Without examining all of the items listed
below, it is difficult to be sure how many distinct
printings of this book appeared during the period it
remained in print. The history provided by the
holdings appearing in WorldCat indicates that this book
remained in print under two titles from 1886, when it was
copyrighted, until 1905. Despite the confusions of
this record, it seems clear that the title was reprinted
almost annually through 1901.
Title: The
story of the Normans: told chiefly in relation to their
conquest of England
Author(s): Jewett, Sarah Orne,
1849-1909.
Publication: New York; London : G.P.
Putnam's Sons,
Year:
1886
Description: xiv, 373 pages :
frontispiece, illustrations, folded map, genealogical table
; 20 cm.
Series: Story of the nations; Variation:
Story of the nations.
Title: The story of the Normans,told chiefly in
relation to their conquest of England,
Publication: New York, London, G.P.
Putnam's Sons,
Year:
1887
Standard No: LCCN: 02-18547
Title: The story of the Normans,
told chiefly in relation to their conquest of
England,
Publication: London, T. Fisher Unwin
Year:
1887
Note: Though listed in
WorldCat, this probably is not an 1887 printing, as Unwin's
official first printing in Great Britain appeared under the
title
The Normans in 1891. Perhaps at some
time, Unwin issued a printing with only the American first
printing date. See below.
Title: The story of the Normans: told
chiefly in relation to their conquest of England
Author(s): Jewett, Sarah Orne, 1849-1909.
Publication: New York : G.P. Putnam's
Sons,
Year:
1888
Standard No: LCCN: 02-18547
Title: The story of the Normans: told
chiefly in relation to their conquest of England
Publication: New York : G.P. Putnam's
Sons,
Year:
1889, ©1886
Title: The story of the Normans, told
chiefly in relation to their conquest of England,
Publication: New York and London, G.P.
Putnam's Sons,
Year:
1890, ©1866
Title: The
Normans: told chiefly in relation to their conquest of
England
Publication: London : T. Fisher Unwin ;
New York : G.P. Putnam's Sons,
Year:
1891, ©1886
Title: The story of the Normans: told
chiefly in relation to their conquest of England
Publication: New York : G.P. Putnam,
Year:
1892, ©1886
Title: The story of the Normans: told
chiefly in relation to their conquest of England
Publication: New York : G.P. Putnam's
Sons,
Year:
1893, ©1886
Title: The story of the Normans told
chiefly in relation to their conquest of England.
Publication: New York : G.P. Putnam,
Year:
1895
Title: The Normans: told chiefly in
relation to their conquest of England
Publication: New York : G.P. Putnam ;
London : T. Fisher Unwin,
Year:
1895, ©1886
Title: The Normans; told chiefly in
relation to their conquest of England,
Publication: New York, G.P. Putnam,
Year:
1898
Standard No: LCCN: 11-13390
Note: Though the publisher is
listed as Putnam in New York, the title is from the original
British edition.
Title: The story of the Normans: told
chiefly in relation to their conquest of England
Publication: London : T. Fisher,
Year:
1898
Note: Though the
publisher is listed as Fisher in London, the title is from
the original American edition.
Title: The
story of the Normans: told chiefly in relation to their
conquest of England
Publication: London : Unwin; New York :
Putnam,
Year:
1899
Note: It appears that after
1898, both the British and the American publishers used
their two titles interchangeably.
Title: The Normans; told
chiefly in relation to their conquest of England,
Publication: New York : G.P. Putnam,
Year:
1901
Standard No: LCCN: 11-13390
Title: The story of the Normans: told
chiefly in relation to their conquest of England
Publication: New York ; London : G.P.
Putnam's Sons,
Year:
1901
The Normans; told chiefly in relation to their conquest
of England,
Publication: New York, G.P. Putnam's Sons
Year:
1905
Subscription Editions
List of Titles in this Subscription
Series
The Houghton Library at Harvard University
holds six pages of sales reports on
The Story of the
Normans, apparently provided to Sarah Orne Jewett and
her estate from the time of the book's publication in 1887
until her death in 1909. Five of these pages are from
Putnam's Sons, with information about sales and
royalties. The other is from Longmans, Green -- a
royalty statement only, made in 1897. As T. Fisher Unwin was
the publisher of the British edition, it appears that
Longmans, Green acted as agent to make Jewett's
payment.
The final report of July 1909 indicates
that Putnam's Sons sold 6394 copies of the title.
Presumably a substantial number of promotional copies also
were distributed.
According to the advertising information
at the front of the 1887 edition, all titles in the Story of
the Nations series sold for $1.50 in the U.S. This
price remained stable through Putnam's final 1905
printing. The British edition sold for 5 shillings in
1891 and in 1899. The financial records indicate that
Jewett received royalties of 10 cents / copy on the first
1000 copies sold and of 15 cents on subsequent trade
sales. She received no royalties on promotional copies
that were distributed to editors, teachers, and
others. How much Jewett earned from the title is
difficult to determine, as these records are not complete,
and they indicate that there were different classes of sales
that yielded different royalty amounts per copy. If
she averaged 10 cents for all copies sold in her lifetime,
her approximate royalty income from the title would have
been about $640, an average of about $30 / year during that
period. It is possible that she also received some
amount upon publication in addition to royalties, but I have
located no information that would confirm this or indicate
the amount. I have little information on her royalties
from the 1891 edition in Britain. The one statement
from Longmans in this set, dated July 1897, indicates that
she received at least one payment of 5 pounds, 7 shillings,
and 1 pence, which was exchanged for $26.27.
I am not confident that I am correctly
reading the statements that Jewett received from Houghton,
Mifflin, but it appears that in 1899, Jewett earned about
$460 from all of her 20 titles and editions currently in
print from Houghton Mifflin, roughly $23 / title. In
April 1906, 22 titles and editions brought in about $225,
and if the next half year turned out about the same, her
income for that year would be $450. If Jewett
typically received $20-25 / year on average for one of her
books, then
The Story of the Normans probably earned
better than the average. If her British royalty in
1897 was a typical annual event, this title may have earned
more than twice the average for her other books.
According to
1890 census
data, an average wage-laborer would earn about $450 /
year. Jewett's book royalties, however, formed only
part of her total income, and she also owned property.
Summary of Sales Figures from the
Houghton documents
Sold
|
Promotional |
on hand |
Printing
|
| August 1, 1888
Report |
|
|
Previous printing of 1085
copies |
206
|
6
|
830
|
1000 |
July 31, 1890
Report
|
|
|
|
218
|
1
|
162
|
|
January 31, 1891
Report
|
|
|
|
126
|
|
536
|
500
|
July 31, 1891
Report
|
|
|
|
168
|
|
365
|
|
|
Final report to the Estate, July 31,
1909
|
|
|
|
25
|
|
190
|
|
Location of these materials
Persistent Link:
http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:FHCL.HOUGH:3343058?n=2
Description: Sarah Orne Jewett Compositions and other
papers, 1847-1909; Series III: Diaries, financial
agreements, and miscellany; Financial accounts of Sarah Orne
Jewett with her publishers, New York, London, and Boston,
1888-1906. bMS Am 1743.26, item 10. Houghton Library,
Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. .
Page: (seq. 2)
Repository: Houghton Library
Institution: Harvard University
