Adventure stories -- Authorship; Marryat, Frederick, 1792-1848; Novelists, English -- 19th century -- Biography; Sea stories -- Authorship
His movements, if not the causes of them, can be followed easily enough.
Between 1830 and his departure for America in 1837, he was successively
at Sussex House, Hammersmith; at Langham, in Norfolk; then back in
London; then in Brighton; then in sudden haste off to Brussels; and from
thence to Lausanne. “Frank Mildmay; or, The Naval Officer,” appeared
in 1829. Nine months later, when he was fixed on shore, came out the
“King’s Own.” In 1830 he acquired a thousand acres of land in Norfolk,
which remained in his possession till his death. He exchanged Sussex
House for it, but how Sussex House was got we are not told. It cannot
have been bought either out of prize money, or the proceeds of the two
books he had published already, although his prices were remarkably good
for a beginner. Four hundred pounds is the sum said to have been given
by Colburn for “Frank Mildmay”--a good deal more than the most sanguine
of novices would expect to receive from the most generous of publishers
for a first book in these days. Certainly, in 1830, Marryat was working
as a man works who has reasons for making all the money he can. He was
contributing to the _Metropolitan Magazine_, and receiving his sixteen
pounds a sheet--which, again, is good magazine pay. It did not take him
long to acquire a shrewd idea how to deal with publishers, and a distinct
understanding of the due privileges of an editor. His knowledge of these
important matters is shown conclusively in a letter to Bentley, setting
forth the terms on which he would be prepared to edit a new nautical
magazine, a proposed imitation of, or rather rival to, the _United
Service Journal_.
“My terms,” he says, with the confidence of a man who knew the market,
and his own value in it, “would be as follows: The sole control of
the work, for when I do my best I must be despotic or I shall not
succeed; to be paid for all my writings at the price I received in the
_Metropolitan_, sixteen guineas per sheet. The editorship I would then
take at £400 per annum until the end of the first year, when, if the
work succeeded, I should expect an addition of £100, and if it continued
profitable, another £100, so as to raise the _final_ pay of the editor
to £600 per annum. The stipulations may be talked over afterwards. To
choose my sub-editor is indispensable. He must be a nautical man.”
Marryat had learnt plainly how necessary it is to be captain of your own
ship--and withal he quite understood how to launch the new kind of craft
he was about to sail. “The first number must be most carefully got up, to
insure success, and the papers ought now to be in preparation. You must,
therefore, take but few days to decide, as I tell you honestly I have
reason to expect the offer from another quarter, who are now talking the
matter over, and I must be allowed to consider myself as unpledged to you
after a short time.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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