Page:A history of booksellers, the old and the new.djvu/161

127 CONSTABLE, CADELL, AND BLACK. 127 under the title of Waverley, but he was unwilling to risk the loss of his poetical reputation by attempting a new style of composition. He, therefore, threw aside the work, and stumbling upon it in 1811, when his poetical reputation was beginning to wane, and soon after he had threatened, half in fun and half in earnest, " If I fail now I will write prose for life," he at once completed the story. The current rumour of the new novel having been rejected by several London publishers, is entirely untrue. The work was printed by the Ballantynes, and through the whole series the greatest secrecy as to the author's name was preserved. James Ballantyne himself transcribed the " copy," and copied Scott's corrections on to a duplicate proof sheet ; nor was there a single instance of treachery throughout the whole time of the secret. When the printed volumes of Waver ley were put into Constable's hands, he did not for a moment doubt its authorship, but at once offered 700 for the copy- right : this, we must remember, for a work to be pub- lished anonymously, at a time when Miss Edgeworth, the most popular novelist of her day, had never realized a like sum. The offer was, however, de- clined, and ultimately an arrangement was come to by which author and publisher were to share the profits. Waverley took two or three months to win public favour, and then a perfect furore set in. Sloop-load after sloop-load was sent off to the London market, and on the rumoured loss of one of these vessels, half London was in despair. The interest, too, excited by public curiosity as to the author's name, was carefully fostered, and in a short time 12,000 copies were dis- posed of.