An Autobiography of Anthony TrollopeTrollope, Anthony
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An Autobiography of Anthony Trollope
Trollope, Anthony
Novelists, English -- 19th century -- Biography; Trollope, Anthony, 1815-1882
I do not think that we did make ourselves in any way peculiar,--and
yet there was a great struggle made. On the part of the proprietor,
I may say that money was spent very freely. On my own part, I
may declare that I omitted nothing which I thought might tend to
success. I read all manuscripts sent to me, and endeavoured to judge
impartially. I succeeded in obtaining the services of an excellent
literary corps. During the three years and a half of my editorship
I was assisted by Mr. Goschen, Captain Brackenbury, Edward Dicey,
Percy Fitzgerald, H. A. Layard, Allingham, Leslie Stephen, Mrs. Lynn
Linton, my brother, T. A. Trollope, and his wife, Charles Lever,
E. Arnold, Austin Dobson, R. A. Proctor, Lady Pollock, G. H. Lewes,
C. Mackay, Hardman (of the _Times_), George Macdonald, W. R. Greg,
Mrs. Oliphant, Sir Charles Trevelyan, Leoni Levi, Dutton Cook,--and
others, whose names would make the list too long. It might have been
thought that with such aid the _St. Paul's_ would have succeeded.
I do not think that the failure--for it did fail--arose from bad
editing. Perhaps too much editing might have been the fault. I was
too anxious to be good, and did not enough think of what might be
lucrative.
It did fail, for it never paid its way. It reached, if I remember
right, a circulation of nearly 10,000--perhaps on one or two
occasions may have gone beyond that. But the enterprise had been set
on foot on a system too expensive to be made lucrative by anything
short of a very large circulation. Literary merit will hardly set
a magazine afloat, though when afloat it will sustain it. Time
is wanted,--or the hubbub, and flurry, and excitement created by
ubiquitous sesquipedalian advertisement. Merit and time together may
be effective, but they must be backed by economy and patience.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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