The Literary Shop, and Other Tales. James L. Ford
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James L. Ford
The Literary Shop, and Other Tales
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4064066231521
Table of Contents
CHAPTER II. THE “LEDGER” PERIOD OF LETTERS.
CHAPTER III. SOMETHING ABOUT “GOOD BAD STUFF.”
CHAPTER IV. THE EARLY HOLLAND PERIOD.
CHAPTER V. MENDACITY DURING THE HOLLAND PERIOD OF LETTERS.
CHAPTER VI. THE DAWN OF THE JOHNSONIAN PERIOD.
CHAPTER VII. WOMAN’S INFLUENCE IN THE JOHNSONIAN PERIOD.
CHAPTER VIII. LITERATURE—PAWED AND UNPAWED; AND THE CROWN-PRINCE THEREOF.
CHAPTER IX. CERTAIN THINGS WHICH A CONSCIENTIOUS LITERARY WORKER MAY FIND IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK.
CHAPTER X. “HE TRUN UP BOTE HANDS!”
CHAPTER XI. THE CONCLUSION OF THE WHOLE MATTER.
THE SOBER, INDUSTRIOUS POET, AND HOW HE FARED AT EASTER-TIME.
THE TWO BROTHERS; OR, PLUCKED FROM THE BURNING.
THE STORY OF THE YOUNG MAN OF TALENT.
THE SOCIETY REPORTER’S CHRISTMAS
THE CULTURE BUBBLE IN OURTOWN.
SOME THOUGHTS ON THE CONSTRUCTION AND PRESERVATION OF JOKES.
II.—THE IDEA AND ITS EMBELLISHMENT.
McCLURE’S MODEL VILLAGE FOR LITERARY TOILERS.
ARRIVAL OF THE SCOTCH AUTHORS AT McCLURE’S LITERARY COLONY.
THE CANNING OF PERISHABLE LITERATURE.
LITERARY LEAVES BY MANACLED HANDS.
McCLURE’S BIRTHDAY AT SYNDICATE VILLAGE.
LITERATURE BY PRISON CONTRACT LABOR.
CHRISTMAS EVE AT THE SYNDICATE VILLAGE.
THE LITERARY SHOP
CHAPTER I.
IN AN OLD GARRET.
I am lying at full length on a broken-down haircloth sofa that has been placed near the cobwebby window of an old garret in a country farm-house. It is near the close of a rainy day, and all the afternoon I have listened to the pattering of the heavy drops on the shingled roof, the rustling of the slender locust-trees and the creaking of their branches as the wind moves them.
There are pop-corn ears drying on the floor of this old garret; its solid rafters are festooned with dried apples and white onions. Odd bits of furniture, and two or three hair trunks bearing initials made with brass-headed nails, are scattered about the room, and from where I lie I can see a Franklin stove, a pair of brass andirons, and one of those queer wooden-wheeled clocks that used to be made in Connecticut years ago, and which are a fitting monument to the ingenuity of the Yankee race.
Every article in the room is carefully treasured, and none is held in more tender regard than are certain square, dust-covered packages of what might be old newspapers that are piled up in big heaps beside the old chairs and tables. One of these bundles lies on the floor beside my sofa, with its string untied and its contents scattered carelessly about. Look down and you will see that it contains copies of the New York Ledger, of a year that was one of the early seventies, and which have been religiously preserved, together with fully twoscore of other similar bundles, by the excellent people who dwell in the house.
The number which I hold in my hand contains instalments of four serials, as many complete stories, half a dozen poems, contributions by Henry Ward Beecher, James Parton, and Mary Kyle Dallas, and a number of short editorials and paragraphs, besides two solid nonpareil columns of “Notices to Correspondents.” One of the serials is called “The Haunted Husband; or, Lady Chetwynde’s Specter,” and deals exclusively with that superior class of mortals who go to make up what a great many of the old Ledger readers would have called “carriage trade.” Another story, “Unknown; or, The Mystery of Raven Rocks,” bears the signature of Mrs. E. D. N. Southworth, a name venerated in every household in which a red-plush