Page:The Story of the House of Cassell (book).djvu/157

 perhaps," says he, "a prejudice against this method of doing business nowadays, but where a magazine is concerned I am convinced that the seclusion of an editor's own study is invaluable to his judgment of MSS. My own contributions to Cassell's during these years were many. 'The Garden of Swords' appeared there, also 'Red Morn,' 'The Giant's Gate,' 'The Hundred Days,' 'A Puritan's Wife,' and many short stories. The artists were the best we could procure, and among my treasures are many of the originals which helped the books to their success."

Mr, Pemberton's alert and energetic editorship soon told, and much of the ground the magazine had lost was recovered. One special feature of his régime was the manner in which he contrived to elevate sport to a high level of interest. The articles on sport of all kinds which appeared in the magazine in those days were examples of excellent writing and fine ideals.

After a ten years' spell of editorship Max Pemberton withdrew, and the vacant chair was offered to Mr. David Williamson, the well-known journalist, who directed the magazine, and with it the Quiver, from 1905 until 1909, but without the help of Holderness Gale, who resigned the assistant-editorship of both publications. Presently Gale took up an important journalistic appointment in South Africa, whence he returned with broken health, and not long afterwards died.

Soon after Mr. Williamson's resignation Mr. Newman Flower added the magazine to the publications carried on under his direction, and converted it into a fiction magazine pure and simple, the title being accordingly altered to Cassell's Magazine of Fiction. This change in title, by the way, formed the subject of a lawsuit, which was successfully resisted. The first number appeared on March 29, 1912, ran to 264 pages, and included twenty-three stories by first-class writers and a complete novel by T. W. Hanshew. For some years the fortunes of the publication had varied somewhat, but with this