If you’re bored by what publishing was like in 1850 and before, avert your eyes! But as for the rest of you …

The two previous excerpts I posted from the September 1850 issue of Harper’s dealt with the culture of publishing, and the writer/publisher relationship, but neither piece really delved into what writers and editors might be expected to earn at their trade back then.

Two different short articles in the issue give some idea. The first is about the history of The Edinburgh Review. Here’s what the contributors to and editors of the magazine earned:

Sidney Smith’s account of the origin of the Edinburgh Review is well known. The following statement was written by Lord Jeffrey, at the request of Robert Chambers, in November, 1846, and is now first made public: “I can not say exactly where the project of the Edinburgh Review was first talked of among the projectors. But the first serious consultations about it—and which led to our application to a publisher—were held in a small house, where I then lived, in Buccleugh-place (I forget the number). They were attended by S. Smith, F. Horner, Dr. Thomas Brown, Lord Murray, and some of them also by Lord Webb Seymour, Dr. John Thomson, and Thomas Thomson. The first three numbers were given to the publisher—he taking the risk and defraying the charges. There was then no individual editor, but as many of us as could be got to attend used to meet in a dingy room of Willson’s printing office, in Craig’s Close, where the proofs of our own articles were read over and remarked upon, and attempts made also to sit in judgment on the few manuscripts which were then offered by strangers. But we had seldom patience to go through with this; and it was soon found necessary to have a responsible editor, and the office was pressed upon me. About the same time Constable was told that he must allow ten guineas a sheet to the contributors, to which he at once assented; and not long after, the minimum was raised to sixteen guineas, at which it remained during my reign. Two-thirds of the articles were paid much higher—averaging, I should think, from twenty to twenty-five guineas a sheet on the whole number. I had, I might say, an unlimited discretion in this respect, and must do the publishers the justice to say that they never made the slightest objection. Indeed, as we all knew that they had (for a long time at least) a very great profit, they probably felt that they were at our mercy. Smith was by far the most timid of the confederacy, and believed that, unless our incognito was strictly maintained, we could not go on a day; and this was his object for making us hold our dark divans at Willson’s office, to which he insisted on our repairing singly, and by back approaches or different lanes! He also had so strong an impression of Brougham’s indiscretion and rashness, that he would not let him be a member of our association, though wished for by all the rest. He was admitted, however, after the third number, and did more work for us than any body. Brown took offense at some alterations Smith had made in a trifling article of his in the second number, and left us thus early; publishing at the same time in a magazine the fact of his secession—a step which we all deeply regretted, and thought scarcely justified by the provocation. Nothing of the kind occurred ever after.”

Constable soon remunerated the editor with a liberality corresponding to that with which contributors were treated. From 1803 to 1809 Jeffrey received 200 guineas for editing each number. For the ensuing three years, the account-books are missing; but from 1813 to 1826 he is credited £700 for editing each number.

But what do those numbers actually mean?

The writers were paid anywhere from 10-25 guineas per sheet (page? article? issue?) of writing in the years prior to 1850. Since no specific years are given, let’s just try to figure out what that would have been worth in 1850. Based on Measuring Worth, that range would be from £895.00 to £2,250.00. Based on the Bank of England, that range would be £1503.75 to £2634.27.

As for that editor, he started out getting paid either £15,800.00 or £16,093.63, and later received either £50,700.00 or £51,763.15. And that’s per “number,” not per year.

Later in the same issue, there’s this entry:

Rewards of Literature.—Literature has been treated with much ingratitude, even by those who owe most to it. If we do not quite say with Goldsmith, that it supports many dull fellows in opulence, we may assert, with undeniable truth, that it supports, or ought to support, many clever ones in comfort and respectability. If it does not it is less the fault of the profession than the professors themselves. There are many men now in London, Edinburgh, and other parts of the country, earning from £1000 to £300 per annum by their literary labors, and some, with very little effort, earning considerably more. It is no part of our plan in the present article to mix up modern instances with our wise saws, else might we easily name writers who, for contributions to the periodical press, for serial installments of popular tales, and other literary commodities, demanding no very laborious efforts of intellectual industry, have received from flourishing newspaper proprietors and speculative booksellers, sums of money which it would be difficult to earn with equal facility in any other learned profession. An appointment on the editorial staff of a leading daily paper is in itself a small fortune to a man. The excellence of the articles is, for the most part, in proportion to the sum paid for them; and a successful morning journal will generally find it good policy to pay its contributors in such a manner as to secure the entire produce of their minds, or, at all events, to get the best fruits that they are capable of yielding. If a man can earn a comfortable independence by writing three or four leading articles a week, there is no need that he should have his pen ever in his hand, that he should be continually toiling at other and less profitable work. But if he is to keep himself ever fresh and ever vigorous for one master he must be paid for it. There are instances of public writers who had shown evident signs of exhaustion when employed on one paper—who had appeared, indeed, to have written themselves out so thoroughly, that the proprietors were fain to dispense with their future services—transferring those services to another paper, under more encouraging circumstances of renumeration, and, as though endued with new life, striking out articles fresh, vigorous, and brilliant. They gave themselves to the one paper; they had only given a part of themselves to the other.

So using the same calculators, it seems there were many writers earning £25,700.00 (or £30,107.14) to £85,600.00 (or £100,357.14) each year. And that’s not counting the popular writers of “serial installments of popular tales,” so there were obviously some out there doing much better.

All of this is assuming these calculators are operating the way they’re supposed to (anyone out there have any input on that?), but if they are, writers and editors were doing quite well 160+ years ago.

In fact, I’m thinking of firing up the old time machine right about now …