Mass markets: religion

doi:10.1017/CHOL9780521866248.010

8 - Mass markets: religion

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2010

Michael Ledger-Lomas

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David McKitterick

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David McKitterick: Affiliation:
University of Cambridge

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Summary

In 1890, F. W. Farrar, Archdeacon of Westminster and author of The life of Christ (1874) and The life and work of St Paul (1879), lectured the Church Congress on ‘The ethics of commerce’. In his broadside against adulteration, hucksterism and vulgar advertising, Farrar commented sharply on the ‘sweating publishers’ who passed on to authors only a hundredth of the profits from their works. Surely he was not referring to Cassell, the publisher of his two best-sellers? Feeling their honour slighted, they wrote to The Times to defend the generosity of their dealings with him. Farrar had been ‘comparatively unknown’ when in 1870 they proposed that he write a life of Christ, offering him £500 plus £100 for a research trip to Palestine. After their extensive advertising helped make the book a huge success, they gladly paid out £1,405 in extra-contractual gratuities, making £2,005 for Farrar in all. He was offered £1,000 for St Paul, a sum Cassell doubled and added a royalty to when Farrar, having signed a contract, suggested he might make a better deal elsewhere. Together with extra gratuities, he received £4,333 17s 1d for the book. Mortified by this publicity, Farrar sent a grand rebuke to The Times, arguing that the ‘altogether distasteful’ advertising campaign for Christ had been nothing to do with him, protesting that Cassell had paraded their generosity while keeping quiet about their profits, and pointedly omitting the firm from the list of his publishers that had his ‘gratitude’ and ‘esteem’.

Keywords

Bible purchasers evangelical entrepreneurship conversionist imperative supernatural Protestantism mass market religious publishing mass publishing

Type: Chapter
Information: The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain , pp. 324 - 358

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521866248.010 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2009

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8 - Mass markets: religion

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