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De Achttiende Eeuw. Jaargang 43 (2011)

De Achttiende Eeuw. Jaargang 43

(2011)– [tijdschrift] Documentatieblad werkgroep Achttiende eeuw–rechtenstatus Auteursrechtelijk beschermd

Vorige Volgende

Enlightenment authorship? The case of The Society for the Encouragement of Learning
Alise Jameson

The Society for the Encouragement of Learning (1735-1749) provided an alternative publication route that offered authors a higher degree of financial independence and possession of their copyright, as the publisher was eliminated from the chain of book production. However, the Society foundered in its attempt at transforming established publication conditions. This piece reevaluates a unique authorship practice that translates Enlightenment ideas for profit and progress, as well as exposes both the complex and contradictory nature of authorship and the Enlightenment and the impact of the latter's values on the professional development of the former.

Many scholars have offered answers to the question ‘What is the Enlightenment?’, and yet, the period's amorphous quality has perhaps led to the sometimes ambiguous state of Enlightenment scholarship, with its multiple definitions and lack of consensus regarding the movement and its philosophy, ideology, and/or practice.1 In this paper, I do not attempt to define in a strict fashion the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century or Enlightenment scholarship. I hypothesize, rather, that the difficulty of forming a consensus about the Enlightenment within the scholarship is a result of the contradictions between eighteenth-century practices and Enlightenment thought.

I illustrate this using the unique history of the Society for the Encouragement of Learning (SEL), a group whose activities surprisingly have not warranted much research. Based on Clayton Atto's Library article from 1938 and the SEL's minutes (available in the British Library), I present an example of the way in which Enlightenment values influenced ideas on authorship and book marketing. The SEL (1735-49) 17 reveals how both economics and philosophy impacted the professionalization of the author, and demonstrates the complexities of both the Enlightenment and authorship. The SEL, quite

possibly ‘the earliest considerable example of amateur publishing on any extended scale,’2 was created with social improvement in mind and the group, whose aim was to publish learned books, thereby helping out the cause of authors and increasing public learning and knowledge, operates as an illustration of how certain Enlightenment values, such as sociability, improvement, intellectualism,3 were put into practice. As is the case with Enlightenment ideology, authorship is, in fact, also an ambiguous notion, characterized by contradictions between individual's ideals and the social reality (of the book market), especially in relation to the rhetoric legitimizing the author's profession in the name of literary property and its reliance on victimization. For instance, the Society's aspirations might have been inspired more by capitalism than by Enlightenment views.

Also, the author's struggle for financial independence and ownership of his/her intellectual labor is perhaps difficult to reconcile with ideas of social improvement and the conviction that access to knowledge should be democratized and free. These points, as illustrated by the Society's history, demonstrate the dynamism of Enlightenment ideology itself and the role it played in the construction of authorship - a multifaceted concept - which involves certain contradictions between theory and belief and practice and adherence, such as proprietary and nonproprietary authorship and the illusion of the solitary genius as opposed to collaboration among writers.

In my investigation of authorship, I, following Sher, regard the Enlightenment as a ‘set of general values to which proponents of the Enlightenment adhered’ and which reached across temporal and cultural boundaries.4 Like the discrepancy between the social reality and the ideals highlighted in Enlightenment discourse, authorship is similarly marked by an incongruity between the developing theoretical notion of authorship as it gained more cultural prestige as a profession and the diverse writing and publishing strategies available.5 Certain characteristics, such as originality and self-sufficiency, gradually became idealized until, ultimately, this portrait of the author became an ideology in itself, that of the Romantic autonomous genius. In reality, authors still turned to traditional practices, such as imitation, anonymity, collaboration, compilation, which reveal their dependence on other figures.



illustratie
Fig. 1 Dr Syntax: This print is from the first edition of ‘The Tour of Doctor Syntax in Search of the Picturesque’, drawn and etched by Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827) for Ackermann in 1812. Rowlandson, England's greatest caricaturist, combines fluid drawing with great wit in this image. At the top: ‘London, Publish'd 1 May 1812 at R. Ackermann's Repository of Arts, 101 Strand’. Lower left corner: ‘Design'd & Etch'd by Rowlandson’. Titled ‘The Doctor's Dream’.


The SEL's history and aims

Organized in 1735, the Society offered, mainly scientific, lesser-known authors and editors an alternative means to reach the public rather than subscription publication or submitting to the bookseller's monopoly.6 The Society functioned as publisher and worked with various printers, including Samuel Richardson, and at times had contracts with booksellers like Andrew Millar, John Gray, and John Nourse.7 The group's income stemmed from a membership fee of ten guineas and annual dues of two guineas. Once the production costs were reimbursed, any surplus funds were awarded to the author. Significant for the Society's orchestration was the Committee, consisting of 24-30 managers, five of which became the Quorum, or minimum amount of members necessary to conduct a meeting.8 At the Committee meetings, decisions were made regarding such tasks as the contracts with authors, booksellers, and printers;

which authors to publish; and printing arrangements.

Over its lifetime, the Society had a total of 133 members in all: they were not just learned men, antiquarians, professors, reverends, in part seeking to publish their ideas, but also gentlemen, dukes, businessmen. The original composition of the group shows diversity: members included ‘Dr. John Ward, George Sale the orientalist, Roger Gale the antiquary, George Lewis Scott the mathematician, and three of the most eminent doctors of the time, Richard Mead, James Douglas, and Alexander Stuart.’9 That a fair number of Scots made up the society, attests to the reach of the Enlightenment in that country. All members wished to cultivate knowledge and improve the reputation of authors within society. The secretary was salaried at £50 annually.10 The first person to hold this position, between 1736 and 1741, was Alexander Gordon, an Enlightenment man with diverse interests: initially an opera singer, he developed an interest in Egyptian antiquity that the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography evaluates as ‘border[ing] upon the obsessional,’ only to abandon the whole pursuit in 1741 in a ‘most extraordinary change of direction’ that saw him sail to America as secretary to the new governor of Carolina, where he enjoyed considerable financial success as a business attorney, dying a wealthy man in 1754.11 This is all the more remarkable in that Gordon had enjoyed a dishonest and manipulative reputation while in England. For example, Iain Gordon Brown explains that ‘[a] succession of unrealized ambitions, incomplete scholarly projects, and occupations taken up and abandoned in despair or heavy debt, a growing reputation for less than honest dealing, and a persistent discontent at his lot all conspired to increase the level of contempt in which Gordon was held.’12 Among the various positions he held prior to serving as the SEL's secretary, was that of bookseller, but he was said to be ill-suited for business: ‘he had some learning, some ingenuity, much pride, much deceit, and very little honesty.’13 That some of a clearly ‘anti-bookseller’ Society's members had in fact been in the business (another was David Lyon) is strange, but their experience was perhaps put to use in their publication practices and influenced their not always sharp business sense and their contractual decisions. With their first-hand knowledge, they could polish their rhetoric to elevate their altruistic initiative above the booksellers'

profitable trade. Remarkably, their ideals convinced them to return to the publishing world as amateurs, even after they had failed to achieve much success as professional booksellers.

In their proclamation from 1735, the Society's Enlightenment-inspired aims reveal a certain amount of friction, particularly between the causes of democratic dissemination and availability of knowledge and professional authorship. They proposed:

to supply the want of a regular and publick encouragement of learning; to assist authors in the Publication, and to Secure to them the entire Profits of their own works; to institute a republic of letters, for the promoting of arts and sciences, by the necessary means of profit, as well as by the noble motives of praise and emulation.14

Here, the tension between profitable authorship and public service shines through. The prospect of public recognition and a regulatory function also appear as motivators of the Society's actions.

The Society's uncertain beginning appears to have augured its later fate. The members had planned on Dr. Richard Bentley's Manilius as their first publication, an offer which Bentley first accepted, then declined, subsequently declaring that he ‘condemned [...] the whole undertaking’ of the Society.15 The members lamented this while criticizing Bentley's manipulative behavior and his preference to be published by a bookseller. It is unclear why he changed his mind, or what ‘ill-grounded objections’ he held against the Society.16 Perhaps he recanted when offered a more profitable deal from a bookseller. Yet, the letter from secretary Gordon to fellow member Dr. Richardson is quite revealing of the Society's stance toward booksellers, though we may do well to bear in mind the idiosyncratic qualities of Gordon. He complains thoroughly about Bentley's

throw[ing] it into the hands of a common Bookseller, rather than in those of the Society, which has not only made several gentlemen of letters and high life exclaim against the discouraging and ungenerous act, but will be recorded to the learned world, perhaps, when he is dead and rotten. Such men deserve fleecing from Booksellers [...].17

This is another instance of how the Society presents itself as disinterested, good, respectable, for they are concerned not with getting rich, but with the improvement of the author's lot and society as a whole. This is contrasted to the ‘common’ booksellers, who are, according to the SEL, interested in only profit and entertainment. However, it should be pointed out that dealing in Enlightenment wares could be profitable and that the SEL's choice of books to be published was not the main reason for their poor finances.

The Society continued to struggle, as shown by the pitiful sales of the next work they decided to publish in 1737: a Latin edition of the dissertations of the Greek philosopher and rhetorician, Maximus Tyrius, ‘with the notes and emendations of the late learned Dr. Davies of Cambridge, under the care of Mr. Prof. Ward.’18 Appearing in 1740, this Greek philosophical work sold poorly, partially because England's war with France discouraged exportation: ‘The copies of the book “lay by” until 1747 when 408 out of an edition of 600 were remaindered at three shillings a copy after more than forty copies had been given away.’19 John Davies was a classicist, and the president of Queen's college from 1717 until he became vice-chancellor of the university in 1726; he had died in 1732.20 Dr. John Ward, member of the Society, was responsible for the preservation of the Society's minutes and records, which he compiled into a more readable manuscript. These notes containing minute meetings and members' correspondence make up a collection of nine volumes (B.M. Add. MSS. 6184-6192), which are housed in the British Library (Atto states that they were first ‘presented to the British Museum in 1810’).21 A member of various societies, Ward became professor of rhetoric at Gresham College in 1720. I have been unable to unearth the details of Davies's work making its way into Ward's hands, but his own translations and essays on classical Rome had earned him a learned reputation.22 This example is intriguing, especially from a perspective of authorship, for it presents us with the centuries-deceased Maximus Tyrius and the recently-deceased translator and editor of that work, Davies. Publication obviously does not benefit these authors, which raises questions regarding the Society's motives. Are they, like the booksellers, capitalizing on these dead authors' reputations and would Davies's family, Professor Ward, or the Society, have received the profits if the work had sold well? Or should we view the example as proof of the disinterested Enlightenment

ideals of the Society, publishing the works of late, great authors, for the sake of the dissemination of knowledge, and the improvement of society?

It is also worth emphasizing here that the type of books published (scientific and philosophic treatises, ancient works in Latin, etc.), fails to fit the taste of the broader public, which was gaining more cultural power. This reveals the Society's concern with fashioning a certain elitist image, and is an instance of early canon formation. For example, Dr. Johnson's Irene was once a publication possibility, but Atto remarks that it was never seriously considered, suggesting that they did not deal in contemporary literary works.23 However, their emphasis on texts of a learned caliber, although not fitting with the democratization of knowledge, was arguably influenced by their intent of improving the author's social situation.

This practice of offering specialized wares that limited the possibility of publishing a ‘best-seller’ and the war between England and France were not the only economic factors hindering the Society's financial progress. Clifford Siskin points out that there was in fact a slowing down in the book trade, a kind of depression during the middle of the century, an explanation which deconstructs, or interrupts those views of the eighteenth century that project a narrative of progression onto the book trade and regard it as continuously expanding and growing profitable.24 Siskin, referring to Alvin Kernan's Samuel Johnson and the Impact of Print, comments on statistics about the book trade: ‘the number of London booksellers dropped by more than half - from 151 to 72 between 1735 and 1763’ and the number of published books was strongly reduced during the 1740s.25 Significantly, Siskin views this not as a depression, but rather as what he terms ‘profitless prosperity’ considering this period was not marked by ‘a collapse of economic activity but [...] a failure to induce the flow of capital. This distinction is crucial, for it helps us to see that it was the activity that prospered even during the contraction which helped to produce the means of reversing it.’26 In other words, writing and reading prospered during a period when books actually were not selling well, but when the periodical was booming. And yet, one must not underestimate the impact of practices like reading societies where books were shared. Given these details, it is no wonder that the Society was raised from the ground, but fought to find a stable home in the book trade and to compete really successfully with booksellers.



illustratie
Fig. 2 Title page: Sir Isaac Newton's two treatises of the quadrature of curves, and analysis by equations of an infinite number of terms, explained: containing the treatises themselves, translated into English, with a large commentary; ... By John Stewart, ... London: printed by James Bettenham, at the expence of the Society for the Encouragement of Learning; and sold by John Nourse and John Whiston, 1745.


Although the Society met an exceptionally bleak end in 1749, owing debts and facing bankruptcy, the group did experience some success. Despite the precarious beginning, as societies go, it enjoyed a relatively long life of 13 years, which included a ‘few books which repaid the expenses of publication, such as Dr. Alexander Stuart's Muscular Motion (1738).’27 The Society also achieved international renown, as ‘a complete description of the Society's organization and purpose, written by Pierre Desmaiseaux, appeared in the Bibliothèque Brittanique’ (1737), a work which the Society had agreed to publish, to be printed by Richardson. However, to speed up publication, the author brought the book out himself, reimbursing the Society for its expenses.28

The growth of public power and sociability

Considering both the necessity of collaboration between SEL members and authors, and the significance of the public sphere for the SEL's functioning, this section explores the complexity of certain Enlightenment values. Many key features of the Enlightenment period are well-known: an increase in printed material, the growth of literacy, and the popularity of coffee-houses and clubs as public arenas to exchange new ideas and opinions as well as to form social and professional networks. The public sphere has been fittingly termed ‘Enlightened’ by James Van Horn Melton, rather than ‘bourgeois,’ considering its mix of nobles and middleclass men and to avoid both the connotation of subversion or rebellion and ‘a certain teleology’ that the term ‘bourgeois’ carries with it.29 Melton also explains three principles on which the public sphere is based: inclusiveness, criticism, and publicity. ‘[R]eason and not the authority or identity of the speaker’ was most significant, so anyone possessing it could belong; the individual was free to critique and to question issues and to express his/her opinion on any subject from art to government; and the ‘public sphere was hostile to secrecy,’ there was thus a preference for transparency, which is surely an effect of the political turmoil of the seventeenth century.30 These aspects should also be coupled with the mediatization of society attributable to print. Elizabeth Eisenstein suggests, ‘[p]rinting may be viewed as the business of the Enlightenment’ - a reference to Darnton's The Business of Enlightenment - although her claim that ‘the concerns of businessmen and those of intellectuals are still likely to be kept apart’ raises questions, considering the mix of economic and intellectual

issues that characterize the SEL.31 As the literate public grew, so too did the demand for reading materials, and fiction gradually lost its dominant stigma as a dangerous or corrupting power in the social realm. With its characteristics of relative fixity and increasing availability, print could potentially function as a didactic tool for social regulation and homogenization while controlling the circulation of knowledge. Nancy Armstrong and Leonard Tennenhouse comment on the transition from a fear of democratizing reading to the manipulation of society via literacy: ‘One can imagine the emphasis shifting from the idea that literacy was something that required regulation to the idea that literacy was a form of regulation.’32 Yet, at the same time, capitalism grew and public taste began determining the print market. The public sphere, now an arena of heterogeneous opinionated voices, became difficult to completely control or influence.33

This era, the eighteenth century, is marked by the hustle and bustle of socializing and cooperation. Intellectuals and scholars mingle with nobles and businessmen to share opinions and develop ideas via various venues. Even the composition and publication processes should be termed collaborative, considering the multiple actors involved in these, such as booksellers, printers, patrons, and the author's contemporaries. This cooperative spirit is often neglected or erased, especially in traditional authorship and literary history studies, in which the shift from a poetics of imitation and the patronage system to the Romantic ideology where the individual author reigns supreme is represented as a smooth, progressive movement. And yet, this increasing ‘awareness of, and [...] preference for, the social character of human nature and human society’34 was praised by Samuel Johnson, who, paradoxically, is often regarded as the model of so-called modern authorship - that is, of the solitary, self-sufficient, creative man of letters.35 Johnson is recorded by his biographer and protégé, James Boswell, as acknowledging and highlighting the power of cooperation, with its potential for developing and increasing knowledge while bettering humanity.:

Human experience, which is constantly contradicting theory, is the great test of truth. A system, built upon the discoveries of a great many minds, is always of more strength, than what is produced by the mere workings of any one mind, which, of itself, can do little. There is not so poor a book in the world that would not be a prodigious effort were it wrought out entirely by a single mind, without the aid of prior investigators.36

Johnson's awareness of the inconsistencies that exist between ‘human experience,’ or practice, and theory is significant. He echoes the dynamism of authorship and scientific study, which contradicts discourse, while epitomizing certain Enlightenment qualities such as the cooperative side of sociability and cultural improvement: the more minds that contribute to something, the more authority and value it deserves.

The rise of the author?

To understand more fully the impact of what SEL attempted in their endeavor to support the cause of authors, a brief illustration of the complex concept of authorship is necessary. Often, authorship is taken for granted and consumers of textual products project onto past writers a seemingly transcendental notion, influenced by the Romantic ideal of the solitary figure who singlehandedly creates, purely from his own imagination, a literary masterpiece. However, this notion disregards other actors and forces relevant to literary composition, like editing and printing processes, not to mention the impact of the cultural, economic, and political climate on composition and publication. I argue that the rhetorical seeds of this modern concept were sown during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, while Enlightenment ideas certainly fertilized this soil. Authors struggled to establish for themselves meaningful cultural reputations in the negative social atmosphere, where writers were satirized and given little merit. The stereotype of the ‘hack’ or ‘Grub street’ writer dominated this climate and painted writers as obtuse, fickle, and money-grubbing. For example, Marlon B. Ross explains the connotation of the derogatory term ‘scribbler’ as referring to something unreadable and thus worthless.37 Interestingly, some writers reclaimed this negative term as the name of their club, The Scriblerians, including Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope.

Although the author's social role and property rights were heatedly debated, Enlightenment discourse helped to justify and to shape this profession, yet, at the same time, it could also be regarded as working against authors. An example of this paradox is the introduction of copyright in 1710. Prior to the Statute of Anne, the Stationers' Company enjoyed a monopoly of the entire printing and publication enterprise. They had initially formed something like a guild to control competition and production, and eventually received support from the crown. This further ensured both the crown's ability to control readers as censorship was made easier, and it strengthened the Stationers' monopoly of the trade, as only those works approved by a member of the company could legally be printed.38 Regarding ownership of the texts, John Feather explains that ‘[o]nce it had been registered, the copy was the sole property of the person who had registered it, provided that he had the right to make the entry in the first place.’39

The full title of the 1710 Statute, ‘An Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by Vesting the Copies of Printed Books in the Authors or Purchasers of such Copies, during the Times therein mentioned,’ invokes a false concern for the social and economic interests of authors.40 And here the Enlightenment ideals of spreading knowledge, intellectualism, and learning form a screen for the economic motivations of the Statute. The SEL's own rhetoric has similarities where one can question the actual incentives behind their activities. Diane Leenheer Zimmerman regards this landmark legislation ‘as a compromise between the demands of the Stationers for protection of its copyrights and the growing numbers [...] who were developing a distaste for the economic consequences of monopolies.’41 Although the validity of the copyright was limited to fourteen years and the printed works no longer had to be registered, authors still faced struggles similar to those under the dominance of the Stationers, as the Statute primarily served booksellers. Feather reveals that the ‘so-called Copyright Act of 1710 mentions neither copyright nor authors; it was little more than a codification, an inadequate and inaccurate codification as it proved, of existing book trade practices.’42 Moreover, the ‘author's right to be treated as the creator and owner of literary property is not defined in



illustratie
Fig. 3 Early 18th century library: in: ‘Bibliographiae Anatomicae Specimen’ by James Douglas, 1734. Interior view of a library through a garlanded opening; a man has received assistance in retrieving a book, he stands holding the open book before him; another man is standing next to a ladder that is leaning against the shelves. http://bibliodyssey.blogspot.com/2009/04/images-from-history-of-medicine.html


any English statute before the Copyright Act of 1814.’43 The SEL thus took as one of their duties the improvement of the author's social reputation and his financial situation, as its practices intended to award him a more professional and independent status.

Very significant for a comprehensive understanding of the history of copyright in England, is the case of Donaldson versus Becket (1774), as this ruling finally decided the debate between, on the one hand, perpetual copyright, and, on the other, limited copyright, putting an end to the bookseller's monopoly and offering the author more independence and control with regard to his/her property. According to Clifford Siskin, the first Copyright Act was ‘circumvented in practice and in lawsuits for sixty-five years.’44 With Donaldson v. Becket, the Statute of Anne's original ruling that copyright lapsed after 14 years was finally enforced, putting an end to the booksellers' side-stepping

practice of producing texts as if perpetual copyright were the order of the day, an activity which, as one would expect, contributed to their reigning monopoly. Though seemingly advantageous for writers, perpetual copyright exposed them as ‘a means to a specific economic end for the monopolists - a weapon wielded by the booksellers,’ Siskin continues, as he highlights that this move on the part of the House of Lords was intended to break the trade monopoly, and thus not necessarily to aid the scribbler's struggle.45 This decision also opened up works whose copyright had expired to being resold by the author, or, if he/she was no longer living, they would become part of the public domain. This was a significant move from the perspective of democratizing literacy and learning, as these works, which had previously been pirated, much to the detriment of the booksellers, finally belonged solely to the public.46

Given the age's growing sense of individualism as well as the significance of personal responsibility in this debate on perpetual copyright, economics, and liberty, it is worth mentioning John Locke's ideas on property rights. Locke argued that if an individual invests the time and energy into producing something, then that creation becomes the individual's property without question. Locke's extension of this idea to intellectual activity impacted the rhetoric of authorship, including debates on perpetual versus limited copyright, where a stance of pro-perpetuity was viewed as strengthening the author's position in society. Johnson, for example, adhered to Enlightenment values, yet also supported perpetual copyright because it gave the writer more power, although he was very aware that this belief in the economics of the book trade contrasted with his investment in a democratic public sphere; in other words, that economics in fact altered the idealistic reality that discourse constructed.47 Zimmerman summarizes it thus: ‘Indeed, to Locke, security in one's property was not solely an economic interest, but a liberty one as well. During the eighteenth century, it became increasingly common to hear the argument that authors were intellectual laborers and that they had a “right” to protection for their work product.’48 Other voices in the debate went outside the realm of labor, and, often arguing for perpetual copyright, regarded ownership as the inherent right of the author, based on his/her originality.49 More in line

with the democratic ideal of the free circulation of knowledge are those who viewed abstract ideas as no longer private property once they are expressed and published.50 This suggests that once read, the book would become not only the reader's material possession, but also an abstract one. Jerome Christensen summarizes the discursive process that brought the author into existence via the medium of print, which assigned the completely autonomous writer with a mythical status of authority, yet he highlights the significant role of the reader in this process: ‘The press made possible the man of letters, but it also determined his equivocal stature. Publication increasingly made possible authorial independence from court and church [...]; yet publication depended on an eager, intelligent, and affluent public, which bought, stored, and occasionally read books.’51 The significance of the learned public in the publication network became silenced by the Romantic cult of the author, although the eighteenth century is characterized as a critical era.

Before discussing in detail the SEL's attempt to revolutionize the book trade and their problematic association with the booksellers, I will broadly sketch the early eighteenth-century book market. Despite some form of copyright since the 1710 Statute, published authors were not in possession of their intellectual property, because, to enter the printed world, they were forced to sell the copyright to a publisher, and in the eighteenth century, it was difficult for, especially new, authors to make a living solely by writing, partially because of the London monopoly on the book trade.52 The publisher then made decisions about the edition, copies, and printing arrangements. Once printed, the books were then shipped to the booksellers, the great mediators between authors and their audience.53 Significantly, Sher explains that these terms, publisher and bookseller, were often used to mean the same thing, because during this period many publishers were also booksellers.54 That the distinction between these two roles is fluid might have contributed to the bookseller's monopoly, which might have been less if publishers and booksellers were separate entities. Some authors could make a comfortable living if they had a patron supporting them, or if they went the alternative route of subscription publication, a method with prospects of enjoying more control over book production and more financial independence, if there was enough interest in the work.

For example, Pope's translation of Homer earned him a fortune via subscription (around £5000).55 Although, in theory, the copyright returned to the author after 14 years, as mentioned, this was not really practiced until after the case of Donaldson v. Becket in 1774. When the copyright did come back into the author's hands, it was rare that a book would remain popular long enough to warrant a resale. Thus, Gallagher argues, the return of this useless copyright symbolized the author's humiliation and struggles for respect and financial stability.56 Gallagher maintains that this state of ‘dispossession’ marked the authorship rhetoric combining ‘victimization and heroism,’ based on ideas of the author as possessor of intellectual property, which strongly contributed to the emergence of the idea of the autonomous author. It is interesting how some authors twisted around the negative view of the Grub Street ‘hack’ to serve their worthy purpose: ‘Grub Street had become pathetic, and its pathos was closely intertwined with its dignified “independence.”’57

The SEL's relationship to booksellers and authors

Initially, the group had an agreement with booksellers: in exchange for information on ‘how to treat with the printers, purchase paper, lodge their printed copies’ and so forth, the booksellers received a fee and were allowed to sell the Society's books.58 Yet, although the contract was strict, the organization constantly struggled to control this cooperation, which they blamed for their poor profits. For example, they charged that the booksellers' ‘enormous allowance of thirty three per cent if not more, for vending their books, have brought the affairs of the society low, and defeated hitherto the generous intention of its institution;’ therefore, the SEL reduced the percentage to 15.59 According to some members, the booksellers also failed to advertise the Society's works enough, because this meager compensation was hardly an incentive to do so.60 This annoyance increased the Society's rhetoric of blame and encouraged them to dissolve their contracts: ‘it is natural to conclude, that most of the trade are in a plain opposition to the prosperity of this generous and disinterested institution [...].’61 Thus, in 1741, against the booksellers'

advice, the Society took the drastic step of vending their wares via a special warehouse not only open to booksellers, but also to ‘gentlemen.’ Frustrated that the booksellers would not bend to their whims, this unique move was clearly meant as an affront to the monopoly holders.

Considering the group's efforts in cutting the dominant figure, the bookseller, out of the publishing equation and the group's decision to award the author all book profits, it is safe to speculate that the majority of its members shared a similar perspective on authorship to those who were fed up with the bookseller's monopoly. James Ralph, for example, a struggling author, is responsible for republicizing and applauding the Society's failed initiative almost ten years after its end. In his anonymous essay The Case of Authors (1758) he lamented the bookseller's exploitation of the author and advanced the trope of the bookseller enslaving the author, an example of Gallagher's rhetoric of victimization.62 In his work, Ralph mentions the SEL's unique initiative and charges the booksellers, ‘Masters of all the Avenues to every Market,’ and their power over the book market, with the Society's failure.63 This reveals that conditions for authors had not improved much a decade later, and that expressions exaggerating this humiliating abuse increased, while the authors became more mobilized and self-possessed. Yet, we should bear in mind that representations like Ralph's slavery trope are terribly black-and-white, and fail to attend to the literary marketplace's complexities. Sher, for instance, calls for further investigation of author-publisher relations. Although booksellers held a dominant position, this stereotype as neglectful or abusive does not fit with those who collaborated closely with authors and provided generous commissions. In certain cases, they did function as a new form of the patronage system.64 To illustrate these complexities, Sher presents Andrew Millar's dual business attitude: he had quite a positive reputation among writers, and showed generosity, especially toward those authors who sold well, but some aggressive and selfish business practices, like outbidding other booksellers, soured his relationship with some authors and booksellers.65



illustratie
Fig. 4. Brain-sucker: Oswald, John. ‘The Brain-Sucker: or, The Distresses of Authorship.’ The British mercury. Containing 1. The present state of the world, ... 17. Curious extracts ... Embellished with three caricature prints, ... London: printed for J. Ridgway, and L. Macdonald, 1788. Pp. 14-27, 43-48 (illustration on page between 14 & 15) [Anonymous. By John Oswald. Contains nos. I-IV, dated 12 May to June 1787. The titlepages to nos.II-IV read: ‘The British mercury. No’, with the imprint: London: printed for J. Ridgway; and sold by all the booksellers in town and country. The plates are dated 1787.]


In the end, one might question whether the Society was in fact striving for the author's increased independence.66 Instead, the group appeared keen to take over the role of manager to the author. Their articles of contract with authors included limitations, for instance, on also publishing via subscription, or reprinting, their works. This way, the Society regulated the price, and authors could not increase profit.67 Yet, since this form of amateur publication did not

really take hold and because booksellers should be perceived with an eye to their diversity, a comparison with the ‘evil’ booksellers is difficult.

Conclusion: Enlightenment Values?

The group's project seems to have been wholly idealistic as it clung to the hope that on being exposed to their Enlightened activities, the booksellers would, in Samuel Johnson's words, ‘erect themselves into patrons, and buy and sell under the influence of a disinterested zeal for the promotion of learning.’68 However, booksellers wanted to make money, and the terms offered by the Society were a problem. From 1743-49, the Society had in fact returned with its proverbial tail between its legs and formed contracts with booksellers once again.

I have argued that the Society's double purpose of serving both the social public and the author's financial and psychological needs is characteristic of the dynamic tensions of the Enlightenment. However, one can argue, as Anne Goldgar does, that the Society's claim of encouraging public learning was just rhetoric to hide their actual function of professionalizing authorship.69 According to Zimmerman, similar arguments were sometimes used by the Stationer's Company when they tried to present themselves in a better light to achieve something that would strengthen their monopoly.70 Rather than downplay these tensions by choosing an either/or view of the Society's purpose, I have highlighted this dynamism. Such a stark opposition of authors' rights to the improvement of the public does little in furthering our understanding of how authorship functioned in the Enlightenment.

The form of Enlightened authorship promoted by the Society is indeed far from clear-cut. The group aimed to improve both the author's condition and also society as a whole. With its implementation of drastic changes to traditional publication methods, it purported to democratize the publication process by giving the individual author more control. Sociability was clearly a significant aspect of the Society, considering its basis of cooperation.71 At the same time, they wished to ‘encourage’ a certain kind of (specialist) learning by giving lesser-known authors and works the chance to appear in print. Their name and the works published represent yet another value, intellectualism and aestheticism, which Sher links with ‘Kant's famous motto of Enlightenment,

“Dare to know,” and [defines as] a ‘concomitant belief in the power of learning as a means of bringing about improvement’.72 Whether they wished to inculcate these values by furthering specialist knowledge, their practices catered mainly to a specialist audience and their choices imply a form of exclusion and of canon formation.

If we take the Society's failure at face value, with the booksellers forming a dam, rather than the conduit they normally function as, it would appear that the competitive business ideals of the book trade won out over Enlightenment values where publication is concerned. And yet, as time progressed, the author gained more esteem, authority, and control, until ‘he’ reigned over the literary market. As this rather complicated case has shown, Enlightenment authorship consists of dynamic values. For the Society itself, divided between disseminating knowledge, financial survival, and offering a social outlet for intellectuals, it is difficult to pinpoint a singular aim. Such a permanent solution would be far from illuminating for this chaotic period, with its multiple forces that impacted the development of authorship.

Considering its Enlightened rhetoric, the SEL also attempted to bestow on its authors the laudable qualities that its members worked to cultivate for the group, in the hopes of spreading learning and influencing the public's perception of (a certain type of) authorship. It is hard to tell to what extent their negative view of booksellers was generally known, but they did aim to influence the public.

Nevertheless, the SEL's rhetorical elevation, which also included a projection of the group at odds with the ‘Common’ booksellers (only driven by profit), shows that they were offering a service to authors. Supposedly less self-interested, the Society functioned as a modern, elite patron to authors. This is audible in their last breath: ‘Thus expired this truly laudable Society, for want of due support and encouragement; after it had continued about 13 years, and was so well calculated both for the honour and benefit of the public [...].’73 By collaborating with the Society, authors would gain some of the group's social credit, which in turn would impact the people's view of authors, not as ‘scribblers,’ but as cultivated individuals bringing knowledge to the public. As the Society's history has demonstrated, however, looks can be deceiving, and as James Ralph's work on authorship showed, a decade after the SEL disbanded the situation for authors had yet to fully reach a state of professionalization. The modern formation of authorship was not a progression.

The SEL has shown that Enlightenment discourse and belief pushed against certain economic roadblocks implemented by the print market. Given the complex, contradictory forces at work during this rich era, this argument could be extended and deemed a characteristic of the age of Enlightenment.

About the author

Alise Jameson holds an MA. in Germanic Languages and Literature (2007) from Ghent University and an MA. in Literary Studies (2008) from the FCU.Leuven. She is currently preparing a PhD. on the long eighteenth century (1660-1780) and the transition to modern authorship under the supervision of Gert Buelens and Marysa Demoor at Ghent University. E-mail: Alise.VanHeckeJameson@ugent.be.

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Anita McConnell, ‘Ward, John (1678/9-1758)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edn, Jan 2008, http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/28692, (12 Aug 2010).

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