shadow of britain

Chapter 705 Brougham's Invitation

At the amateur level, the history of science was transformed into social history, becoming almost a universal hobby of the British middle class. At the professional level, science became a cause for people to strive for. A number of modern universities, led by the University of London, began to transform the teaching methods of ancient universities, establish scientific disciplines in the education system, and do everything possible to obtain public funds to support scientific research and strive to win a distinguished professional status. In emerging industrial cities, science was transformed into a public health movement and became the forefront of social reform.

We can clearly see that since 1830, science has become an increasingly confident and imperial ideology, reaching out to areas that were previously outside its jurisdiction: the study of human behavior. "Science" has gained widespread acceptance at the social level, and is seen as the magic key that opens all doors, from social structures to the workings of the subconscious to religious experience itself.

--Robin Gilmore, The Victorian Age: The Intellectual and Cultural Context of English Literature, 1830-1890

A listed company, a great enterprise that aims to operate for a hundred years, Arthur's grand vision at the meeting simply made everyone dizzy.

Seeing that everyone was enthusiastic, Arthur struck while the iron was hot and launched the business plan he had been planning for a long time.

The first, of course, was the introduction of Bradbury & Evans' new printing press.

The second issue was the editing of the inaugural issue of the new cheap magazine Spark under Empire Publishing Company.

Although Arthur did not intend to set any profit targets for this weekly magazine, which was sold at only six and a half pence, at least within three years, and could even accept a certain amount of losses, considering the current financial pressure, the losses they could bear were extremely limited.

Therefore, in order to control costs, the packaging and content length of "Spark" naturally cannot be like their flagship product "The Brit".

This design is not only to adapt to the purchasing power of the lower classes, but also to adapt to Arthur's new sales plan - wherever there is a railway, there must be "Spark"!
Although a hundred years later, the newsstand in front of the station is a very common thing and is not really a novelty.

But in this early era of passenger rail, Arthur had never seen such a sales model before, whether in Britain, France or Germany.

Investors' understanding of passenger rail is limited to making money by selling tickets.

This means that Empire Publishing Company will not have to pay too high a price to acquire the newsstand franchise and will face little competition.

Railway companies would welcome the extra revenue they didn’t deserve, and hoped that the new public company, which included such well-known magazines as The Times and The Brit, could inject a bit of fun into the long and tedious experience of early railway journeys, turning train reading into a pastime for travelers.

Arthur was very happy to see that the old printing press in the magazine, which should have been idle, could continue to shine, and thus gave birth to a family of "railway books" for Empire Publishing Company.

Yes, he not only wanted to sell "Sparks" at the train station, but also, with the support of "The Brit's" huge copyright library, designed and published a batch of lightweight and cheap books suitable for train travel.

Of course, his ultimate goal is to create a group of 19th century British national authors and super works with huge social influence for Empire Publishing Company by increasing their dissemination.

When the whole carriage was discussing the new series of The Hastings Mysteries, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, when the ladies began to talk about Oliver in Oliver Twist, when the gentlemen began to look forward to the next issue of The Three Musketeers, when the farmers on the train began to wish that they could have a series of romantic encounters in the city like the protagonists in Elder Carter's novels...

The sales of 8 copies of "The Limey" per issue were far from what Arthur expected. What he wanted was an annual passenger flow of 50 on the Manchester-Liverpool Railway, and a new world that would mobilize the 2500 million people of Britain after the Great Western Railway was fully connected to traffic.

In order to achieve this goal, the entire "Litties" must be mobilized before mobilizing 2500 million people.

Everyone was assigned new tasks.

Dickens will make full use of the popularity of "The Pickwick Papers" and launch a 20-issue epilogue "The Pickwick Club's Suicide Notes" in the new magazine "Sparks".

Mr. Disraeli, who was only concerned about votes, was obviously more enthusiastic than Dickens. He volunteered to take out "The Amazing Story of Alroy" and assured that this kind of adventure story was most suitable for travel entertainment.

As the most popular author among readers in "The Libertines", Alexandre Dumas plans to launch his new work "The Alchemist" in "Sparks".

As for Tennyson and Heine, they were obviously eager to try, but unfortunately, Arthur obviously had no intention of sending them to this cheap magazine.

After all, they both have special identities. No matter how popular they are, at least in the eyes of the general public, a poet is a higher status than a novelist. For the sake of maintaining their literary reputation, their works should never appear in cheap magazines.

Moreover, even from a commercial point of view, Arthur did not think that train passengers would be happy to pay six and a half pennies to enjoy beautiful poetry. They obviously preferred some exciting stories.

So, at this time, Elder's importance immediately became apparent.

Since the guy was almost bored to death on the ship, Arthur didn't even need to write a letter to ask Elder to increase his output. The short stories he had previously sent to the editorial department would be enough to take up more than half a year.

As for what to do after half a year?
Oh, don’t worry, because Arthur has already figured it out.

Elder and Darwin's round-the-world scientific expedition aboard the Beagle started in November 1830. According to their correspondence and the current progress of the expedition, the Beagle has now left the Galapagos Islands, completely ending its detailed survey of South America, and is now sailing at full speed to Australia under the leadership of Colonel Fitzroy.

If nothing unexpected happens, they will most likely discover a desolate land inhabited by Aboriginal people in Australia, and have a chance to name it after them.

Unfortunately, Arthur believes that Elder lags significantly behind Darwin in terms of priority in naming new territories. After all, Darwin's personal appearance, especially his increasingly bald head, is indeed closer to the definition of a wasteland.

When Arthur thought of this, he couldn't help feeling a little jealous. Darwin had the opportunity to name a piece of land after his surname, while Arthur's surname was named after a piece of land.

Alas... maybe this is the difference between people.

Let's pick and choose from Elder's train novels.

Although Arthur was reluctant to admit it, even if Elder was not as good as Darwin, it did not prevent Elder from being a "talent".

Even a king of popular novels like Alexandre Dumas would have found it difficult to come up with a title like "The Coral Reef Ghost". As for the famous piece "The Steam Lover" about a boilerman and a noble lady having an affair on a train, it is simply a perfect embodiment of personal talent. The brainless narrative style is like the hot whiskey and laudanum that the workers in the East End often drink. It is not only very suitable for the working people to have a brief spiritual escape, but also can satisfy the hypocritical social atmosphere of the British upper class, which is conservative on the outside but passionate on the inside.

Compared to other magazines that often worry about sales, The Brit never worries about whether Elder's works will be popular. Instead, they usually worry about what will happen if Elder's books are too popular.

Therefore, in order to prevent Elder from doing too much, they had to change the appearance of Elder's works that needed to be published.

Now, Tennyson and Heine, two idle men, were well placed to use their poetic touches to help Elder refine and polish his work.

From this perspective, Elder can indeed be regarded as a legend in British literary circles, and his historical status is absolutely unshakable.

Because whether it is Dumas, Dickens, Disraeli, Hastings, or even Heine and Tennyson now, which of them dares to say that he has not served Elder Carter's masterpiece?

Just when everyone was enthusiastically discussing how to arrange the first issue of "Spark", there was a sudden knock on the door.

The freckled clerk opened the door, walked quickly to Arthur, and whispered something to him.

Then, Arthur stood up and took off his coat from the coat rack. "Friends, our plan is almost complete. All that's left is execution. Of course, there may be some things we haven't considered carefully today. If you have any ideas, you can come to me at any time. It is also an option to bring them up at the meeting next week."

Dumas and the others ignored Arthur's sudden departure. They were still excited about the next new magazine, but Disraeli, who had a lot of information, stood up calmly and said, "I'm going to buy a few bottles of tonic water. Do you want some?"

After taking a few "take-out" orders, Disraeli went out with Arthur, carrying a few coins.

He took out a cigar box and handed it to Arthur, who skillfully took out a cigar and lit it.

Disraeli asked: "Whitehall is looking for you? Palmerston still has not given up?"

"Whitehall, indeed, but not Palmerston." Arthur's mouth was filled with smoke. "Lord Brougham is waiting for me."

"Lord Brougham? The Chief Justice?" Disraeli said anxiously, "Doesn't he want to protect you? Do you think it's possible that Earl Daramore wrote him a letter? After all, what you did in the Caucasus really hurt Earl Daramore."

Arthur didn't seem worried at all. "Maybe. This incident was not fair to Earl Daramore. I wrote him a letter to apologize two days ago. I also explained it clearly to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I only said that it was a private job done by David Urquhart and it had nothing to do with the Embassy in Russia."

Disraeli snorted. "Even if you don't say anything, what can you do? Does Palmerston dare to touch Daramore? After all, Earl Daramore is the son-in-law of the former Prime Minister Earl Grey, and Palmerston was able to sit in the position of Foreign Secretary thanks to Grey's support. Don't judge by appearances, but by appearances. Besides, Daramore is not someone you can easily mess with. If you piss off 'Radical Jack', he can come back to London and cause chaos in the entire Foreign Office."

"That's true, but I always feel guilty towards Earl Daramore." When Arthur thought of this, he couldn't help but scold David Urquhart: "If it wasn't for the last resort, I would never stand with Urquhart. That guy never informed me about the transportation of supplies to Circassia. He was determined to drag me into it!"

"What can we do?" Disraeli rolled his eyes. "He has a good relationship with His Majesty the King. Palmerston can't do anything to him. The most he can do is to dismiss him. Who knows what's in that guy's head? Did he accept lira from the Ottoman Sultan to go to such lengths for the Ottomans and the Russians?"

Arthur could only speculate: "Maybe it's because he participated in the Greek War of Independence in his early years. At that time, he was an ally of the Greeks, and the Russians were also an ally of the Greeks. Who knows what happened during the war that made him hate both countries together."

At this point, Arthur waved goodbye to Disraeli and said, "The car sent by Lord Brougham is waiting for me downstairs. I won't talk to you any more."

After saying this, Arthur walked downstairs in his riding boots. As soon as he walked out of the editorial office, he saw a four-wheeled carriage parked on the side of the street.

The servant who had been waiting for a long time saw Arthur, first nodded to him with a smile, and then opened the car door.

Arthur was about to get on the car when he found a familiar face sitting in the car, it was Lord Brougham in a tuxedo.

Brougham looked at the student who had just made such a big mistake, patted the cushion beside him, picked up the teacup on the table and took a sip: "What are you standing there for? Get in the car."

Arthur shrugged helplessly and got into the carriage.

As soon as he sat down, the carriage started. Lord Brougham, holding a teapot in one hand and a milk jug in the other, made a cup of black tea for Arthur and pushed it in front of him.

"I heard that you went to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and had a pleasant conversation with Viscount Palmerston?"

Arthur looked at the cup of black tea. The shaking of the vehicle caused ripples on the water.

He knew that Brougham would not be able to hide the truth, so he simply confessed: "You know, the gentleman has a very strict personality, and I am also very straightforward. This combination usually does not lead to good results."

(End of this chapter)