Regarding his feelings about publishers, the Mason Brothers in particular. Transcription: called on Mr and Mrs Andreotti. 16. Sunday. To Radway's private residence in Greenwich St, till noon, then to Brooklyn and [Frank] Pounden's; returning by 12. To the close of the Month. Principally engaged in writing and illustrating an 'Autobiography of a Stomach' for Radway, which I have completed. He is mighty well pleased with it, will pay $70 or $80, and designs publishing it in pamphlet form as an advertisement. There is yet another delay of three weeks before my book will appear; the Masons doing
Regarding his feelings about publishers, the Mason Brothers in particular. Transcription: called on Mr and Mrs Andreotti. 16. Sunday. To Radway's private residence in Greenwich St, till noon, then to Brooklyn and [Frank] Pounden's; returning by 12. To the close of the Month. Principally engaged in writing and illustrating an 'Autobiography of a Stomach' for Radway, which I have completed. He is mighty well pleased with it, will pay $70 or $80, and designs publishing it in pamphlet form as an advertisement. There is yet another delay of three weeks before my book will appear; the Masons doing things with refreshing coolness. 'Tis good discipline, however, and edifying to observe how one's superfluous enthusiasm gets taken out of one, when in contact with the intervening details. These publishers ? neither better nor worse than their class ? are always on an imaginary dais above the men who produce the wares they deal in. As an offset to the hope and conceit, which they, coarsely enough, involuntarily attribute to authors, they assume a respectable indifference calculated to prove exquisitely irritating to a proverbially sensitive class. You are always supposed to be under obligation to them for having published your book, even if you have put a few thousands into their pockets thereby. (I remark this in their allusions to [James] Parton ?s '[Horace] Greeley' ? which they wanted to emasculate ? and Fanny Fern's books.) Title: Thomas Butler Gunn Diaries: Volume 8, page 180, May 15-31, 1857 . 15 May 1857. Gunn, Thomas Butler, 1826-1903
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