Marketing Marvel: Extending the Life of a Scribner's Bestseller
Lisa Spiro
[pre-print of article published in Publishing Research Quarterly, Winter 2004]
Introduction
In the 1950s, Charles Scribner Jr. discovered an “antique box” in a printing plant for Scribner and Sons, the publishing house founded in 1846 by his great-grandfather Charles Scribner. Inside he found the original printing plates for Reveries of a Bachelor, a collection of sentimental musings about marriage, leisure, and masculine identity by Donald Grant Mitchell (aka Ik Marvel). First published in 1850, Reveries became one of the firm’s first best-sellers. That the plates were spared being melted down for over 100 years perhaps demonstrated, his son Charles Scribner III claimed, “the irrational respect publishers have for a best-seller.”[1] Reveries continued selling steadily into the twentieth century and went through many printings, but more than the publisher’s superstition sustained the book’s popularity. Typically bestsellers are defined by sales in the year—or decade—immediately after publication, but how are we to account for books that continuing selling steadily 30, even 50 years after their first appearance?[2] What makes a bestseller endure? How could the publisher win new readers or persuade long-time fans to purchase new copies of an old favorite? How should Scribner’s respond to competition from unauthorized editions, a problem that became especially acute when the book fell out of copyright in 1892? What physical form should Reveries take, and how should it be priced?
These questions run throughout letters that Charles Scribner II (henceforth called Scribner) sent to Donald Grant Mitchell between 1883, nine years before the expiration of copyright and at a time when Scribner’s was preparing to bring out a revised edition, and 1907, when the Author’s Complete Edition appeared and a year before Mitchell died. In these letters, Scribner consulted with Mitchell—although not always harmoniously—in issuing new editions, discussing matters such as pricing, royalties, typography, binding, paper, illustrations, and the challenges from unauthorized publishers. The letters reflect some of the transformations faced by the publishing industry at the end of the nineteenth century, such as the proliferation of cheap pirated editions, the segmentation of the market, and the professionalization of authorship and publishing.[3] By analyzing these letters in the context of the editions that they led to, we can gain insight into the relationship between author and publisher, discern the strategies that were used to sustain the popularity of this sentimental work, and explore the practices of Charles Scribner’s Sons, one of America’s leading publishing houses at the end of the nineteenth century. The story of Reveries’ later years is especially rich, given the book’s longstanding popularity, the intense competition Scribner’s faced from unauthorized publishers, the sentimental associations that audiences had with the author, the changing economics and processes of publishing, and the sometimes contentious relationship between author and publisher.
Initially published under the pseudonym “Ik Marvel” in 1850, Reveries of a Bachelor ranked as one of the most popular nineteenth century American books. As the title suggests, Reveries centers on the production of dreams, offering four sketches in which Ik Marvel, a sentimental bachelor, fantasizes about what it would be like to be married and enjoys a leisured lifestyle. Reveries sustained its popularity into the twentieth century, selling a million copies.[4] As Wayne Kime reports, “Throughout the 1850s it remained one of the best-selling writings by an American author, and in the three decades that followed it continued to be reprinted, extracted, translated, and imitated in a bewildering array of forms” (13). By the 1890s, twenty-five publishers came out with their own versions of Reveries, and Scribner’s itself sold a large paper edition, cameo edition, cheap edition, and new and revised edition.
Reveries originated in a sketch first published as “A Bachelor's Reverie, In Three Parts” in Southern Literary Messenger in 1849, then re-printed in the October, 1850 issue of Harper's New Monthly Magazine. Inspired by the sketch’s success, Mitchell decided “to add more papers in a kindred vein, and publish all together as an independent volume,” which he titled Reveries of a Bachelor (“Third Preface,” xvii). Initially Mitchell offered Reveries of a Bachelor to Boston publisher James T. Fields, but Fields turned it down. Mitchell then took the book to Charles Scribner, who had published his The Battle Summer the year before. Although Scribner doubted that Reveries would sell, he agreed to publish it anyway, so it was released under the Baker and Scribner imprint in December of 1850. Scribner’s doubts proved unfounded: within two months, Baker & Scribner advertised that 5,000 copies had been sold, and the numbers kept climbing, reaching 20,000 by March of 1852. As Donald Grant Mitchell reported, Reveries “laid strong hold upon those of romantic appetites; and reached, within a very few months, a sale which surprised the publisher as much as it surprised the author.”[5] Indeed, Reveries of a Bachelor became one of the most popular and important books that Scribner’s and Sons published during the 19th century; ironically, considering Scribner’s initial doubts, a historian of the publishing house pointed to his decision to publish Reveries of a Bachelor as evidence of his ability to predict commercial and literary successes.[6]
Appealing to a diverse readership, Scribner’s made available Reveries in a variety of forms and prices. Recognizing that many readers wanted collectible copies of the book, in 1852 Scribner’s issued an illustrated edition with etchings by the prominent American illustrator Felix O. Darley. This edition was released around Christmastime in order to capture buyers who wanted to give a gift with sentimental and aesthetic value; as a reviewer for Harper’s New Monthly Magazine gushed, “Welcome to our quaint genial, ‘bachelor,’ in his holiday costume, destined to shed a new gladness over the new year by his delicious whimsicalities.” Associating the book with its bachelor narrator, the reviewer emphasizes its attractiveness and amiability. From the 1850s forward, Scribner’s entered into cooperative marketing agreements with other firms. Advertising both bachelor fantasies and a formula to prevent hair loss, E. Thomas Lyon, “Chemist and Manufacturer of Lyon's Kaithairon, and Pure Jamaica Ginger for Gratuitous Distribution” distributed Extracts from The Reveries of a Bachelor (1853), a cheap pamphlet with a yellow paper cover. The dedication promises, “Whoever, from perusing these Extracts, are induced to purchase and read entire his pathetic illustrations of the human feelings, in his [Ik Marvel’s] 'Book of the Heart,' will enjoy an agreeable pastime and an instructive lesson.” The pamphlet thus advertised self-improvement through reading and the application of hair tonic, as Scribner’s offered readers a taste of the Reveries in the hopes that they would desire more. In 1861, Reveries had reached its thirtieth edition (NUC, 665), and in 1863 Scribners produced a revised edition with a new preface by Mitchell (NUC, 665).[7] Another new edition, which featured another new preface and changes to punctuation and other accidentals, appeared in 1883 (NUC, 665).[8]
This essay centers on four editions of Reveries of a Bachelor published by Scribner’s between 1883 and 1907: the 1883 “Revised” edition, the 1884 large paper edition, the 1888 Cameo edition, and the 1907 Edgewood edition. I’ve chosen to focus on these four editions because they are the ones discussed at greatest length in Scribner’s letters to Mitchell, and because they illustrate how Scribner sought to issue both moderately priced and expensive editions to appeal to diverse buyers. Moreover, this period in the history of Reveries stands as one of the richest, since we can see Mitchell and Scribner striving to capture new audiences over thirty years after the book’s original publication, and also strategizing about how to confront the expiration of copyright in 1892. We can also see the practices of Scribner’s under the leadership of Charles Scribner II, who in 1879 became the president of Charles Scribner’s Sons following the deaths of his father (in 1871) and older brother John Blair Scribner. Scribner developed a reputation for being principled and tough, for having a strong aesthetic appreciation of books as well as keen business skills, and for nurturing relationships with authors but resisting high royalties.[9] As his letters to Mitchell suggest, Scribner regarded publishing as a “gentleman’s profession” (Delaney 4), guided by the personal contact between the publisher and author. Scribner’s letters to Mitchell reflect some of the larger changes in the publishing house’s practices noted by John Delaney, particularly professionalism, the expansion of rights for both publisher and author, and improvements to the number and quality of illustrations (3).
In January of 1883, Charles Scribner II advised Mitchell that it was time to come out with a new edition of Reveries of a Bachelor, as well as selected other works. Not only were the plates for Reveries damaged, but Scribner also recognized that he could generate renewed interest in—and more revenue from—Mitchell's works by producing new editions.[10] For this edition, part of a larger reprinting of Mitchell’s works, Scribner’s marketed Reveries as being completely revised, with a new preface. To bring public attention to Reveries, Scribner proposed to distribute a number of copies to reviewers and to “advertise extensively.” Calculating to win a large readership, Scribner contended that the price for each volume in the 1883 revised edition should be lowered to $1.25, since “[b]ooks are cheaper than they were when former prices were fixed and I think this reduction is absolutely necessary to secure the popular success and sales which we expect.” Beginning in the 1870s, established publishing houses such as Scribner’s faced intense competition from publishers such as Munro and Donnelley, Lloyd & Co, which produced books as cheaply as twenty-cents for a paperback and fifty cents for a clothbound volume, forcing a general lowering of prices. To make the lower-priced books profitable, Scribner suggested that Mitchell’s royalties be reduced to 10%, promising that higher sales would make up for the difference.[11] Apparently Mitchell did not react well to this proposal, since in his response Scribner indicated that he saw “no grounds” for the author’s complaints.[12] Later Scribner defended his firm’s practices publicly. In 1887, he published an article in the New York Tribune in which he claimed that from a $1 book, the retailer got 40 cents, manufacturing costs claimed 25 cents, authors received up to 15 cents, and the rest of the money went for advertising, overhead, and other publishing-related costs. If the royalty rates were any higher, Scribner suggested, then publishers couldn’t make any money off the book (Tebbel II:136).
In marketing the 1883 edition, Scribner pledged that “[ca]re would be taken to have the paper and binding as attractive as the popular price would permit.” Initially, the new edition was supposed to be illustrated, but apparently Mitchell and Scribner disagreed about who would do the illustrations. Mitchell even scribbled “SNAPPISH” at the top of a letter in which Scribner complained about the author’s own snappishness in refusing to accept sketches by Arthur Burdett Frost, a prominent American illustrator and a friend of Scribner. In addition, Mitchell and Scribner wrangled over the choice of the bindings. When Mitchell complained about the yellow-brown cloth used for the binding, Scribner apologized but defended the choice: “I am sorry the binding does not please you. Of course we would not have used so novel a cloth without your approval. It is easy to follow in the beaten tracks and use a green or olive but what you wanted was something unique and of course experiments are accompanied with some chances of failure.”[13] Through the binding, Scribner attempted to set apart Reveries from more conventional books, yet he tried to deflect criticism of this atypical choice by insisting that the “experiment” was requested by the author. Even as Scribner deliberately set forward to promote the volume, he wanted to avoid seeming to advertise his own firm inappropriately. When Mitchell suggested stamping C.S. Sons on the cover to Reveries, Scribner resisted, fearing that it “would look like an attempt to advertise and would have somewhat the same effect as a printers name under a fine engraving.”[14] Instead, Scribner’s implemented Mitchell’s proposal that the initials of the publishing house be stamped on the binding in a more subtle fashion. The monogram for Charles Scribner’s Sons, which shows C, S, and S curved together in a florid arrangement, is stamped in gilt on the spine of this edition, and in blind on the back cover. Implicitly, the monogram seems to acknowledge that Scribner’s had a role in creating book as a physical object, but Scribner refused to make such an acknowledgment too pronounced, perhaps because it would suggest that the book was a commercial rather than sentimental object.
Whereas Mitchell quarreled with Scribner over royalties, prices, and design choices, Scribner was irritated by the tone of Mitchell’s public statements about his relationship with his publisher. In the preface to the 1883 new edition, for instance, Donald Grant Mitchell claimed to be incapable of making significant alterations to his “youthful whimseys” and saluted James Fields as an “honest,” “sympathetic,” and “liberal” publisher and editor. While he devoted three fulsome paragraphs to Fields and his solicitousness in providing moral and financial support to his authors, Mitchell said of Charles Scribner merely that they had “friendly relations.” Through his tribute to Fields, Mitchell advanced his notion of the ideal relationship between publisher and author: the publisher should offer sympathy and praise, helpful suggestions for improving the work, and “a most agreeable and prompt tidbit in form of a bank cheque.” Scribner complained about the implicit criticism of his father and publishing house, contending that “I think it a mistake to insert a preface so distinctly deprecatory.”[15] Though consistently polite and professional, Scribner asserted the firm’s interests in his letters to Mitchell in negotiating a beneficial royalty rate and protecting its image.
A year after publishing the 1883 revised edition of Reveries, Scribner’s issued a large paper version in a limited edition of 200 copies, aiming for collectors rather than a mass audience. Whereas most of Scribner’s books were printed on machine-made woven paper, for the 1884 limited edition it used “sums of the finest Holland hand-made paper,” “a superior grade of paper used for high quality books.”[16] Perhaps to show that this edition lacks the dull regularity of a machine-made book, Scribner’s used watermarked paper of uneven sizes, ranging from 23.5 x 14.8 c.m to 24.8 x 16.2 cm. The top edges are gilded, while the bottom and the side edges are deckled.[17] By selling the 1884 limited edition at a higher price, Scribner’s hoped to recoup the costs of producing new plates for the revised Reveries. Although Scribner claimed that “we have taken great pains to make [the large paper edition] as perfect as possible,” it did not sell very well.[18] Scribner complained that the company would not make much money off the book, especially since Mitchell was claiming 15% in royalties.[19] In a letter from August of 1889, five years after this edition was released, Scribner noted that the company still held some copies.
If large didn’t sell, Scribner’s was willing to try small. In 1889, the company published the cameo edition, which was distinguished both from the regular and large paper editions by its small size and “dainty” appearance.[20] The size of the book suggests refinement and delicacy, since it measures 168 by 102 mm and can be carried in a pocketbook. Scribner hoped to woo buyers who were willing to pay a bit more for the book’s elegant appearance, promising Mitchell that the cameo edition “will come out very nicely.... we have a new and attractive device for the cover in the form of a cameo stamped in white on the side.”[21] This version is called the cameo edition because of the ornament that appears in the center of the front cover, a “cameo” of a young man’s head in profile. With his Renaissance cap and long, wavy hair, the youth appears to be a “bachelor” in the early Renaissance sense of “student” or “squire.” Scribner insisted that Mitchell share the risk in producing new plates and publishing a new edition at a higher price, requesting that he accept less than the 15% royalty he required for the regular edition. Scribner’s marketing efforts seem to have succeeded, since he reported that both author and publisher were making a profit off of the volume and that it was not competing with other editions.
By 1906, the relationship between Scribner and Mitchell had changed, as Scribner became increasingly busy with his duties as company president and Mitchell entered old age. Although Charles Scribner II continued to maintain a personal relationship with Mitchell, he distributed some of his duties to one of the firm’s editors, Edward L. Burlingame, and the firm’s art director, Joseph H. Chapin.[22] Likewise, Mitchell, who turned 84 in 1906, transferred responsibility for some of his business dealings to his children. In 1907, over a half century after Reveries first appeared, Scribner’s published it as part of the Complete Works of Donald Grant Mitchell, the limited edition that was meant to mark the culmination of Mitchell’s career. In touting the value of this special edition, Scribner’s emphasized the numerous illustrations, the volume’s rarity, the quality of the paper, and beauty of the binding. The imprint of this edition includes a statement about the rarity of the volume, detailing that