Novelist
During the period of their collaboration, James Rice effectively played the role of unsalaried literary agent. Professional literary agents did not really exist until the 1880s and when, in 1883 he decided to employ A.P. Watt, Besant became one of the first authors to have an agent.36 The rise of the literary agent came about as opportunities to be published increased. An active campaigner for authors' rights, Besant was also a founder of the Society of Authors and accepted the Chair at the first meeting, in 1883. His aims for the society were to campaign for the reform of copyright legislation, to protect literary property and to promote the writing profession. He secured the Poet Laureate, Alfred, Lord Tennyson as the society's President and gave nascence to the society's journal, The Author.37
The letter held in the Manuscript Album discusses author-publisher negotiations. It is addressed to J. Cotter Morison, an essayist and historian, and refers to Daldy (a publisher) and Underdown (a lawyer).
I wrote to Daldy this very morning on the lines of your letter wh: is rather a coincidence. Yesterday I had a long talk with Underdown on this & various other matters. He wants the adhesion of Daldy & a sight of his bill wh: I have asked for. The first thing for us to do is to make authors resist the agreements with publishers. This will end in the better sort of them trying to buy up books altogether - a favourable arrangement at first, for authors. But the whole subject, as Underdown will show you, is surrounded with difficulties created by publishers' treacheries and assumptions. I hope we shall have the office and secretary in a week or two when we shall be able to move.
Besant, W. Letter to J. Cotter Morison [n.d.]
Manuscript Album, 89
The moralistic yet, perhaps far-fetched and adventurous plots of Besant and Rice's collaborative novels proved commercially successful. Their first triumph, Ready-Money Mortiboy, explored the themes of greed and selfishness.
Although he also wrote historic fiction set in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, as a solo writer, Besant focussed on contemporary social conditions. All Sorts and Conditions of Men tells the story of Angela Messenger who moves into lodgings in Stepney so that she can understand the poverty of London's East End. It is a far cry from her wealthy background and it captured the hearts and consciences of its readers.
