George Gissing: A Fan's Commonplace Blog

Commonplace 169  George & Being An 'Author By Profession'. PART TWO.

With works by Jean Arp (1866-1966).

'Calamities of Authors: Including Some Inquiries Respecting Their Moral and Literary Characters, Volume 1' by Isaac D'Israeli gives us an insight into the early nineteenth century views on the business of writing. George must have read it - one of the central themes of New Grub Street (Art versus commercialism) could have been lifted from it piecemeal! And George would have identified with the sentiments Isaac expressed on the poverty and neglect most writers experience when they are struggling for recognition. 

Shirt Front And Fork by Hans Arp 1922

Let's take a look at what Isaac says in his introduction. 

The chief object of the present work is to ascertain some doubtful yet important points concerning Authors. The title of Author still retains its seduction among our youth, and is consecrated by ages. Yet what affectionate parent, would consent- to see his son devote himself to his pen as a profession? The studies of a true Author insulate him in society, exacting daily labours; yet he will receive but little encouragement, and less remuneration

 It will be found that the most successful Author can obtain no equivalent for the labours of his life. I have endeavoured to ascertain this fact, to develop the causes, and to paint the variety of evils that naturally result from the disappointments of genius. Authors themselves never discover this melancholy truth till they have yielded to an impulse, and adopted a profession, too late in life to resist the one, or abandon the other.

Whoever labours without hope, a painful state to which Authors are at length reduced, may surely be placed among the most injured class in the community. Most Authors close their lives in apathy or despair, and too many live by means which few of them would not blush to describe.

Besides this perpetual struggle with penury, there are also moral causes which influence the Literary Character, fertile in calamities. I have drawn the individual characters and feelings of Authors from their own confessions, or deduced them from the prevailing events of their lives; and often discovered them in their secret history, as it floats on tradition, or lies concealed in authentic and original documents.

The title of Author is venerable; and, in the ranks of national glory, authors mingle with its Heroes and its Patriots. It was, indeed, by our authors, that foreigners have been taught most to esteem us; and this remarkably appears in the expression of Gemelli, the Italian traveller round the world, who wrote about the year 1700; for he told all Europe that “he could find nothing amongst us but our “writings to distinguish us from the worst “ of barbarians.” But to become an “Author by Profession,” is to have no other means of subsistence, than such as are extracted from the quill; and no one believes these to be so precarious as they really are, until disappointed, distressed, and thrown out of every pursuit by which he can derive a maintenance, the noblest mind often sinks to a venal dependant, or a sordid labourer. Literature abounds with instances of “Authors by Profession” accommodating themselves to both these inconveniences. By vile artifices of faction and popularity their moral sense is equally injured, whether in prose or verse, while the Literary Character sits in that study which he ought to dignify, merely, as one of them sings, “ To keep his mutton twirling at the fire.”

And, as another said, that “he is a fool ‘who is a grain honester than the times’ he lives in.”

Let it not, therefore, be conceived that I mean to degrade, or vilify, the Literary Character, when I would only separate The Author from those pollutors (sic) of the press, who have turned a vestal into a prostitute; a grotesque race of famished buffoons or laughing assassins; or that other populace of unhappy beings, who are driven to perish in their garrets, unknown and unregarded by all, for illusions which even their calamities cannot disperse. Poverty, said an Ancient, is a sacred thing—it is, indeed, so sacred, that it creates a sympathy even for those who have incurred it by their folly, or plead by it for their crimes.

Arranged As To The Laws Of Chance 1917

How George would have agreed with the part about poverty being such a 'sacred thing' that it creates 'sympathy' in others even if it was caused by 'crimes' - which pretty much sums up George's early failures, doesn't it? After a high-flying start in his youth, he blew chances for a university education by stealing from his peers at Owens College, for which he was briefly jailed. And remember all the mileage George got from his early days when he claimed to have lived in poverty and great want (later debunked by Austin Harrison, son of Frederic and one of George's pupils)? And then there is George's notorious need for sympathy?? In fact, the whole of his early adulthood is encompassed here! 

In Volume I, Isaac reserves particular scorn for William Guthrie who described himself as ‘An Author By Profession’. According to Isaac, he was a sort of literary mercenary, who sold his services to George III for an annual fee of £200. Guthrie was prepared to rewrite history so as to better represent his employer at a time when Revolution was in the air, and the People needed to be kept on the King’s side. Isaac goes on to say this sort of playing with facts was rife during the English Civil War when the better educated Royalists circulated black propaganda about the Parliamentarians that the latter couldn't counter because of their lack of literacy. This was also the beginning of ‘tabloid journalism’ where partisan publications slanted their stories to suit a particular faction. Isaac mentions Sir John Birkenhead (1615-1679), described here as ‘bantering and profligate’, one of the first to make use of editorial influence to voice his pro-Royalist sympathies. Another mention goes to Marchmont Needham (1629-1678) ‘the Cobbett of his day…versatile and unprincipled’ who did the same for Cromwell, and Robert L’Strange (1616-1704), another Royalist, and a literary cove who published a translation of Aesop’s Fables. All are early versions of spin doctors who fed stories to the press to influence public opinion, but to read even their entries in Wikipedia is to realise they don’t make ‘em like they used to. L’Strange led such an interesting life of adventure characterised by enormous chutzpah, that to have known him must have been a fascinating journey. A downloadable copy of L’Strange’s 'Aesop' is available free on Google Play, and it’s well worth a look. Note to Andrew Motion or Peter Ackroyd – a biog please. And, to read more about Cobbett, who 'bestrode his narrow world like a Colossus', click. (I am limbering up for the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death with this Julius Caesar Scene II quote!). 

Six White Forms And One Grey Make A Constellation On A Blue Ground 1953

Isaac includes his cautionary tale about the rise and fall of Nicholas Amhurst (1697-1742):

Look on the fate and fortune of Amhurst. The life of this “Author by Profession” points a moral. He flourished about the year 1730. He passed through a youth of iniquity, and was expelled his college for his irregularities: he had exhibited no marks of regeneration when he assailed the university with the periodical paper of the Terrae Filius; a witty Saturnalian effusion on the manners and Toryism of Oxford, where the portraits have an extravagant kind of likeness, and are so false and so true that they were universally relished and individually understood. Amhurst, having lost his character, hastened to reform the morals and politics of the nation. For near twenty years he toiled at “The Craftsman,” of which ten thousand are said to have been ‘sold in one day’. Admire this patriot! An expelled collegian becomes an outrageous zealot for popular reform, and an intrepid Whig can bend to be yoked to all the drudgery of a faction! Amhurst succeeded in writing out the minister, and writing in Bolingbroke and Pulteney. Now came the hour of gratitude and generosity! His patrons mounted into power - but - they silently dropped the instrument of their ascension. The political prostitute stood shivering at the gate of preferment, which his masters had for ever flung against him. He died broken-hearted, and owed the charity of a grave to his bookseller. Note: a 'Terrae Filius' was an undergraduate at Oxford recruited to deliver an amusing speech.

In commercial times, the hope of profit is always a stimulating, but a degrading motive; it dims the clearest intellect, it stills the proudest feelings. Habit and prejudice will soon reconcile even genius to the work of money, and to avow the motive without a blush. “An Author by Profession,” at once ingenious and ingenuous, declared that, “Till fame appears to be worth more than money, he would “always prefer money to fame.” 

Forest 1916

Isaac also mentions the old Samuel Johnson quote about it being only a fool who writes for anything but money. This tackles head on the contradiction endemic to the debate, because the majority of writers want to be read and one way they know if they have readers is sales of books. Or library borrowings - back in the day when there were libraries haha. In fact, a little bit of George, even when he really needed the money, was secretly pleased his books didn't sell, because that underlined the specialist niche he occupied on the literary scene (much as he does today haha). Another small part - maybe quite a big part! - railed against the fecking Philistines for ignoring him. He often looked at the opposition aka his 'peers' on the literary scene and wondered at how they got away with their work - the success of Thomas Hardy and Robert Louis Stevenson in particular irked him because he considered both to be unremarkable. In a piece of irony he might not have enjoyed, both of these great writers are widely read today and their works are frequently adapted for films. 

One wonders what George would have made of enormous popularity? Would it have closed him down and shrivelled up his mojo - more than lack of success did haha?