For eleven critically important years in Carlyle's early career, bookseller and magazine proprietor James Fraser (1806?-1841) functioned as the main conduit by which Carlyle's essays and books reached the English reading public and as the source of most of his earnings as a writer. An extraordinary proportion of Carlyle's significant writings of the 1830s appeared first in Fraser's Magazine and were later reprinted by Fraser in book form, while such major books as The French Revolution, Chartism, and On Heroes and Hero Worship also appeared for the first time in Britain under his imprint. Despite the belittling tone that Carlyle habitually adopted in writing of his first publisher, a tone that has often found an echo in the fleeting references to him by commentators from Froude onward, James Fraser finally emerges from the letters of Carlyle and others as a kindly and fair-dealing young literary businessman possessed of more than ordinary powers of judgment.
Descended from an Inverness family, James Fraser set up shop as a publisher at 215 Regent Street sometime prior to 1830, enlisting as his printer James Moyes, who had established the Temple Printing Office in Bouverie Street in 1826. In collaboration with writer William Maginn and barrister Hugh Fraser (no relation), he launched in 1830 Fraser's Magazine for Town and Country, a lively half-crown monthly of progressive Conservative principles modeled on Blackwood's and aiming to feature both popular and scholarly articles. While Maginn and his staff handled the in-house writing for the magazine, Fraser set himself the task of attracting able outside contributors. In March of 1830 he wrote directly to Carlyle in Craigenputtock at the suggestion of Foreign Review editor William Fraser (also no relation, though sometimes mistakenly assumed to be James's brother) and Rev. Edward Irving, to say that he would be "extremely obliged" if Carlyle could supply Fraser's with "occasional articles . . . however short" (NLS ms. 1765ff162-3). By late summer Carlyle had gathered some manuscripts to send, and by autumn was at work on an essay tentatively entitled "Thoughts on Clothes" for the new magazine.
For the next four years, Fraser's Magazine served as Carlyle's "best speaking mechanism" and the mainstay of his income, despite his contempt for Maginn's "Irish blackguardism" and for the periodical itself as a "scavenger-cart" (Letters 7:25, 281; Two Notebooks 255). Notable articles included "Schiller," "Thoughts on History," and "Count Cagliostro," as well as poetry and translations. Two of his best remembered essays were written at James Fraser's urging: after some coaxing the publisher persuaded Carlyle to review Croker's edition of Boswell's Johnson for the magazine, while on hearing the news of Edward Irving's death, Fraser, who had once been a member of the preacher's congregation, immediately wrote to entreat Carlyle to write the notice that appeared in the next issue as "Death of the Rev. Edward Irving." Astutely valuing the power and erudition of Carlyle's writing, Fraser paid for his contributions at a much higher rate than that accorded all but one or two others. In the early 1830s Carlyle routinely received 15 guineas per sheet (one sheet equaled sixteen pages) for his articles and 12 gn. per sheet for translations, at a time when most other contributors to Fraser's were paid little more than £7. By comparison with the other magazine proprietors to whom he offered his writing, Carlyle at this time found Fraser to be "the best of payers" as well as "the sweetest to deal with" (Letters 6:271, 290).
Meanwhile, the essay on clothes begun in 1830, which had quickly swollen to the length of a short book, lay in abeyance, though never far from Carlyle's thoughts. Carlyle had brought the manuscript to London in 1831 to search for a publisher at a singularly unpropitious time, when the book trade in general lay in a severe depression owing in part to the Reform Bill agitation; the firms of Tilt, Murray, and Longman all declined to publish the book on any terms, while Fraser would only undertake to bring it out at Carlyle's own expense. Although this kind of arrangement--publishing on commission, with the author paying the costs--was a fairly common one during this period, particularly for well-to-do authors, it was far beyond Carlyle's slender means, and so the manuscript was laid aside while he returned to writing for Fraser's and other periodicals. At last, in 1833, Carlyle approached Fraser with a proposal to publish the manuscript serially in Fraser's, where it appeared in eight numbers between November 1833 and June 1834. From beginning to end the serial was manifestly unpopular with readers, much to Carlyle's grim amusement and Fraser's nervous dismay. Fraser's concerns were doubtless magnified by the knowledge that his magazine continued to run at a loss; nevertheless, as Carlyle would later remember, the publisher "went on with it obstinately till done" in the face of loud complaints from subscribers (Two Reminiscences, 74-75).
The absurdly paltry sum that Carlyle received from James Fraser for the first publication of Sartor Resartus has long been a matter of legend. Like most legends, however, this one does not stand up to close scrutiny. For just under seven sheets of letterpress (107 pages) Carlyle chose to take payment in two forms: 58 separately printed presentation copies in gray wrappers and £82.1 in cash. Even figured on the cash alone, these figures indicate that Carlyle's minimum rate of payment for Sartor was almost £12 per sheet, while the value of the copies would have pushed the rate some distance beyond that, about in line with his usual high earnings from his contributions to Fraser's. By comparison, W. M. Thackeray earned no more than 12 guineas a sheet from Fraser a few years later for his "Yellowplush Papers," a series that, unlike Sartor, was quite popular during its run. In short, at a time when Fraser was losing money on the magazine and was soon obliged to cut his highest payment for articles to £10 a sheet, Carlyle seems to have done relatively well by his publisher, and to have had no regrets about the bargain.
The years after the debacle of Sartor were difficult ones for both men. Declining Fraser's proposal in 1835 to print the first volume of the new history separately, Carlyle shortly thereafter lent the manuscript to John Stuart Mill; upon Mill's anguished report of its accidental destruction, Carlyle set about the heartbreaking task of rewriting the entire volume, delaying the publication of the book, which Fraser had already advertised as forthcoming, for many months. In 1836 Fraser was brutally assaulted in his shop by Grantley Berkeley, a sporting aristocrat and aspiring novelist, who took his revenge on the publisher for an allegedly libelous Fraser's review penned by William Maginn. Beaten almost to death with a weighted horsewhip, Fraser never entirely recovered from this attack, and for the rest of his short life suffered bouts of illness that interrupted the management of his business and his dealings with Carlyle and other authors. With the prospects for the French history uncertain, Fraser nevertheless was able at the end of that year to pay Carlyle the highest rate he had yet received for his magazine work--£20 a sheet, making £50 in all--for "The Diamond Necklace," which appeared in Fraser's in January and February of 1837 to a distinctly chilly reception.
The widespread and growing acclaim that followed the appearance of The French Revolution in the spring of 1837 marked the great turning-point in Carlyle's reputation as an author, and in James Fraser's success as his publisher. Except for a brief and unsatisfactory experiment with Saunders & Otley and despite the blandishments of other publishers, Carlyle continued to rely on Fraser's honesty and patient goodwill as his new fame brought with it a great flurry of publishing activity. The translation of Goethe's Wilhelm Meister, which had appeared so long ago as 1824 in Edinburgh, was reissued by Fraser in expanded form in 1839, while an edition of 1000 copies of Chartism, on a half-profits arrangement, appeared at the end of that year, with another soon following. This activity brought with it also a welcome increase in Carlyle's earnings from both lectures and books. Fraser's sale of 248 imported American copies of Critical and Miscellaneous Essays alone brought Carlyle some £239 (and, to his annoyance, a comparable sum for his bookseller), while Fraser's own five-volume edition of 1000 copies in 1840 was rapidly subscribed--that is, pre-ordered--by the trade. After paying Carlyle £110 (plus a number of presentation copies) on the first edition of French Revolution, Fraser soon sought to meet the growing demand for the book with a second edition of 1500 copies, printing an additional 500 for sale in America. This latter arrangement, like its counterpart in Fraser's lucrative sale of copies of both the Essays and French Revolution brought in from Boston, reflects the innovative transatlantic publishing and distribution of Carlyle's works coordinated through Ralph Waldo Emerson. To Carlyle's intense satisfaction, Fraser, who had once "shrieked" at the notion of republishing Sartor in book form after its disastrous run as a serial, now expressed an interest in doing so, finally publishing the second English edition (after Saunders & Otley's) in 1841 (Letters, 8: 120; 9: 357).
James Fraser's last major publishing enterprise with Carlyle involved the series of lectures on heroes that Carlyle gave in London in May of 1840, for which Fraser handled the advertising and sold the tickets, and which ultimately netted Carlyle £114. Carlyle reworked his lectures for their appearance in book form and opened negotiations with Fraser determined to receive £150 in ready money rather than accede to the customary half-profits scheme that the ever-cautious Fraser, like most publishers of the period, greatly preferred. In a richly comic letter to Anna Jameson, Jane Welsh Carlyle described her spirited attempt to make this bargain with Fraser on her husband's behalf, only to find herself confounded by "his Bookseller Arithmetic" (Letters 12:277-278). At last, after Saunders & Otley had offered only £50 on an edition of 750 copies, Carlyle accepted Fraser's offer of £75 for an edition of 1000--the identical sum for Sartor forming part of the bargain--to be printed by the firm of Robson, Levy, and Franklin, whom Carlyle had long since come to prefer to James Moyes.
Not long after the almost simultaneous appearance of these editions of Sartor and On Heroes and Hero-Worship, James Fraser entered into his last illness, dying at his mother's house in Argyle Street on October 2, 1841. "It is a mournful and solemn thing for me," Carlyle wrote, "this loss of him in middle course" (Letters 13:270). As Fraser had never married or had children, the settling of his business affairs--which had included, in addition to the magazine and Carlyle's works, a modest range of published titles on archaeological and religious subjects--fell to his brother, a solicitor. After some negotiation Fraser's unsold copies of Carlyle's books were bought by Chapman and Hall, who on the advice of John Forster succeeded Fraser as Carlyle's new publishers, while Fraser's Magazine passed into the hands of publisher George William Nickisson.
The role played by James Fraser in nurturing Carlyle's budding literary career has rarely been acknowledged--least of all by Carlyle himself, who in later years bristled at the suggestion. Yet the importance of that role can hardly be in doubt. At a time of turmoil and stagnant sales in the English publishing trade, when neither his manner nor his opinions recommended Carlyle to more prestigious firms, the income and opportunity made possible by Fraser and Fraser's Magazine provided him a crucial foothold in the London literary world. For all of Carlyle's disdain for booksellers generally as grasping middlemen and his impatience with James Fraser's commercial caution, his letters' grudging tributes to the publisher's honesty and loyalty, as well as his continued reliance on Fraser as his reputation widened, reflect the modest but essential contribution of this obscure tradesman to the growing public awareness of Carlyle's work in the 1830s and early 1840s.
Patrick Leary
This edition © 2005
Thrall, Miriam. Rebellious Fraser's: Nol Yorke's Magazine in the Days of Maginn, Carlyle and Thackeray New York: Columbia UP, 1934.
[A somewhat shortened version of this essay may be found in Mark Cumming, editor, The Carlyle Encyclopedia (2004).]