Headed notepaper: The Amalgamated Press Ltd., The Fleetway House, Farringdon Street, London EC4, Editorial Department. Signed. ‘The instalment I received from you this morning is very good indeed and is a wonderful improvement on the other which I return to you here Registered Post. I am afraid you will let me down though if you don’t let me have another instalment delivered by Wednesday week.’
Headed notepaper: Dundee Advertiser, Evening Telegraph and Post, The Happy Home, People's Journal, People's Friend, My Weekly, John Leng & Co. Ltd., 7 Bank Street, Dundee. Signed. 'I wired you to-day that instalment 11 of 'The Mystery Man' was approved, and I shall be glad to have instalment 12 at your early convenience. The story should conclude with the 16th instalment. Instalment 16 should be a short one of 1,000 words, instalment 15, 2,000 words, and instalment 14, 3,000 words. As this story is now so near an end, I hope very soon to have from you the opening of the mother and child serial which we discussed when I saw you in London.'
Headed notepaper: Dundee Advertiser, Evening Telegraph and Post, The Happy Home, People's Journal, People's Friend, My Weekly, John Leng & Co. Ltd., 7 Bank Street, Dundee. Signed. Instalment 13 of 'Two Women' to hand this morning is approved, and I shall be glad to have the remaining instalments at your earliest. As this story is now practically concluded, I shall be glad to have an opening of one of the two new serials. I hope you will be able to send me this by an early post.'
Headed notepaper: Dundee Advertiser, Evening Telegraph and Post, The Happy Home, People's Journal, People's Friend, My Weekly, John Leng & Co. Ltd., 7 Bank Street, Dundee. Signed. 'I hope soon to have from you the 10th instalment of 'The Woman Pays'. We are starting this story at once, and we are arranging for it to run for 20 weeks. I shall be glad if you will keep this length in view, and give us a good strong story that will hold the interest of readers during the summer months. I have your synopsis for the new story and hope to write to you with regard to it in a day or two.'
Headed notepaper: Cotterill & Cromb, Editors and authors agents, Lennox House, Norfolk Street, Strand WC2, London. Enclosing cheque for £90 from: John Leng & Co., in payment for second serial rights on a three years’ lease of 'The Girl Without a Home'’.
From John Leng & Co., Ltd, 7 Bank Street, Dundee to D L Cromb, c/o Messrs Cotterill & Cromb, Lennox House, Norfolk Street, Strand. 'I am favoured with your letter of the 11th. with reference to the story 'The Right to Live'. We are not prepared to pay £3:3:0 per 1,000 words, but if you care to meet us at Two and a Half Guineas per 1,000, we shall take the story. We would start early in October, so that if you accept our offer, you would need to instruct the authors to proceed with it at once. The storey would need to be written in instalments of from 4,500 to 5,000 words each until near the end when they could be shortened. We take it, of course, that there will be nothing suggestive in the story that will make it unsuitable for our domestic magazines. If there is any development of this kind, please indicate what it is so that we may consider the matter before concluding the bargain.’
Headed notepaper: The Fleetway House, Farringdon Street EC4. Signed and titled Director. 'I was very much astonished and annoyed to note the remarks in your most unfair and insulting letter of this morning. It is scarcely derserving of an acknowledgement, but in view of your long association with this House I have decided to reply to it. You say 'I see you have given my plot to Mr John Goodwin for your new serial'. This is an entirely erroneous statement. As a matter of fact I have not the slightest recollection of what your plot was and I certainly never discussed it with any author. For another thing Mr John Goodwin wrote the first forty thousand words of this new story of his more than a year ago and I had many of the instalments in my desk here long before you came to the office and discussed a prospective serial with us. I am sure you will only to have read a few of the very brilliant instalments of Mr Goodwin's seral to realise that you are making a very unfair and quite unfounded charge. In all my journalistic career I have never played a trcik such as you suggest on any author submitting ideas to me for serials; in addition Mr Goodwin is not the type of man to accept other writers' plots and 'write them up'. He is far too able and independent of that sort of thing. After you have read the opening instalments of this serial I feel certain you will write and acknowledge that there is no possible connection between your synopsis and Mr Goodwin's new story. You will, I trust, be the more ready to do this if you accept that Mr Goodwin began his story months before I ever had the pleasure of meeting you.'
Headed notepaper: Editorial Department, Puck - A Humorous Journal, 2 Carmelite House, Carmelite Street, London. 'I am very pleased with the story sent in today. If you have any more by you I shall be pleased to see them.’
From: The Granville Studio, 61 Chancery Lane WC. 'After reading your letter of yesterday's date I of course accept your assurance that you did not consciously annex my plot. What happened is pretty clear - you read my story & the main theme of it sank into your mind & was forgotten. Later when you wanted a new notion for a story you fished it out not knowing whence it came. The facts are quite simple & no far-fetched theory of coincidence can explain them away. Some time last year I submitted you the opening instalment of a story called 'Account Rendered'. Briefly this is the theme - A young man down & out is forced more by circumstances than by any inherent wickedness to become an imposter and impersonate the heir to a great estate who had been drowned at sea. When he arrives at the big house he is confronted by the most lovely girl he has ever seen. She is the sister of the drowned heir & at once accepts the imposter as her brother. '... She came towards him like a radiant vision with both arms outstretched and her face aglow with happiness.' That was my 'curtain'. Mr Goodwin's curtain is the same; the theme of the story is the same. The fact that you solicitors keep your minds in a state of habitual receptiveness. You absorb any good ideas that come your way. That is why you are editors. the idea of a man being desperately in love with a girl who all the time thinks he is her brother while he cannot reveal the true facts without bringing ruin upon himself is a highly dramatic one. Your sub-conscious mind realised this at once & promptly poached the idea for future use. As an illustration of how the editorial mind works let me recal [sic] to you a trifling incident not otherwise worth mentioning. At our last interview when you returned my M.S. to me you went over the story point by point explaining very kindly where it failed to meet your requirements. One objection you named was this ; 'That old rascal Tricksey, You make a lot of him but you won't want him any more in the story'. 'Oh' yes' I replied, 'he is the man who knows!' Instantly your eyes lit up - 'Oh' I see, Yes, then that's good. That's good!'. A few weeks later you brought out a rascal in Answers. & you placarded all London with a picture of one of the characters - just the head of a man - & underneath 'The Man who Knew'. It is nothing in itself but it bears out my point. Like Moliere you 'take your own wherever you find it'. Please understand that I am saying nothing against Mr Goodwin's story. I have read the first instalment with interest & I think it much more suited to Answers than my story upon which it is based.'
Headed notepaper: Answers, The Amalgamated Press Ltd., The Fleetway House, Farringdon Street, London EC4. Signed. 'Many thanks for your long letter. I do not suppose that anything I can say will convince you that every word of Mr. Gowing’s new story is his own, and that every idea in it comes from his own brain, but the fact remains. Mr Sidney Gowing started to write this story fully a year ago, and he has never had one word from me in the way of suggestion as to plot, character or anything else. Your suggestion that 'You fished out my plot and passed it over to Mr Gowing' is perfectly absurd. Now let me be absolutely candid with you; when I first wrote to you I could not for the life of me recall what your story was, nor one single character or feature in it. Your letter this morning, however, brings your plot to my mind, and I certainly recollect that one of your central characters became an imposter and impersonated the heir of a great estate who had been drowned at sea. This, of course, is not an original brain-wave of yours; it has been made the theme of innumerable stories, and Mr Victor Bridges, many years ago, produced a remarkable story almost on these lines. I must say I agree with you that the curtains of your opening instalment and of Mr Gowing's first instalment in ANSWERS are very alike: this, of course, is a pure coincidence as it is the natural curtain to which any author would lead up when dealing with such a plot. I am very much amused with your further suggetsion that I used an idea of yours in a poster 'The Man who Knew'. As a matter of fact, the suggestion for this poster came from Sir George Sutton himself, and I had practically nothing to do with it at all, so that again, you see, the theory you have built up falls to the ground. I am sending the correspondence on to Mr Gowing, and if it will be of any interest to you I will send you copies of his replies; I expect, however, that his letteres will be as direct and pointed as yours have been to me.'
