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Is there any "literary" author working today who does not long for the
glorious days of the past?--the days when Sylvia Beach would step up to
publish the early work of Hemingway and the too controversially modern
work of Joyce; when bookseller Elkin Mathews would take on the brash,
but gifted, Ezra Pound; when hereditarily wealthy James Laughlin would
use some of his cash flow to give the later Pound and William Carlos
Williams a reliable American publishing home. Were those days indicative
of a time when literary acumen, and not cash, ruled the publishing world?
Clearly not--or Laughlin need never have worried about typefaces and
paper stocks, and Beach could have stuck to selling, instead of
publishing, books.
 And if Nathaniel Hawthorne's more or less forgotten tale, "The
Devil in Manuscript," is any indication, the gentlemanly nineteenth
century was not appreciably better. Hawthorne's unnamed narrator stops
in to visit, on a bitterly cold evening, a good friend, "one of those
gifted youths who cultivate poetry and the belles-lettres, and call
themselves students of law." But this young man is no Grisham or Turow,
who is so fascinated by his "daytime" career that he wishes to fill
literature with lawyers. In fact, one wonders if he might have been
inspired by Poe, since he has, in his writing, "endeavored to embody the
character of a fiend, as represented in our traditions and the written
records of witchcraft." Like Poe (but unlike Stephen King), young Oberon
finds success denied him. Of the seventeen "booksellers" to whom he has
written, only one has been interested enough to read his work, and that
one has criticized the tales and declined to publish them. Another, he
says, is "giving up business, on purpose, I verily believe, to escape
publishing my work." Others are not averse to publishing the book
(which--note well--they have not read) as long as Oberon advances "half
the cost on an edition, and [gives] bonds for the remainder, besides a
high percentage to themselves[. . . .]"
Unfortunately the disdain of publishers is not the only "modern"
problem facing Oberon, though he may not know it. The narrator, who
speaks highly of his friend's writing, thinks differently. When Oberon
reveals that he plans to burn his manuscripts, the narrator does not
"very strenuously oppose the determination, being privately of the
opinion, in spite of my partiality for the author, that his tales would
make a more brilliant appearance in the fire than anywhere else." Yet
even so, the narrator admits that his friend's productions have incited
in him something of the desire to be an author.
As interesting as Hawthorne's story is for its (presumably
accurate) insights into publishers and editors of the 1830's and '40's,
it is perhaps more to be admired for the sly humor of its narration
(admit it--you have never put "humor" and "Hawthorne" into the same
sentence) and the psychologically adept depiction of its two characters.
Hawthorne's narrator begins by telling us that, when he arrives
in his friend's town, the wind is blowing "so violently that I had but to
spread my cloak like a mainsail, and scud along the street at the rate of
ten knots." That he means us to take this ludicrous nautical image more
or less literally is indicated by his persistence in developing it. He
delights in the envy of the street's other "navigators" who are, unlike
him, heading into the wind, and one of whom he "capsize[s]." The
precision of the imagery and language here, as well as the almost
slapstick nature of the event, recalls (though it precedes) Melville's
often amusing short fiction. Later, as Oberon prepares to consign his
pages to the fire, he wonders if even Dante could have conceived a more
appropriate punishment for a "bad" author that to have to peruse his own
manuscript in perpetuity. But no--the narrator objects--"because a bad
author is always his own great admirer."
This latter statement, besides being funny, also exhibits
Hawthorne's awareness of the foibles of authors--a foible he may have
considered his own in the unsuccessful years before he turned from short
stories to novels. Likewise Oberon's dismayed (and accurately paranoid)
perception that a publisher would rather go out of business that contract
his book. But Hawthorne's insights are not limited to Oberon. The
narrator seems to represent that portion of humanity for whom reading a
story or novel always provokes the thought, "I too should be a writer."
And yet we are given no hint that the narrator has actually written
anything, even though his "critical skills" are practiced enough to note
the flaws of someone who has written--flaws, we presume, the narrator
would never allow into his writing. And the tale's conclusion--when
Oberon's burning manuscripts throw such a flame up the chimney (there is
a devil in them, you see) that nearby roofs catch on fire--reveals the
depth of his obsession with authorship and fame. "Here I stand," he
cries, "a triumphant author! Huzza! Huzza! My brain has set the town
on fire!"
Instructors in America's plague of creative writing courses could
do worse than assign this story on the first day of every semester.
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