No author, and particularly no novelist who wishes to go down to
posterity, should publish during the spring season; it is fatal.
* * * * *
The celebrated "Dop Doctor" (published by Heinemann) and Mr. Temple
Thurston's "City of Beautiful Nonsense" (published by Chapman and Hall)
have both sold very well indeed throughout the entire year. In fact, they
were selling better in December than many successful novels published in
the autumn. Yet neither of them, assuming that there had been a book of
the year, would have had much chance of being that book. The reason is
that they have not been sufficiently "talked about." I mean "talked about"
by "the right people." And by "right people" I mean the people who make a
practice of dining out at least three times a week in the West End of
London to the accompaniment of cultured conversation. I mean the people
who are "in the know," politically, socially, and intellectually--who
know what Mr. F.E. Smith says to Mr. Winston Churchill in private, why
Mrs. Humphry Ward made such an enormous pother at the last council meeting
of the Authors' Society, what is really the matter with Mr. Bernard Shaw's
later work, whether Mr. Balfour does indeed help Mr. Garvin to write the
_Daily Telegraph_ leaders, and whether the Savoy Restaurant is as good
under the new management as under the old.
Pages:
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247