the paying of rates out of gas profits.  In such enterprises as the vast, frenzied pushing and booming of the “Gift-Book,” the people who really pay are just the people who get no credit whatever.  The public who buy get rich value for their outlay; the chief pushers and boomsters get an advertisement after their own hearts; and the folk who genuinely but unwillingly contribute, without any return of any kind, are authors whose market is disturbed and booksellers who, partly intimidated and partly from good nature, handle the favoured book on wholesale terms barely profitable.  I will have none of Mr. Cooper’s 90 per cent.; but I dare say that I have lost at the very least L10 owing to the “Gift-Book.”  That is to say, I have furnished L10 to the Unemployed Fund.  I share Mr. Cooper’s resentment.  I do not want to give L10 to any fund whatever, and to force me to pay it to the Unemployed Fund, of all funds, is to insult my most sacred convictions.  L10 wants earning.  And the fact that L10 wants earning should be brought to the attention of Windsor and Greeba Castles.

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Still, I am not depressed about the general cause of serious literature.  Serious literature is kept alive by a few authors who, not owning motor-cars nor entertaining parties to dinner at the Carlton, find it possible and agreeable to maintain life and decency on the money paid down by very small bands of truly bookish readers.  And these readers are not likely to deprive themselves completely of literature for ever in order to possess a collection of royal photographs.  The injury to serious literature is slight and purely temporary.

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[31 Dec. ’08]

A melancholy Christmas, it seems!  According to “a well-known member of the trade,” the business is once again—­the second time this year—­about to crumble into ruins.  This well-known member of the trade, who discreetly refrains from signing his name, writes to the Athenaeum in answer to Mr. E.H.  Cooper’s letter about the disastrous influence of royal books on the publishing season.  According to him, Mr. Cooper is all wrong.  The end of profitable publishing is being brought about, not by their Majesties, but once more by the authors and their agents.  It appears that too