Acknowledgments
The idea for this book originated with a paper I was invited to deliver in 2010 at the biennial symposium of the Jack London Society, an international non-profit organization that promotes study of the life and work of the great American author. As the lone historian among literature experts, I felt like an interloper, but the leading lights of the society could not have been more welcoming and encouraging; among them, Jeanne Reesman, Kenneth Brandt, Jay Williams, Eric Carl Link, Keith Newlin, and Thomas Harakal.
There, I also met Sue Hodson, Curator of Literary Manuscripts at the Huntington Library in San Marino, CA, who has been an invaluable (and patient) source of information over a five-year period, not to mention a loyal friend. Archival material and illustrations from the Huntington have been reproduced with permission; likewise from The Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature, New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations; University of Reading, UK, Special Collections; University of Southern California Libraries, Special Collections, Los Angeles; Stanford University Special Collections, Stanford, CA; and Special Collections & Archives, Merrill-Cazier Library, Utah State University, Logan.
On this journey, several friends have offered feedback and encouragement, including John Glover, Kasia Parham, Rosemary Giedroyć, Brian D. Wallace, Dr Ross McKibbin, Rev. Msgr Stephen DiGiovanni, and Rev. Al Audette. At Oxford University Press, Robert Faber has been an enthusiastic supporter of the project, and Cathryn Steele an exemplary shepherd through the production process, with the assistance of Banupriya Sivakaminathan, Paul Nash, and Clifford Willis.
Lastly, this book is dedicated to my brothers, Andrew and David, without whose support and inspiration it could not have been written.
Joseph McAleer Greenwich, Connecticut July 2015
Preface
In 1915, one year before he died, Jack London responded to a fan letter from an aspiring writer, a housewife in Kentucky. She asked London if he had been satisfied with his career as a writer. “I can assure you, in reply to your question, that after having come through all of the game of life, and of youth, at my present mature age of thirty-nine years I am firmly and solemnly convinced that the game is worth the candle,” London wrote. “I have a very fortunate life. I have been luckier than many hundreds of millions of men in my generation have been lucky, and while I have suffered much, I have lived much, seen much, and felt much that has been denied to the average man.” He concluded that the “game” was indeed “worth the candle,” as she inquired. “As a proof of it, my friends tell me I am getting stout. That, in itself, is the advertisement of spiritual victory.”1
Jack London (1876–1916) wasn’t just lucky at what he called the “writing game.” He is, by many accounts, the most popular American author in the world today. Two of his novels, The Call of the Wild and White Fang, are literary classics and have never been out of print. His forty-four published books and hundreds of short stories and essays have been translated into more than one hundred languages and hailed by critics from South America to Asia.2 His international admirers over the years have included George Orwell, Anatole France, and Jorge Luis Borges. He remains enormously popular in Russia and China despite his affirmation of freedom and the individual—concepts unpopular among the authorities in those countries. “Jack London brought to the Russian reader a world full of romanticism and vigor, and the reader came to love him,” wrote Russian critic Vil Bykov, who compared London to Tolstoy and Chekhov. Lenin admired his work. In China, Professor Li Shuyan wrote, “Whatever happens in the critical world, London will go on enjoying the admiration of the Chinese readers. Martin Eden and the many heroes of London’s stories of the North will always be an encouraging force to those who are fighting against adversities, and who believe the worth of the man lies in doing, creating, and achieving.”3
London, moreover, was America’s first novelist to earn more than one million dollars a year (in today’s currency) from his writing. A vigorous self-promoter and the kind of media celebrity we would recognize today, he was proud of his chosen profession and happy to dispense advice to would-be authors on how to get
1 Letter, London to Ethelda Hesser, September 21, 1915, in The Letters of Jack London, ed. Earle Labor, Robert C. Leitz, III, and I. Milo Shepard (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1988), 1503. Hesser referenced George Herbert in his collection of proverbs, Jacula Prudentum (1640): “It is a poor sport that is not worth the candle.”
2 For a comprehensive (and monumental) listing of foreign translations of London’s works, see Jack London: A Bibliography, compiled by Henley C. Woodbridge, John London, and George H. Tweney (Georgetown, CA: The Talisman Press, 1966).
3 See Earle Labor, editor, The Portable Jack London (London: Penguin Books, 1994), xi–xii.
published, and how to earn a good living from writing. His insistence on discipline and perseverance (even if he often fell short of his own daily writing goal of 1,000 words) has encouraged generations of writers. “Don’t loaf and invite inspiration; light out after it with a club,” he said, “and if you don’t get it you will nonetheless get something that looks remarkably like it.”4
London’s death in 1916, aged forty, at the zenith of his writing career, shocked the world but sealed his reputation as one of the greats. “London was a very likeable man and had a manner which appealed especially to Colonials,” ran his obituary in The Times in London. “His works, too, have found perhaps their greatest appreciation in New Zealand, Australia, and Canada. They have a primitive passionate force, and his nature stories appeal to a very wide circle of readers.”5 The obituary added that London’s works were “extraordinarily popular at the front and wherever soldiers are gathered together.” The secret of his appeal? “He was an honest writer, and although so virile, full-bodied and materialistic, he was a dreamer, with great visions of making the world better. He will be greatly regretted in America, where he was always extremely popular in spite of his Bohemianism and his somewhat unorthodox views with regard to labour and capital.” Indeed, London’s lifestyle and socialist beliefs were often controversial but also made headlines, and publicity—of any kind—was always welcome when it came to selling books.
There are many accounts of Jack London and his classic Horatio Alger life, as there are numerous literary analyses of his published works of many genres, from thrilling novels to socialist non-fiction. This book is neither, although it is necessarily biographical and literary in parts, and seeks to place London’s experience in the wider context of the history of publishing, reading, and authorship. Instead, this book aims to look behind the public persona and reveal a side of the author’s life that has been overlooked by academics and critics, yet is essential to understanding the character, drive, and success of this extraordinary man—namely, London’s publishing odyssey overseas. We shall ask how London achieved international fame, and what part he played in engineering his own success with his foreign publishers. At his death, London was a recognized “brand,” as readers looked forward to “the next Jack London book.” The answers to how this happened take us to his namesake city on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.
The English-language publishing world at the turn of the twentieth century was divided between two spheres of influence, America and England. England was the gateway to the British Empire and Dominions, as well as the European Continent. Landing an English publisher was akin to buying a round-the-world ticket for one’s book, in multiple affordable editions. The transatlantic road had been plowed successfully in the late nineteenth century by American authors such as Bret Harte and Mark Twain. As Jack London entered the world’s stage in 1902, two fellow Americans, Winston Churchill (no relation to the future Prime Minister)
4 Jack London, “Getting into Print,” The Editor, March 1903, in Dale L. Walker and Jeanne Campbell Reesman, editors, No Mentor but Myself: Jack London on Writers and Writing (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999), 57.
5 “Jack London: A Novelist’s Adventures,” The Times, November 24, 1916, 6.
and Owen Wister, were setting sales records as Yankee novelists in King Arthur’s Court. London burst onto the scene in 1903 with The Call of the Wild, and was a red-hot commodity afterwards. He was wooed by English publishers large and small, as well as by literary agents hungry for a share of his earnings. A clash of cultures was inevitable, with London impatient with traditional ways of doing business across the “Pond,” and maverick publishing barons confronted by the ravings of an easily agitated Californian. The characteristics that Earle Labor, London’s definitive biographer, describes—“hypersensitive, contentious, moody (possibly bipolar) . . . Famous for his ever-ready public smile and generousness of spirit, he was subject to spells of mordant invective and emotional cruelty”6—were all on display. Impulsive, bullying, and often unwilling to listen to reason, this freespirited, demanding author from the New World went through three agents and a half-dozen publishers over ten years before finally settling down with Mills & Boon (in the firm’s pre-romantic fiction days), a few years before his death.
What makes London’s dealings overseas especially interesting is that he made his own decisions, unlike many of his contemporaries who depended upon the goodwill of their literary agents and/or publishers. In America, he linked up early on with a mentor and friend in George P. Brett, president of Macmillan. It was a mutually beneficial arrangement that lasted for his sixteen years as a published author, and it has been well documented. It’s also not very exciting, as Brett called the shots in America. But London retained the all-important English book and serial rights, and so was able to try his hand at managing his own affairs. Hands-on he certainly was: having suffered through hundreds of rejections from publishers before landing his first contract, London was anxious to cut his own deals and control his destiny. He held all the cards—and was his own worst enemy. His ultimate success on the international front was only achieved when London swallowed his pride and learned to trust in the better judgment of others. His timing, however, was perfect. London helped to build the overseas market for his books by harnessing the tools of commercialization which were transforming the publishing industry—namely, more affordable books backed up by flashy advertising wrapped around the personality of the author, who in turn was becoming a “brand” of his own, issuing at least two books and several short stories every year.
The single-author focus of this book is unusual for a publishing history, but entirely warranted due to the richness of the primary source material and the deeply personal nature of the story. Jack London’s overseas adventure is revealed through his correspondence, and that is how this story will be told. He was a chronic letter writer (manna to an historian), and kept copies of letters sent and received. Most have survived, although they are scattered across several institutions coast-to-coast in America and in England. 7 By piecing letters together, conversations and
6 Earle Labor, Jack London: An American Life (New York, NY: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2013), xii. Of course, the concept and diagnosis of “bipolar disorder” did not exist in London’s time, and Labor is not a medical doctor, so one must tread carefully in suggesting a specific mental illness.
7 The principal repository of Jack London correspondence is the Huntington Library in San Marino, California. However, because London made carbon copies of most of his letters, signing the carbons as he did the originals, copies have found their way into other libraries: notably, Stanford
transactions are revealed—most hitherto hidden from history—as are the misunderstandings caused when letters (which could take up to three weeks to arrive) crossed in the mail. We are afforded a rare window into the complex triangular relationship between author, agent, and publisher; the behind-the-scenes horse-trading and deal making; the competitive nature of a changing industry; and the quest for fame and fortune. Emotions ran high, and the picture that emerges of London is not a pretty one. It was his way or nothing as he played the “writing game” right to the very end—and secured his place in history.
University, the University of Southern California, and Utah State University in Logan, Utah. Hence, there is much overlap. The Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature at the New York Public Library, and the British Library are useful for letters written to London from his publishers and agents. Outgoing and incoming letters were rarely filed together or kept in the same collection, making the piecing together of exchanges a particular challenge.
List of Figures
1. Isbister introduced English booksellers and readers to Jack London’s first short-story collection, The God of His Fathers, with this four-page promotional booklet in 1902. 18
2. Macmillan advertised heavily in America to promote Jack London’s second novel, The Call of the Wild, in 1903. 27
3. Serialization of The Sea-Wolf, Jack London’s third novel, started in The Century Magazine in January 1904. Century published editions in both America and England. 41
4. Methuen advertised White Fang in 1907 as a “Dog Story” to attract fans of Jack London’s previous bestseller, The Call of the Wild.
64
5. Cheap editions for sale at sixpence or higher, often with lurid covers, encouraged book sales of older titles among readers more accustomed to borrowing than buying. Publishers included (clockwise from top left) George Newnes, Thomas Nelson and Sons, Methuen, and Everett. 92
6. With colorful dust jackets, a uniform appearance, and extensive advertising, Mills & Boon built a Jack London “brand” that boosted sales in England and overseas.
7. Mills & Boon advertised extensively in 1914 for its first Jack London novel, The Valley of the Moon, including this superlative-laden postcard.
8. Even bad reviews of a Jack London novel could be turned into a provocative advertisement, as Mills & Boon did for The Jacket, 1915.
9. After the First World War, the largest European market for Jack London’s books was Weimar Germany. This catalogue heralded “The Favorite Writer of Our Generation” with thirty titles in translation and sales of one million by 1929.
114
126
148
163
List of Abbreviations
HUNT Jack London Papers, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California
LMET London Metropolitan Archives, City of London
NYPL The Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature, New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations
READ Special Collections, University of Reading, U.K. Formerly the Harlequin-Mills & Boon Archives
STAN Special Collections, Stanford University, Stanford, California
USCA Special Collections, University of Southern California Libraries, Los Angeles, California
UTAH Special Collections & Archives, Merrill-Cazier Library, Utah State University, Logan, Utah
Introduction
Commercial as this generation of writers may be, almost every writer of books has an ambition to win literary esteem. They want dignity. They seek reputation on as high a level as possible. “The trouble with the whole business” (I quote from a letter from a successful novelist) “is that novel-writing has become so very common. ‘Common’ is the word. It is no longer distinguished. What I want is distinction. Money I must have – some money at least; but I also want to be distinguished.” That is a frank confession that almost every writer makes sooner or later.1
A Publisher’s Confession, 1905
In 1905, George P. Brett, president of the Macmillan publishing house in America, sent a book to his star client, Jack London, to read. These were early days in the famous mentor–mentee relationship that began in 1902. With two veritable blockbuster novels already under his belt—The Call of the Wild (1903) and The Sea-Wolf (1904)—London was in demand by other publishers and literary agents. The book was called A Publisher’s Confession. “I do not myself believe in ‘crying baby’ in this fashion, but the book should be read, I think, by all popular authors so that they understand the other man’s point of view,”2 Brett advised.
Published by Doubleday, Page & Co., A Publisher’s Confession was written anonymously by Walter Hines Page, co-founder of the firm that was one of the most successful American publishing companies of the day and a rival of Macmillan’s.3 It was a frank, unbiased look at the reality of publishing at the turn of the century, taking on the misconceptions about royalties, production costs, and advertising, and debunking myths about authors and editors. It is at once encouraging and disheartening. To London it was fascinating, fueling his already obsessive interest in the industry. He wrote to Brett, “I have just read ‘A Publisher’s Confession’ and found it interesting and instructive, and have learned a lot out of it that I did not know about the relations of publishers and writers.”4
Brett’s desire for having London read this book is telling in more ways than one. Walter Hines Page was lamenting the current state of the publishing industry that was obsessed with profits, and paying out too much to “star” authors such as
1 A Publisher’s Confession (New York, NY: Doubleday, Page & Co., 1905), 67–8.
2 Letter, George P. Brett to Jack London, July 11,1905, HUNT JL 3046.
3 Walter Hines Page (1855–1918) was partner and vice-president of Doubleday, Page & Co. from 1900–1913, when he was appointed U.S. Ambassador to Britain by President Woodrow Wilson. Page was instrumental in persuading America to enter the First World War in 1917.
4 Letter, London to Brett, August 1, 1905, HUNT JL 11065.
London. Deals were brokered by agents, loyalties were tested, and the atmosphere resembled the Wild West in its tumult. The standard 10 percent royalty paid to authors was being challenged. Page recalled trying to reason with an author who demanded a contract with a 20 percent royalty and a $5,000 advance on royalties—terms that London himself would insist upon one day. For a novel with a standard sale price of $1.50, thirty cents of every copy sold went to the author, and only four cents to the publisher, when all bills were paid. “My profit is so small that it may vanish and become a loss by any misadventure, such as too much advertising, the printing of too large an edition, or the loss of an account with a failed bookdealer. I have no margin as an insurance against accidents or untoward events,” Page warned. “I am doing business with you on an unfairly generous basis. I am paying you all the money that the book can earn – perhaps more than it can earn – for the pleasure of having you on my list. If I make money, I must make it on books for which I pay a smaller royalty.”5 Of course, publishers made money, and plenty of it. But Page at this time does signal an industry that was on the verge of change, as the market became more commercialized, books were treated like commodities, and popular authors such as London were in great demand. Page, however, was a voice in the wilderness.
Page’s comments are interesting when one considers the publishing career of Jack London. He warned authors that loyalty to one publisher was far more important in the long run than hopping from firm to firm in search of a more lucrative contract. London would discover this in his relationship with Macmillan and with publishers overseas. Page offered a “true tale of a writer of good fiction” who “heard the noise of other publishing houses” and kept changing publishers with each new (and better) offer. “To cut the story short, that man now has books on five publishers’ lists,” Page explained. “Not one of the publishers counts him as his particular client. In a sense his books are all neglected. One has never helped another. He has got no cumulative result of his work. He has become a sort of stray dog in the publishing world. He has cordial relations with no publisher; and his literary product has really declined. He scattered his influence, and he is paying the natural penalty.” 6 The moral of the story, Page revealed, was a simple one: respect your publisher as a professional man, not simply as a businessman: “He can do his best service only for those authors who inspire his loyalty, who enable him to make his publishing house permanent, and who leave him enough margin of profit to permit him to make books of which he can be proud. The present fashion of a part of the writing world – to squeeze the last cent out of a book and to treat the publisher as a mere manufacturer and ‘boomer’ – cannot last.” 7 Jack London, as we will see, did not learn this lesson, and sales of his books—dispersed among a half-dozen publishers overseas—would suffer.
5 A Publisher’s Confession, 5–6. 6 Ibid., 15–16.
7 Ibid., 17. In publishing parlance, to “boom” a book was to promote and advertise extensively. This would become the hallmark of London’s last publisher in England, Mills & Boon.
Even so, Page concluded, the commercialization of publishing had crowded the market and created a new breed of author—one with elevated expectations. “Almost every writer of books has an ambition to win literary esteem. They want dignity. They seek reputation on as high a level as possible,” he noted. “ ‘The trouble with the whole business’ (I quote from a letter from a successful novelist) ‘is that novel-writing has become so very common. “Common” is the word. It is no longer distinguished. What I want is distinction. Money I must have – some money at least; but I also want to be distinguished.’ That is a frank confession that almost every writer makes sooner or later.”8 Jack London was no exception.
Walter Hines Page’s analysis of the state of the publishing industry and the expectation of authors—for better or worse—is prophetic when applied to Jack London. He was twenty-six years old in 1902, and writing was now his chosen career (having been a sailor, oyster pirate, hobo, and a prospector, among other colorful occupations). He was not ashamed to admit that he expected to be compensated well for his labors, especially as his debts continued to mount. London never forgot the lean, hungry years before he hit the big time, as he recalled in his autobiographical novel John Barleycorn (1913): “The trouble with the beginner at the writing game is the long, dry spells, when there is never an editor’s cheque and everything pawnable is pawned.”9
Money was important to London, but so was recognition of his opinions and a forum for his outsize talent (“distinction,” Page was told). To say he was only “in it for the money” (which is easy to assume, given the subject dominates his correspondence) is to overlook the astonishing range of topics, beyond adventure and romance, that are incorporated in his prose, including philosophy, psychology, evolution, socialism, and religion. Such subjects were hardly the stuff of bestsellers, but London did not care. He never wavered in his self-regard and would not tolerate rejections or criticism. He was certainly spoiled by Brett, who published everything he wrote, regardless of sales prospects, and only occasionally suggested edits. However, London agreed only up to a point that loyalty to a publisher (as Page insisted) was critical to an author’s success. If a better offer came around, he would jump—as he did in England, where his books would be spread among several firms, to long-term detriment. Publication was as important to him as a good deal—and why not?
As Page detailed, London’s debut coincided with a period of sweeping change in book publishing, on both sides of the Atlantic. Literacy levels were rising, and publishers responded to the new and larger reading public with popular magazines and more affordable books. The gentlemanly business of publishing was becoming more commercialized, and more competitive. While the scale of
8 Ibid., 67–8.
9 London, John Barleycorn, in Jack London: Novels and Social Writings (New York, NY: The Library of America, 1982), 1058.
the markets was vastly different in England and America, there were some similarities. The price of a first-edition novel in England was fixed (via the Net Book Agreement) at six shillings—the equivalent of $1.50, the American price at the time.10 Most first-edition sales in England were not directly to the public but to large circulating libraries such as Mudie’s and W.H. Smith, where books could be borrowed for as little as two pennies. The libraries placed large orders with publishers, subscribing these before publication. While this system provided a guaranteed market for new books, it hindered innovation and expansion, as librarians were disinclined to order more than one title by a given author at a time (a rule that would frustrate London). On the other hand, the library system did offer a significant advantage to authors in England: an expansion of the reading public, as a single book could be read by dozens of people. As in America, excitement for upcoming titles was generated through serial publication in popular magazines (a holdover from Victorian days), which brought more revenue to the author and encouraged readers to borrow or buy the book itself when published. Cheaper editions of titles, usually one year after initial publication and at a discount of up to 80 percent, were sold directly to readers at prices ranging from one shilling (twentyfive cents) to as little as six or seven pence (12–14 cents). Book-buying became an attractive alternative among readers used to book-borrowing, and prolific authors such as London would reap the rewards. It was a boom time for the industry. In England, the number of books published increased from 7,000 in 1900, to 12,379 in 1913.11 Industry experts regarded sales of an individual title of 5,000–10,000 copies as a “substantial success.” Anything over 10,000 copies was an “outstanding success.”12 The industry average, however, was much lower. H.G. Wells wrote to his mother in 1900 that his new novel, Love and Mr Lewisham, had just been published by Harper & Brothers in America and England. “They have sold 1,600 copies in England and 2,500 copies in the colonies before publication,” he reported, “and I think the book is almost certain to beat any previous book I have written in the matter of sales.”13 That would include War of the Worlds (1898). At the other end of the scale, in 1901 William Heinemann, Ltd., sold 200,000 copies of Hall Caine’s novel The Christian on publication day. Interestingly, Jack London never achieved sales like that, and rarely broke the bestseller lists, which were only just coming into vogue. And, yet, London is widely known and read today, while Caine and other bestselling authors of the time are not. As we will see, London’s longevity can be attributed in part to his writing output—forty-four books compared with, say, Caine’s eighteen—but, more importantly, to the aggressive promotion of cheaper editions and translations by his publishers, which kept his work in print and in vogue.
10 A note on old English currency. There were twenty shillings to the pound (£) and twelve pennies (or pence) to the shilling. A slash or a dash were used as abbreviations. For example, six shillings were shown as “6s.” or “6/-”; six pence as “6d.”. Three shillings and sixpence would be shown as “3s. 6d.” or “3/6”.
11 Frank Mumby and Ian Norrie, Publishing and Bookselling (London: Jonathan Cape, 1974), 20.
12 Philip Waller, Writers, Readers, and Reputations: Literary Life in Britain, 1870–1918 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 638, 702–3.
13 H.G. Wells, Experiment in Autobiography (London: Victor Gollancz Ltd, 1934), vol. II, 410.
In America, book sales were substantially higher, and most were sold directly to the public. Unlike in England, it was not altogether uncommon for a novel to have an initial print run of up to 100,000 copies.14 The size of the market was a challenge, Brett observed. “In a small country like Great Britain it is possible for a book to become known and be read throughout the land within twenty-four hours of its publication, so that readers may there all be said to be reading the same book at the same moment,” he noted, “whereas here we have waves of popularity in books, just as we have waves of popularity in songs, which may be heard first in New York and Eastern cities, later in Chicago and St. Louis, and usually last in San Francisco and the Southwestern cities.”15 Indeed, the uniqueness of the English market allowed foreign authors like London the chance to get noticed quickly and build a following among readers. Attempts by publishers to fix the price of books, as in England, were undercut by some retailers, leading to price wars. Flashy coast-to-coast advertising campaigns raised the profile of popular authors. The result, for a popular and prolific author like Jack London, was akin to an Eldorado. By 1909, London’s annual income from royalties topped $75,000 (more than $1 million today).16
As publishing became more competitive, popular authors were in demand. The literary agent, an English invention, appeared on the scene to assist the author in negotiating better terms. The agent would act on behalf of the author to secure the serialization rights of a book (or short story) in leading magazines, followed by a lucrative book contract—with the agent taking a 10 percent commission. Although some authors groused at having to employ an agent (and share the profits), Jack London was not one of them. In his zeal to publish widely and frequently, London enlisted two well-respected agents in England: Alexander P. Watt (often cited as the first literary agent), and his main rival, James B. Pinker. In New York, the uniquely named Paul Revere Reynolds, credited as the first literary agent in America, negotiated lucrative magazine deals directly with London or with Macmillan.
As London took his first steps on the world’s stage, he was guided by Brett, who set the standard. Brett was mentor, friend, critic, nursemaid, and banker. To London, publishers in England had to fit the Brett mold, as unrealistic as that may have seemed. Most tolerated London and his eccentricities, pandering to his desire for flattery while exploiting his potential. But London suspected them all. This was not uncommon among authors at the time. Samuel Clemens, a.k.a. Mark Twain, famously turned his back on the industry and started his own publishing company, managed by his nephew, Charles L. Webster. His first book, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), had an initial sale of 50,000 copies, and his two-volume
14 By way of example, Charles Scribner’s Sons in 1905 sold 30,000 copies of Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth in the first three weeks in 1905, the fastest sale of any title to date. In 1909, G.P. Putnam’s Sons shocked the industry with sales of one million copies of The Rosary by the English novelist Florence Barclay (Charles Madison, Book Publishing in America [New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 1966], 185, 202).
15 George Brett, “A Publisher’s View,” The Outlook, December 5, 1903, 778.
16 Alex Kershaw, Jack London: A Life (New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press, 1997), 212.
memoir by President Ulysses S. Grant (also 1885) was a bestseller.17 Across the Atlantic, George Bernard Shaw tangled with his publishers, always asserting his rights for more money and better promotion. “Publishing is a gamble,” Shaw reflected, “in which the publisher, who must make one best-seller pay for several duds, must take every advantage he can obtain, and that is up to the author to take care of himself.”18 Walter Hines Page would have understood, as did Jack London. The author hero of Martin Eden (1910), another autobiographical novel (London advised his agent, “See MARTIN EDEN for all sorts of my writing-autobiographical data. I merely took my own experience in the writing game and placed it in the book as Martin Eden’s experience.”19), discovers the hard way the “cursed paradox” of publishing which put the prospective author on guard:
Every portal to success in literature is guarded by those watch-dogs, the failures in literature. The editors, sub-editors, associate editors, most of them, and the manuscript-readers for the magazines and book-publishers, most of them, nearly all of them, are men who wanted to write and who have failed. And yet they, of all creatures under the sun the most unfit, are the very creatures who decide what shall and what shall not find its way into print – they, who have proved themselves not original, who have demonstrated that they lack the divine fire, sit in judgment upon originality and genius.20
With such cynicism, it is no wonder, as we will see, that Martin Eden would have trouble finding a publisher in England—and London would become persona non grata.
By becoming a success in England, Jack London could ensure a gateway to the rest of the English-speaking world, and a vehicle for translations (pirated and not) in other countries. How did he achieve this? First, London understood the “writing game” and was a master of self-promotion, arranging favorable reviews where possible, writing how-to articles, and keeping his name in the papers. “London quickly became engaged in more actively prompting his publisher in return once he learned how promotion worked,” Jonathan Auerbach noted, labeling London “the great American writer as star actor.”21 As a foreigner writing about exotic places, London stood out over his English rivals. Moreover, his bohemian lifestyle often made newspaper headlines overseas (especially when he took a sea voyage), lending considerable publicity value to his books. As such, he helped to build the market for his books by firing up the interest of his expanding audience. Second, London was prolific and insisted—better yet, demanded—that all of his works find a publisher. As book publishing entered the mass market at the turn of the century, this was an advantage for a publisher seeking to satisfy a reading public hungry for new titles. London’s sales were inconsistent, but he produced sufficient “big” books (The Call of the Wild, The Sea-Wolf, White Fang, Burning Daylight, The Valley of the
17 Madison, 119–20.
18 Letter, George Bernard Shaw to Stanley Unwin, June 19, 1929, in Michel W. Pharand, editor, Bernard Shaw and His Publishers (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009), 148–9.
19 Letter, London to Hughes Massie, January 4, 1913, HUNT JL 12664.
20 London, Martin Eden, in Jack London: Novels and Social Writings, 796.
21 Jonathan Auerbach, Male Call: Becoming Jack London (Durham: Duke University Press, 1996), 39.
Moon) to make him an attractive investment to a publisher. Furthermore, his extensive list of works was welcome fodder for cheaper editions which sold briskly, especially during the First World War, when London’s titles were often promoted as a list, advertised together like a brand. Third, London’s writing range was exceptional, appealing to readers of different interests and backgrounds. He was Everyman, whether taking on nature (hailed as the “American Kipling”) or offering somewhat radical political views. And finally, he was incredibly lucky. Brett was a sensible guiding hand, but only to a point. In England, London would cut ties and jeopardize friendships in search of more money, often with disastrous results. He kept on making the same mistakes and was unwilling to listen to reason until it was nearly too late. Fortunately for London, he had a following, and his reading public continued to grow.
But that is further down the road. For now, at the very beginning, London was brimming with confidence as he faced the publishing world and his first success. “You look back and see how hard you worked, and how poor you were, and how desperately anxious you were to succeed, and all you can remember is how happy you were,” he recalled to his daughter, Joan. “You were young, and you were working at something you believed in with all your heart, and you knew you were going to succeed!”22
Let the “writing game” begin.
22 Joan London, Jack London and His Times: An Unconventional Biography (New York, NY: Doubleday, Doran & Co., 1939), 194.
Two Suitors, 1902–1904
There is an ecstasy that marks the summit of life, and beyond which life cannot rise. And such is the paradox of living, this ecstasy comes when one is most alive, and it comes as a complete forgetfulness that one is alive. This ecstasy, this forgetfulness of living, comes to the artist, caught up and out of himself in a sheet of flame; it comes to the soldier, war-mad on a stricken field and refusing quarter; and it came to Buck, leading the pack, sounding the old wolf-cry, straining after the food that was alive and that fled swiftly before him through the moonlight. He was sounding the deeps of his nature, and of the parts of his nature that were deeper than he, going back into the womb of Time.1
Jack London, The Call of the Wild (1903)
In 1899, four years on from the publication of The Call of the Wild and still a novice as an author, Jack London was nonetheless surging with self-confidence. “How are you to cause the reading world to look eagerly for your work, to force publishers to pant for it?” he proposed to readers of The Editor. “You cannot expect to become original by following the blazed trail of another, by reflecting the radiations of some one else’s originality. No one broke ground for Scott or Dickens, for Poe or Longfellow, for George Eliot or Mrs. Humphry Ward, for Stevenson or Kipling, Anthony Hope, Stephen Crane, and many others of the lengthening list. Yet publishers and public have clamored for their ware. They conquered originality. And how? By not being silly weather-cocks, turning to every breeze that blows.”2
1 London, The Call of the Wild, in The Call of the Wild, White Fang, and Other Stories (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 34. The Call of the Wild was Jack London’s second, best known, and most successful novel. Set in the Yukon during the Klondike Gold Rush, it tells the story of Buck, a domesticated dog from California who is abducted and made part of an Alaskan sled team. Buck must learn to survive in the “wild” against all odds.
2 Jack London, “On the Writer’s Philosophy of Life,” The Editor, October 1899, in Dale L. Walker and Jeanne Campbell Reesman, editors, No Mentor but Myself: Jack London on Writers and Writing (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999), 8. Four years later, on the heels of the success of The Call of the Wild, London was more measured: “Don’t quit your job in order to write unless there is none dependent upon you. Fiction pays best of all, and when it is of a fair quality is more easily sold Avoid the unhappy ending, the harsh, the brutal, the tragic, the horrible – if you care to see in print the things you write. (In this connection don’t do as I do, but do as I say.)” London, “Getting into Print,” The Editor, March 1903, in Walker and Reesman, 56–7.
One cannot help but admire London’s chutzpah. He had only just emerged from a tsunami of rejections (266 in 1899 alone3) and yet believed he could offer advice to aspiring writers. By citing famous authors of old, along with the most popular writers of his day—Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage was a bestseller in 1896; Ward’s Helbeck of Bannisdale in 1898; and Kipling’s The Day’s Work in 1899— London aligned himself with success. In fact, all of the authors London cited would stand the test of time, as he would—quite unlike the blockbuster novelists of the turn of the century, such as Hall Caine and Marie Corelli. Originality, as London referenced, would prove the key to his longevity.
London had good reason to be optimistic: the most prestigious literary magazine in America, The Atlantic Monthly, had just accepted for publication his short story, “An Odyssey of the North,” offering the then-princely sum of $120, along with a free one-year subscription.4 Within one month he would have more good news: Houghton Mifflin, one of the most important publishing houses in America, offered a contract for his first book, a collection of short stories set in the Klondike (including “Odyssey”), entitled The Son of the Wolf. At twenty-three years old, with a lifetime of experiences already to his young name, London was well on his way to making his mark as a writer.
He was happy, and in a hurry. Life never moved at a slow pace for London, and within five years he would be the toast of America—and much of the world—for his groundbreaking novel, The Call of the Wild. His fascination with the craft of writing and the business of publishing would make him a hands-on author, one intimately involved in his unfolding career and interested in every aspect of it. In these formative years of London’s brief but glorious career, we glimpse his business philosophy as he maneuvered between three publishing houses on both sides of the Atlantic. In typical fashion, he would dive in head first, disregard good advice, and eventually come to his senses, as he planted the seeds of international success.
Jack London’s timing could not have been better. The turn of the century was also a turning point in the history of publishing. Never before had there been so many books and magazines published, on both sides of the Atlantic. The boom was a direct result of advances in literacy and cheaper methods of production, along with the growth of marketing, entertainment, and disposable income. Advertising was used more than ever before, and books became commodities, and their authors, celebrities. Author, historian, and social critic Walter Besant, who founded the Society of Authors, noted the phenomenon in England in his how-to book, published in 1899. “It is now well known that a respectable man of letters may command an income and a position quite equal to those of the average lawyer or
3 Auerbach, 29. Joan London recalled, “Many who visited him at this time are sure that they remember the five feet of rejection slips impaled on a sharpened wire which, they claim, was a prominent feature of his bedroom-study” (203).
4 At this time, $1 was worth about $20 today, so $120 was the equivalent of about $2,400 today. See <http://www.measuringworth.com> and “Approximate Values of Foreign Money,” The International Director of Booksellers and Bibliophile’s Manual (London, 1906), 452.
doctor,” he observed. “It is also well known that one who rises to the top may enjoy as much social consideration as a Bishop and as good an income.”5 The field was getting crowded, Besant noted: the 5,800 authors, editors, and journalists cited in the 1891 census had risen to 20,000 by 1899.
Clearly, an ambitious and aspiring author like London had a lot of competition. In England, there were four documented “bestseller” authors, to use the American distinction just coming into use: Marie Corelli (d. 1924), Hall Caine (d. 1931), Charles Garvice (d. 1920), and Nat Gould (d. 1919). Each author benefitted from reprintings in cheaper editions and from serializations in popular magazines. Each, moreover, was at once admired by the literary establishment for their pecuniary gain, and scorned for their perceived pandering to a mass readership.6 Corelli’s sales averaged 100,000 copies per year; Caine’s 45,000. Both authors combined a passionate romantic plot with wider social issues. Garvice, author of Just a Girl and other light romances, sold more than seven million books between 1899 and 1920. Similarly, Gould’s novels of the turf sold in the millions by 1912. His output averaged between four and five books per year. Surprisingly, no member of this esteemed quartet enjoys readership today, unlike London. Among American authors popular in England, Bret Harte, Mark Twain, and Stephen Crane were top sellers, and London would have been inspired by their success. Harte (d. 1902) is of particular interest. Like London, he was a master of the short story, known for his realism as much as romanticism, and colorful characters of the California Gold Rush. Harte is often cited as the first “author-celebrity” in the age of an emerging mass media. As his biographer explains, “His stories were reprinted all over the world, his doings and sayings were reported in newspapers large and small, and his image adorned their columns and was sold over the counter.”7 London, through his writings, speeches, bohemian lifestyle, and daring exploits as a sailor, would also be fodder for the press, and publicity always generated sales. Harte’s works were published simultaneously on both sides of the Atlantic, as London’s were. Harte employed A.P. Watt as his agent, as did London, and averaged an income from his works in England of around £1,750 a year, comparable to London’s earnings.8 He negotiated also regular salaries from his publishers to fund his writing, as did London.
Why were the majority of people, on both sides of the Atlantic, reading so much fiction? Mainly, for an escape. Thomas Greenwood, an English publisher and advocate of public libraries, observed in 1897 that all classes enjoyed the recreation and, occasionally, edification brought by novels and short stories. “The greatest minds of the age find their recreation and rest in fictional literature,” he observed, “and that alone is a reason why all classes should be allowed to partake of similar
5 Walter Besant, The Pen and the Book (London: Thomas Burleigh, 1899), vi–vii.
6 Joseph Conrad famously branded Corelli and Caine as “outside” literature and their readers “philistines.” His condemnation was ironic, as Conrad himself was always desperate for money, and depended on the patronage of his literary agent, James B. Pinker, to survive. See Peter McDonald, British Literary Culture and Publishing Practice, 1880–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 23ff.
7 Axel Nissen, Bret Harte: Prince and Pauper (Jackson, Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi, 2000), xvi.
8 Ibid., 199.
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C .
Robinson habitaculum fossâ et palis munit. — Docet socium
Germanicè loqui. — Ambo scapham fabricare statuunt.
N sanè, ex quo hanc in insulam advenerat, lætior fuerat
Robinsonis conditio. Hoc unum erat illi metuendum, ne barbari reverterentur ad socios repetendos, unde novis cruentisque præliis sibi cum iis certandum foret. Quin ille cohorruit, dum cogitaret in hoc ancipiti discrimine posse se versari, in quo sibi pereundum esset, aut sanguis hominum profundendus.
Res igitur postulabat ut ad suam ipsius defensionem nihil intentatum relinqueret. [154]Jam diù habitaculum suum castelli instar munire optaverat ; huc usque verò, quandiù vixerat solitarius, hanc spem penitùs abjecerat. Nunc autem, cùm adesset socius laboris, faciliùs hoc aggredi potuit. Itaque montis cacumen conscendit, ut meditaretur quomodò se tutiùs firmiùsque muniret ; atque hoc brevì excogitavit, cùm inde totam regionem oculis complecteretur. Statuit primum fossâ latâ altâque domicilium cingere, palis validioribus septâ, ac deinde rivum non procul ab habitaculo scatentem ita dividere, ut altera pars in fossâ, altera per medium atrium flueret, ne unquàm obsidione cinctus aquæ inopiâ laboraret.
Haud facile erat hæc omnia socio signis indicare. Hic verò cùm rem aliquâ ex parte intellexisset, ad littus procurrit, atque inde retulit varia instrumenta fodiendo apta, conchas scilicet magnas, lapidesque planos et acutos. Tum ambo opus inchoant. [155]
Jam intelligere satis in promptu est hoc quoque arduum fuisse. Fossa enim, ut esset idonea, sex pedum altitudinem, octo verò latitudinem requirebat. Ejus autem longitudo octoginta vel centum passus esse videbatur. Adde illos instrumentis ferreis, ligone, spathâ penitus carere. Palis quoque quadringentis ferè opus erat, quos unâ securi siliceâ coaptare et præacuere res erat profectò plena operæ et laboris. Prætereà, ut rivum in fossam deducerent, canalis erat per tumulum quemdam interpositum fodiendus.
Neque tamen, licet omnibus his difficultatibus circumventus, Robinson à proposito deterritus est. Sobriè quoque vivendi genus, et corpus labore exercendi consuetudo animum ei addiderat, quo carere ii solent qui, in otio educati, deliciis atque mollitie diffluunt.
Ambo nimirum socii à summo mane usque ad vesperam non alacri minùs quàm [156]strenuo animo operi incumbunt. Mirum itaque quantum vel instrumentis quàm minimè aptis adjuti in diem profecerint. Nec per duos menses continuos, vento obstante, barbari insulam invisêre. Itaque licuit sociis continuam operam munimentis dare, nec illis opus fuit sibi contra repentinam incursionem præcavere.
Robinson comitem, inter opus faciendum, germanicam linguam docuit, cujus ope animi cogitata cum socio communicare ardentissimè cupiebat. Hic autem tam docilem et attentum se præbuit, ut brevi tempore maximos progressus fecerit. In quo
Robinson eâdem arte usus est, quâ solers magister ut linguam Latinam Gallicamve discipulos doceat. Quoties nempè fieri potuit, eâ re, de quâ sermo erat, positâ antè oculos, distinctâ voce nomen ejus pronuntiabat. Cùm verò de ejusmodi rebus ageretur, quæ oculis subjici non poterant, vultu gestuque ità exprimere stu[157]duit, ut Vendredi anno dimidio nondum exacto Robinsonem intelligere, cogitationumque participem eum facere posset.
Quodquidem multum Robinsonis felicitati adjecit. Huc usque enim socium quidem, sed mutum eum habuerat ; tum verò amicum sibi comparavit. Vendredi enim semper honestum, candidum, fidelem gratumque domino se præstitit. Itaque Robinson cariorem eum in dies habuit, ac brevi tempore elapso non dubitavit hoc ei concedere, ut in eâdem speluncâ secum pernoctaret.
Duorum ferè mensium spatio fossa absoluta fuit. Quo facto, ita muniti erant, ut jam barbarorum impetum non modò non extimescere, sed eos etiam, si unquàm oppugnarent arcem, possent repellere. Priùs enim quàm ullus fossam transiret aut palos superaret, ab obsessis aut sagittis interfici, aut hastis transfodi impunè poterat. Itaque securitati suæ nunc satis consuluisse videbantur. [158]
Cùm non ita multo post Robinson sociusque collem littori vicinum fortè conscendissent, unde maris adspectus longè et latè patebat, Vendredi oculos in quamdam ejus partem intendit, ubi insulæ aliquot eminentes conspici è longinquo poterant. Tum ille subito præ lætitiâ exsultare atque mirum in modum gestire cœpit. Quâ de re interrogatus à Robinsone lætus ille exclamat ! « En ego patriam adspicio ! ibi gens mea habitat. » Vultu verò, oculis gestuque
significabat quàm cara sibi esset patria, ac quantoperè illam revisere optaret. Quod quidem Robinsoni minimè placuit. Erat sanè affectus ille animi in viro laudabilis, quo declarabat caram esse patriam, caros amicos, caros parentes. Nascitur enim nobiscum sensus ille, et, quæcumque illa sit quam primo quisque cognovit intuitu, vel signavit vestigio, nulla magis regio arridet. Sed veritus ne popularium amantior ipsum aliquandò desereret, animum ejus pertentare voluit, et sic colloquium cum eo [159]iniit, ex quo optima ejus indoles patuit apertiùs.
R . Num tu ad populares tuos redire et cum iis habitare malles ?
V . Libenter equidem eos reviserem.
R . Scilicet optares carne humanâ cum iis vesci ?
V . Minimè ! Eos potiùs ad mores humaniores traducerem, doceremque vesci lacte et carne animalium, et inprimis ab humanâ abstinere.
R . Quid ? si te ipsum devorarent ?
V . Hoc illi non facient.
R . Attamen illi vescuntur carne humanâ.
V . Sanè illi quidem ; sed nonnisi carne hostium.
R . An tu scapham conficere potes, quâ ad eos transveharis ?
V . Sanè quidem !
R . Euge ! confice tibi scapham, atque [160]ad illos revertere.
Quid ! dejicis oculos ! unde sic doles ?
V . Doleo quippe, quod dominus mihi carissimus irascatur.
R . Cur verò tibi irascar ?
V . Ita res est ; quippe ille me à se relegatum velit.
R . Anteà verò optabas redire in patriam ?
V . Optavi equidem : nisi verò dominus meus ibi mecum versetur, ibi quoque ego versari nolim.
R . Me quidem populares tui hostem existimantes interficient devorabuntque. Tu igitur solus proficiscere.
Quibus auditis, Vendredi arreptam securim domino reddit porrectâ cervice.
R . Quid vis ego faciam ?
V . Ut me interficias. Malim ego à te interfici quam relegari.
His dictis, Vendredi vim lacrymarum profundit. Robinson autem vehementissimè commotus eum amplectitur, excla[161]mans : « Noli timere, ô bone. Ego quoque opto ut nunquam à te divellar ; ex animo enim te diligo. Quæ anteà dixi, hæc ad fidem tuam explorandam dicta sunt, ut intelligerem an tuus meo amori amor par esset. Quas vides lacrymas, eæ testes sunt caritatis meæ. Ego te iterum amplectar ; fletum teneamus, nec alter alterum unquàm deserat. »
Itaque ut animum amici à mœrore averteret, init sermonem de scaphâ quâdam fabricandâ, pluraque eâ de re sciscitatur. Cùm Vendredi responsis Robinsoni abundè satisfecisset, hic illum manu prehensum secum abduxit, ut ostenderet cymbam, cui fabricandæ ipse permultos jam annos impenderat. Vendredi, truncum intuens, vix tertiâ parte excavatum, subrisit. Cùm autem Robinson ex eo quæsiisset, quidnam illi in hoc opere minùs probaretur, Vendredi respondit minimè opus fuisse tanto isto labore, ejusmodi truncum intra paucos dies meliùs excavari posse. [162]
Quibus auditis, Robinson vehementer lætatus est. Jam cymbam omninò confectam sibi fingebat animo, et navigatione feliciter peractâ ad continentem terram appellere sibi videbatur. Ô quanta illi lætitia, cùm spes libertatis recuperandæ arrisit ! Et subitò constituunt opus proximo mane aggredi. [163]
C .
Pluviarum tempus. — Socii nectunt stragulas, retia. — Cymba conficitur.
I die operi destinatâ, aderat pluviarum tempus : quod bis per annum ingruere Robinson non unius anni experientiâ didicerat. Quo tempore per duos menses perpetuos nulli negotio vacare extra domum licebat ; tantâ vi continuus imber ruebat de cœlo ! Animadverterat quoque Robinson esse valetudini omninò contrarium illâ tempestate foras exire. Quid igitur faciendum erat ? Dilatâ navis confectione, tempus in laboribus domesticis consumendum fuit.
Quantùm profuit Robinsoni per dies illos pluvios, atque horas vespertinas lon[164]gas easdem obscurasque igne uti et lumine, amicumque habere, quîcum tempus inter opera domestica jucundis confabulationibus traduceret ! Anteà enim tristes istas noctes solitarius in otio et tenebris degerat. Jam verò cum socio ad lampadem et focum sedens, in aliquâ re gerendâ occupatus, confabulatur, neque unquàm gravi desidiæ pondere opprimitur
Atque ex socio didicit varias artes quibus barbari nonnullas sibi commoditates comparant ; Robinson quoque multa illum docuit, quæ barbaris latent. Ita in dies peritiores facti multa junctâ operâ confecêre, quæ neuter solus suscipere potuisset. Tum ambo
intellexêre quanta ex hominum amicâ conspiratione oriantur commoda, quibus illi carerent, si bestiarum more singuli vagarentur. In primis Vendredi artem callebat, quâ tenues densasque libro stragulas necteret corpori vestiendo aptissimas. Quod cùm Robinson ex eo didicisset, tum illi certatim tam multas ejusmodi texuerunt, [165]ut idoneum utrique vestimentum suppeteret. Ô quàm jucundum
Robinsoni fuit abjicere amiculum istud molestum, è pellibus rigidis nec subactis confectum, quo huc usque corpus ipsi tegendum fuerat !
Vendredi etiam è fibris nucum cocossæ variisque herbis lini naturam referentibus fila educendi artem tenebat, quæ funiculos à Robinsone huc usque confectos longè superabant. È filis retia piscatoria proprio ac singulari artificio nectebat. Quibus in operibus fabricandis breviores factæ sunt vesperæ, quæ, omnibus his deficientibus, multùm ipsis tædii attulissent.
Intereà dum sedent, Robinson amici ingenium rude sensim excolere, ejusque mentem certâ verâque notitiâ Dei imbuere. Quantis verò erroribus mens illius hâc in re laboraverit, ex sequenti confabulatione facile erit intelligere.
R . Dic mihi, quæso, ô bone, nostine quis mare, quis terram, quis animalia, te ipsum denique creaverit ? [166]
V . Profecto ! Toupan ista creavit.
R . Quisnam est Toupan ille ?
V . Is qui tonat.
R . Quisnam verò ille est qui tonat ?
V . Senex est ætate provectissimus, qui omnibus cæteris rebus superstes est, quique tonitru efficit. Ætate solem, lunam stellasque longè superat, omnesque animantes eum adorant, Ô ! dicentes.
R . Quemnam in locum post mortem commigrant tui populares ?
V . Ad Toupan revertuntur.
R . Ubinam verò ille habitat ?
V . In excelsis montibus.
R . Num aliquis eum ibi vidit ?
V . Nemini fas est eum adire, nisi Owokakeis (id est sacerdotibus). Illi Ô dicentes eum interrogant, ac deinde nobis referunt ejus responsa.
R . Qui autem post mortem ad eum migrant, num felicitate aliquâ fruuntur ?
V . Sanè illi quidem, si magnam [167]hostium copiam mactaverint atque comederint.
Quo audito, Robinson cohorruit, statimque illum meliora de Deo vitâque futurâ docere cœpit ; Deum nempe esse omnipotentem, sapientissimum benignissimumque ; qui omnia creaverit, omnia regat, omnibus consulat ; ipsum autem nunquàm originem habuisse, ubique adesse, illam intelligere quæcumque nos cogitamus, audire
quæcumque loquimur, videre quæcumque agimus, quamvis ipse à nemine videri queat ; habere proborum atque improborum rationem ; eamque ob causam cùm in hâc, tum in futurâ vitâ neminem beatum reddere, nisi illum qui ex animo virtuti studuerit.
Quæ præclara plenaque solatii præcepta Vendredi magnâ cum reverentiâ audiit, auditaque altè in animo infixit. Cùm magister non minori docendi, quàm discipulus discendi studio flagraret, hic brevì præcipuam de Deo ac religione doctrinam te[168]nuit, quantùm huic ille explanare poterat. Ex eo tempore Vendredi felicissimum se existimavit quòd in hanc insulam deferri sibi contigisset.
Posteà Robinson preces suas semper præsente socio fundere solebat ; jucundissimumque adspectu fuisset, quanto gaudio, quantâ pietate hic verba domini ad verbum sequeretur. Tunc verò tantâ ambo felicitate fruebantur, quantam assequi possunt homines ab humanâ societate sejuncti. Sic elapsum est pluviarum tempus ullâ sine molestiâ. Cœlo tandem serena facies redierat ; cessabant venti, nimbique aufugerant. Robinson cum fido socio puram tepidamque auram veris spirat. Ambo novis viribus auctos se sentiunt, atque alacri animo ad arduum opus susceptum se accingunt.
Vendredi admoto igne truncum excavavit, atque duos intra menses id absolvit ; quod ægrè multorum annorum spatio Robinson solus confecisset. Jam præter vela [169]remosque nihil defuit. Hos quidem Robinson, illa verò Vendredi paraturum se spondet.
Ambo simul opus susceptum absolvêre ; sed instructâ navi, nihil superfuit nisi ut hæc à littore in mare demitteretur. Quoniam verò locus, in quo navem fabricaverant, longè à mari distabat, non satis patebat quâ ratione, ut erat gravissima, ad mare aut deduceretur, aut
deportaretur, aut traheretur, aut denique provolveretur. Et nunc ex illis difficultatibus quomodo se expedient ?
Neque verò Robinson oblitus erat utilitatis quam longa pertica ipsi præstiterat. Quam ob rem nunc quoque illam adhibuit. Sed navis tam lentè provoluta est, ut facilè intelligerent se integrum mensem in hâc operâ consumpturos esse.
Tandem opportunè recordatus est alius instrumenti æquè simplicis parabilisque, quo fabri lignarii aliique in Europâ uti [170]solent ad magna pondera promovenda, cylindri nimirùm.
Quod quidem vix Robinson expertus magnâ cum lætitiâ vidit quàm facilè navis promoveretur. Post biduum mari quoque committi potuit, magnoque cum voluptatis sensu uterque comperit illam ad navigandum prorsus esse idoneam.
Jam nihil superfuit nisi ut quæ ad proficiscendum essent necessaria pararentur, scilicet ut navis tot oneraretur commeatibus quot vehendis sufficeret. Quonam verò illi tendent ? Vendredi optabat ut in patriam rediret ; Robinson autem, ut ad continentem Americæ vela darentur, ubi se Hispanos, aliosque ab Europâ profectos inventurum sperabat. Vendredi verò patria nonnisi quatuor circiter milliaribus aberat, terra continens duodecim aut quindecim. Quod si priùs ad insulam tenderent, tunc à continenti terrâ pluribus adhuc milliaribus recedebant, atque hoc ipso periculum itineris augebatur. [171]
Vendredi nihil ex iis quæ pertinent ad naturam maris noverat nisi quod necesse esset ut ad insulam suam perveniret. Ista autem
magis etiam Robinson ignorabat, quoniam in hoc mari nunquàm navigaverat.
Tandem quâ Robinson ardebat homines humanitate excultos revisendi cupiditas omnem dubitationem vicit. Quamvis Vendredi instaret, multaque et varia objiceret, statutum est proximo die iter parare, et ubi primùm ventus adspiraret, vela dare, Deoque favente illuc tendere ubi Vendredi sperabat se proximam continentis oram inventurum.
[172]
C .
Robinson et Vendredi, insulâ relictâ, mari se committunt. — Summa pericula in quibus versantur.
R , arce relictâ, in tumulo imminente restitit, secum paulisper meditaturus, sociumque præire jussit. Tum vitæ solitariæ hìc actæ vicissitudines mente repetit ; ac recordatus quanta accepisset à supremo numine beneficia, lacrymas grati animi indices effundit, manibusque expansis, ex intimo pectore summâ cum pietate Deo gratias agit.
Tum regionem illam, eò sibi cariorem, quòd eam mox relicturus erat, oculis perlustravit. Hominis instar qui patriam linquit nullâ cum spe illius unquàm revisendæ, [173]oculi tristes madentesque in arbore quâvis cujus umbrâ olim recreatus fuerat, in opere quolibet quod propriis manibus multoque sudore confecerat, defixi hærent. Ab amicis disjungi sibi videtur Cùm verò tandem lamas ad imum montem pascentes conspexisset, faciem avertit, ne carissimorum sibi animantium adspectu ipse à proposito consilio avocaretur
Tandem vicit caritatem animi constantia. Ad fortitudinem se ipse exacuit, ulnisque ad regionem totam, veluti eam amplexurus, expansis, clarâ voce exclamavit : « Valete, ô calamitatum mearum
testes ! valete ! » Atque hoc ultimo vale inter singultus emisso, in viam quæ ad littus ducebat, se contulit.
Eundo fidissimum sibi psittacum per arbores volitando sequentem animadvertit. Tum verò victus voluntate ejus secum abducendi, vocat Pol, Pol. Ille verò celerrimè desilit, atque è domini manu in humerum provolat. Intereà Vendredi moræ [174]impatiens in littore exspectabat ; cùmque Robinson ad eum pervenisset, ambo navem conscendunt.
Tricesimo die novembris, horâ octavâ matutinâ, anno post Robinsonis in hanc insulam adventum nono, cœlo serenissimo, ventoque maximè secundo profecti sunt. Vix autem circiter duo millia passuum progressi, ad continuam scopulorum seriem pervenêre longè in mare procurrentem. Uterque periculosum putavit saxa ista superare : itaque velo in aliam partem directo, circumire nituntur. Cùm autem illi extremam partem scopulorum vix attigissent, scapham summâ cum velocitate abripi animadvertunt : exterriti ambo velum colligere, existimantes quippe repentinum esse venti impetum. Frustra verò. Scapha enim in præceps prona rapitur, medioque in flumine marino versari se intelligunt.
Tum ambo viribus conjunctis remis pertinaciùs mare verberare, si possint sca[175]pham eripere. Illa verò fugit, instar sagittæ, tantâ celeritate, ut brevì ora insulæ oculis subtraheretur. Jam in discrimen vitæ se pervenisse sentiunt ; nec multò post summa quoque montium cacumina ex adspectu recessêre. Quòd si tunc etiam impetus paululum remisisset, actum tamen de illis erat ; quippe qui, cùm carerent pixide nauticâ, viam invenire non possent, quâ ad insulam reverterentur. Quid autem tetrius excogitari potest quàm
medio in oceano scaphâ exiguâ fragilique vectos jactari, et solo aliquot dierum victu instructos !
Quanto autem præsidio sincera pietas integraque animi conscientia iis sit qui in calamitatibus versantur, nunc documento est Robinsonis conditio. Quibus si noster tunc caruisset, quomodò malorum vim denuò urgentem sustinuisset ? In hâc rerum desperatione manus sibi intulisset violentas, ne morte omnium sævissimâ, fame scilicet, necaretur.
Socius verò pietate nondum satis confir[176]matâ, nec diuturnis calamitatibus spectatâ, de salute prorsùs desperabat. Corporis enim et animi viribus fractis, remum abjicit ; vecorsque et amens dominum intuetur interrogans, annon satiùs sit è nave se præcipites in profundum dare, an morte celerrimâ instantibus malis se eripiant. Initio Robinson blandis verbis eum erigere firmareque tentat ; tum castigator desperationis leni voce exprobrat, quod tam parùm Deo benignissimo confidat, eique revocat in mentem quæ ipsum de divinâ providentiâ docuerat. Vendredi, Robinsonis cohortationibus permotus, erubuit ; remisque receptis ambo flumen subigere, nec brachia remittere, etsi nulla spes salutis affulgebat. « Debito, inquit Robinson, officio fungimur. Quandiù spiritus non deficit, nostrum est ad vitam servandam omnibus quæ supersunt nervis eniti. Tunc, si ad ultimum moriendum est, morientibus erit solatio, quod Deus sic voluerit. »
Intereà flumen eâdem cum violentiâ ruit. [177]Scapha æstu abripitur, omnisque spes salutis recuperandæ evanescit.
Verùm enim verò cùm jam mortales animis deficiunt, cùm sunt ab omni spe destituti, tunc alma numinis providentia iis præsentius
auxilium atque insperatam salutem afferre solet. Robinson ipse exhaustus remum agere desierat, cùm subitò animadvertit scapham cursu ferri non tam rapido, nec tam turbidum mare esse. Mox è superficie undarum intelligit flumen eo loco dividi haud æqualiter, maximamque ejus partem ad septentrionem incitatiùs ferri ; alteram tardiorem, quâ scapha nunc vehitur, reflectere se et convertere ad meridiem. Jam incredibili lætitiâ perfusus, socium exanimatum excitat his verbis : « Macte animo, Vendredi ; vult Deus nos bene sperare. » Atque eum docet unde hanc in spem adductus sit. Tum ambo remos denuò arripiunt, quos propter infirmitatem anteà abjecerant. Jam dulci atque inopinatâ salutis spe recreati, vi summâ [178]et incredibili adversùs flumen nitentes, læti animadvertunt laborem suum non esse irritum. Robinson, qui diuturnâ malorum exercitatione didicerat nihil omittere, ventum quoque nunc secundum esse animadvertit. Extemplò velum expandit ; brevique tum vento, tum acri remigio impulsa, in mare tranquillum scapha delata est.
Vendredi præ gaudio exsilit dominum amplexurus. Ille verò eum rogavit ut nimium lætitiæ impetum cohiberet ; superesse aliquid agendum, et hoc quidem non mediocre, donec essent ab omni periculo tuti. Eò usque enim in altum devecti fuerant, ut insulam, ceu punctum aliquod in extremâ parte remotum, obscurè conspicerent.
Dum sic ambo ingenti alacritate remigant, vento secundo impulsi ad eam insulæ partem quæ orientem spectat, brevì montium cacumina rursus eminentia vident. « Macte, puer, » ait Robinson socio sedenti in prorâ, vultu ab insulâ averso ; « macte [179]animo ; adest finis malorum. » Quibus vix etiam dictis, novus subitò et major pristino terror incutitur. Scapha enim tam vehementer acta est, ut ambo remiges sedibus in infimam scaphæ partem deturbarentur : illa repentè hæsit in vado, undisque operta est superfusis.
C .
Ambo è periculo se expediunt. — Reversi in insulam, hortum colunt. — Piscantur ; natant ; venantur. — Novum iter suscipiunt.
R celerrimè remo fundum aquæ scrutatur : quem cùm satis firmum invenisset, aquam verò duobus tantùm pedibus altam, illicò è scaphâ se projicit. Vendredi sequitur ; et ambo aliquantisper confirmati sunt, cùm animadverterunt cymbam in arenâ, non in saxo hærere. Tum viribus conjunctis illam levare, eòque impellere ubi major erat aquæ altitudo : quod ex voto cessit. Navis quippe agi incipit, amboque in eam rursùs conscenderunt.
Aquâ igitur, quantùm manibus remisque [181]fieri potuit, exhaustâ, cautiùs agere cœperunt, contractoque velo remis tantùm uti, ut navem certiùs regerent. Attamen per quatuor horas integras, multus labor ipsis exsudandus fuit, ut finem arenarum assequerentur Tandem mari libero potiti, omnibusque viribus connisi ad insulam tendunt, quæ jam propè ante oculos erat ; et quò propiùs spes admovebatur, eò magis crescebat ardor animorum ; ac denique insulam capiunt, cùm jam umbræ summis de montibus caderent. Tum in terram descendunt eò majore cum gaudio, quò propiùs metum res fuerat.
Cùm uterque hoc die cibis planè abstinuisset, in littore statim consident, sumptisque commeatibus quibus navem instruxerant, corpus reficiunt. Tum scapham in angustum maris sinum protrahunt ; cætera verò quæ in nave secum habuerant, domum reportant.
Proximo die, Robinson socium compellat his verbis : « Heus, inquit, estne tibi [182]animus novum mecum periculum tentare ? »
V . Minimè sanè !
R . Statuisti ergò vitam hâc in insulâ mecum traducere ?
V . Modò pater meus hìc etiam nobiscum versetur.
R . Ergòne pater tuus etiamnunc vivit ?
V . Dummodò interim non sit mortuus.
His dictis, Vendredi, vehementer commotus, emisso solanorum tubere, quod manu tenebat, flevit abundè. Nec ipse, suorum quoque memor, Robinson à lacrymis abstinere potuit ; amboque, animo pariter affecti, aliquandiù siluêre.
R Bono sis animo, Vendredi ! Pater tuus, etiamnunc profectò vivit : proximè ad eum proficiscemur, atque hùc illum transvehemus.
His dictis Vendredi tantâ effertur lætitiâ, ut jam continere se nequeat ; clamore gestuque significat quibus exsultet gaudiis, [183]oppressâque crebris singultibus voce genua domini amplectitur
Cùm sedato paululum animo ad se rediisset, Robinson eum interrogavit an viæ in patriam insulam ducentis gnarus esset, ne temerè anceps vitæ discrimen rursùs adirent. Ille verò respondit iter
habere se ita exploratum, ut vel noctu illud suscipere auderet ; sæpiùs enim se cum popularibus hùc ad celebrandas victorias venisse.
R . Tunc igitur cædis particeps fuisti, cùm homines mactaverunt quibus epularentur ?
V . Fui equidem, fateor ! tunc autem ignorabam nefas esse.
R . Quamnam verò ad partem insulæ navem appellere consuevistis ?
V . Ad meridionalem oram, quoniam illa nobis proxima, arboribusque cocossæis abundat.
Ex hoc Robinson magis intellexit se nec sic quidem parùm felicem fuisse quòd in [184]septentrionali, non in meridionali insulæ orâ naufragium fecerit ; alioquin se prædam imbellem feris hominibus futurum fuisse. Ac denuò pollicetur se cum eo proximè ad patrem arcessendum profecturum esse : sed quanquam animo cupienti nihil satis festinatur, innuit hoc in præsens fieri non posse ; nunc enim horti colendi tempus instare.
Illi igitur statim huic præcipuè negotio operam dant. Certamen erat Robinsonem inter et socium, uter diligentiùs terram sollicitaret. Cùm autem à labore vacarent, instrumentis aptioribus conficiendis tempus impendebant.
Robinson, cujus patientiam ingenium æquabat, rastrum quoque tandem confecit sibi, etsi ad aperienda foramina nihil habebat adjumento præter acutum silicem. Si quis consideraverit quali instrumento opifex uteretur, facile intelliget quantùm temporis in
