pen that can touch the popular heart may not be a gold one, but it will
bring gold into the pockets of him who wields it. Amelie Rives received
$6,000 for “According to St. John.” Lord Lytton received $7,500 for some
of his novels. Of the “Heavenly Twins,” 50,000 copies were sold in 1894;
of the “Bonny Brier Bush,” 30,000 in five months; and of the “Manxman”
50,000 in four months. Of Mrs. Henry Wood’s “East Lynne,” 400,000 have
been sold, and her thirty-four books have reached altogether over
1,000,000 copies. In France, there are sold every year of Feuilleton’s
works, 50,000; of Daudet’s, 80,000, and of Zola’s, 90,000. Hall Caine
received outright a check for $50,000 for “The Christian.” He had struck
the popular chord with the “Deemster.” There was almost a pilgrimage of
publishers to the Isle of Man to make engagements for the pen of the new
writer when that book was launched upon the market.