Note 22 to Chapter 5 of the author's Pegasus in Harness: Victorian Publishing and W. M. Thackeray, which University Press of Virginia published in 1992. It has been included in the Victorian Web with the kind permission of the author, who of course retains copyright.
One should note, however, that though Bradbury and Evans began accounting procedures for Pendennis in the same way, taking off 10 percent of gross income as a publisher's commission, they put the money is escrow and restored the whole amount to the credit side in December 1850, thereafter never again deducting a commission fiorn Tbackeray's accounts - not for Pendennis or The Newcomes or The Virginians. They even stopped deducting it from the Vanity Fair account in 1854. One might note that Smith's contracts specified that he would charge a 5 percent commission on sales income, but that the Vanity Fair contract (the only surviving Bradbury and Evans contract with Thackeray) does not mention a commission.
Last modified: 4 April 2001