278 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



June, 1914 



ft 



M 



THE- TALK- OF- THE - OFFICE 



CONRAD A RISING STAR 



The greatest pleasure that a publisher can 

 have is to help an author to his proper audi- 

 ence, or to enlarge this audience. A few 

 months ago we started to find for the writings 

 of Joseph Conrad the readers who we knew 

 would enjoy his books, and, fortunately, we 

 had a new novel — "Chance" by name — 

 with which to start our plans. 



This novel has been a great success in Eng- 

 land and in this country, but it will go on 

 month by month and year by year. Of it the 

 London Times says: 



"The story moves like a broad solemn stream fed 

 by the rains of a high and mysterious watershed"; 



and we could quote a page full of extravagant 

 praises, but to most readers a more interesting 

 thing is the expressions of appreciation of other 

 authors for Joseph Conrad's work. From a 

 large number of letters we take these phrases, 

 trying to restrain ourselves from the tempta- 

 tion of quoting over much: 



"It is a book in which one can afford to pass nothing 

 over. It is a bock to be read with the concentration of 

 the tastes with which one savors good wines." — Basil 

 King. 



"I know of no contemporary writer who can build a 

 scene before the eye as vividly as Conrad, or who can 

 push a character through the door and leave him to 

 speak for himself as Conrad does." — Meredith Nichol- 

 son. 



"I consider him the greatest living author in the 

 English language and have read nearly everything he 

 has written." — Rex Beach. 



"He is becoming necessary to contemporary educa- 

 tion. Those who haven't read him are not well-read." 

 — Gouverneur Morris. 



"What a wonderful style he has — what a perfect 

 mingling of austerity and beauty." — Ellen Glasgow. 



"I believe I've made as many 'Conrad readers' as 

 the next man; and so shall continue." — Stewart Ed- 

 ward White. 



"I do buy, circulate, believe in, and praise Joseph 

 Conrad." — Kate Douglas Wiggin. 



"I have long been an admirer of his work." — Win- 

 ston Churchill. 



"In this adoptive son England has acquired a writer 

 of the highest rank." — Hamlin Garland. 



" The only man in England to-day who belongs to the 

 immortal company of Meredith, Hardy, and Henry 

 James." — James Huneker. 



" One of my chief claims to distinction in the world is 

 that I wrote the first long appreciative review of Joseph 

 Conrad's work." — H. G. Wells. 



"The distinction of Joseph Conrad's work is that 

 there is nothing with which it may be compared." — 

 Mary Austin. 



"To business that we love we rise betime 

 And go to 't with delight." — Antony and Cleopatra. 



"The writing of 'Youth' alone would suffice to give 

 him a place among men of genius." — Dr. Richard 

 Burton. 



"There's a true genius writing in English, even to- 

 day, and his name is Joseph Conrad." — Louis Joseph 

 Vance. 



"I notice signs that Conrad at last has come to his 

 own. People are talking about him. His sellers are 

 stocking him. The public is buying him." — Shan 

 Bullock. 



We have published a little book containing 

 the biographical and bibliographical record of 

 Conrad's life and work which we should be 

 glad to send you with our compliments. 



FRANK NORRIS 



"Vandover and the Brute," Frank Norris's 

 newly discovered story, has revived the reali- 

 zation of what American letters lost by his 

 untimely death twelve years ago. The num- 

 ber of inquiries about the man and his books 

 led us to ask Charles Norris, his younger 

 brother, to prepare a sketch of him for our 

 series of booklets on authors, which we send 

 free on request. 



Those who are interested in Frank Norris's 

 work will find the little booklet of very inti- 

 mate interest. Charles Norris describes the 

 fire and power of the man, the riotous imagin- 

 ation, the unbounded creative energy of his 

 abundant youth. Typical of Frank Norris's 

 whimsical fancy were the stories he sent home 

 from Paris (he was still in his 'teens) to amuse 

 his younger brother. The latter speaks wist- 

 fully of these manuscripts, which were lost in 

 the San Francisco fire. 



"When the family returned to California, leaving 

 Frank in Paris to continue his study of art, he began 

 writing me a novel in which all our favorite characters 

 reappeared, revolving about myself, whom he described 

 as the nephew of the Duke of Burgundy. It came to me 

 in chapters, rolled up inside French newspapers to save 

 postage. Each installment was profusely illustrated 

 with pencil sketches, mostly of myself as an esquire, a 

 man-at-arms, an equerry, and finally as a knight. Plots 

 and episodes from the works of Scott, Francis Bacon, 

 Frank Stockton, and others were lifted bodily, some- 

 times the actual wording was borrowed. I remember a 

 sentence, "The night closed down dark as a wolf's 

 mouth," that years later I found again in the opening 

 of a chapter of 'Quentin Durward.' 



"Frank came home before these adventures were 

 finished. He left the heroine lashed to a railroad 

 track, and me locked in a neighboring switchman's 

 tower." 



Our own association with Frank Norris's 



youth is not uninteresting. For several years 

 he was one of the workers as an associate with 

 the rest of us in the office of Doubleday, Page 

 & Company in Union Square, when we first 

 began the publishing business. He had our 

 affection and admiration, and when he went 

 to California to write a new novel, we expected 

 to see him back with us soon in the office. 

 He died suddenly, and he left a place in our 

 organization impossible to fill. 



AN INTERESTING MEXICAN 

 AUTHOR 



Sefior L. Gutierrez deLara, author of "The 

 Mexican People: Their Struggle for Freedom," 

 just published, is a most interesting man. 

 Born a member of the aristocratic classes in 

 Mexico, poor, proud, and hot tempered, he 

 threw all his energies into the study of law and 

 music. Appointed a judge in a small Mexican 

 town, he was unable to endure the abominable 

 hardships he saw daily inflicted upon the 

 working classes. He threw in his lot with the 

 constitutionalists and became distinctly non 

 grata to the government. 



A leader and orator, Sefior de Lara has been 

 in the thick of the fight in Mexico. He has 

 been imprisoned, sentenced to death, outlawed, 

 and even lived for a year in hiding among a 

 primitive Indian tribe in the wilds of northern 

 Mexico. His book was begun in jail. 



But Sefior de Lara is more than a mere hot- 

 blood. He is a student, a man of refinement 

 and culture and a true patriot who has the 

 highest hopes and ideals for the ultimate hap- 

 piness and prosperity of Mexico. He is no 

 armchair theorist about the ills of his unhappy 

 country. He has seen it all, and his book 

 voices for the first time the tragic outcry of 

 the Mexican people. It is in truth not unlike 

 the Piers Plowman appeal in England long ago. 



BOOKS AND THE PARCEL FOST 



Our offer to send any of our new or old books 

 by parcel post to any reader anywhere has met 

 with a large response among people remote 

 from bookstores. We hope that our plan to 

 deliver any book you care to see at your own 

 fireside, to be read and studied at your leisure, 

 will fill a real demand from intelligent people 

 who love books. 



