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THE MERMAID SERIES
THE MERMAID SERIES of English dramatists was the brain-child of a
twenty-six year old medical student, later a famous sexologist. "At that
time," Havelock Ellis writrs in his autobiography,* speaking of the
year 1886, "it happened that a London publisher, Henry Vizetelly, was
conspicuous by the way in which he had published fairly literal translations
of the chief contemporary French novelists. My friend Eleanor
Marx Aveling [daughter of Karl Marx] had translated Madame ED vary
for him, and he had issued translations—it is true by no means always
literal—of a large number of Zola's novels. He had himself been a
distinguished journalist in earlier days, he was familiar with France,
and he was really engaged in a quite honorable and useful work. It
occurred to me that a series of volumes of the best plays, uncxpurgated,
of the Elizabethan dramatists—for which I devised at the suggestion
of Beaumont's poem the name Mermaid Scries—would be an
excellent scheme for Vizetelly to undertake. I had no idea of proposing
myself fnr editor, and indeed cnuld hardly feel competent for the
post. I wrote to Vi/utflly putting the scheme before him, and almost
by return of post he replied accepting it, asking me to undertake the
work of general editor, anil inquiring what remuneration T would
wish to receive. Such a proposal seemed too tempting for a young unknown
man to put aside, whatever his disabilities, and even though
he was in the midst nf training for an arduous profession. I accepted
with alacrity, and speedily repaired, so far as I cnuld, my incompetence.
I knew nothing as to what tees a general editor was entitled, and the
sum I asked (three guineas per volume) was, no doubt, too small . . .
I selected the dramatists, the space to he devoted to each, and I chose
the editors [though Vizetelly told Ellis that he needed 'one or two
names of mark' to launch the project] cooperating in their work, besides
myself editing Marlowe, Middle-ton, Ford and Porter. . . ." Ellis
goes on to describe the bowdlerizing of the Baincs note at the hands of
his publisher and assorted associates—including, surprisingly enough,
Swinburne and Symonds.†
Ellis then relates how Vizetelly was sent to jail as the publisher nf
that famous pornographer, Emde Zola; and hnw, soon afterwards, he
died. At this point, Ellis continues, "the Mermaid Series was taken over
[by T. Fisher Unwm, a publisher], without any word of explanation
or apology to me, or any word of protest from me, though I do not
flatter myself he |Unwm] knew that my silence was contempt. I
was well aware that for a publisher the editor of a series is an insignificant
figure even though he may be altogether responsible for its
conception, mainly responsible fnr its production, and largely responsible
for its success. I had, of course, arranged for volumes ahead,
many of them nearly ready for publication; the editors of these were
equally disregarded by the new publisher. . . . The Mermaid Series
swiftly pasu-d awav so far as I was concerned, and languished to
death after it was taken out of my hands. But it was not superseded.
I am pleased to be assured—as I revise these lines some forty years
later, a paper on 'Havelock Ellis and the English Drama* com's to
• My Life, by Havclock Ellis. Quoted by permission of the publisher, Houghton
Mifflin CD.
t Instigated, as Houston Peterson tells in his life of Ellis, by the protest of "a
well-meaning woman" but put through with rather hysterical despatch by Vizcirlly-