The Tragedy of Arthur_ A Novel - Arthur Phillips [94]
I had presented the quarto along with the tentative reports of those few local Minneapolis professors I had consulted and a list of other professors around the country who were eager to be advisers and authenticators. I would be paid a very small fee pending the authentication process. Assuming that verification proved my claims, then the prepublication advance would be larger by multiples than any in my career, larger in fact than the total of my entire career, more than any sum my agent had ever negotiated in her career, and that advance still represents only a fraction of what everyone expects to happen next.
Random House would take over the Hydra-headed chore of authentication, collating reviews from Shakespeare scholars and from forensic tests of the document itself, though one of my terms (as Dad had coached me) was that the play would remain in my constant possession, with all testing done in my presence, in Minneapolis or elsewhere. (“All Arthur’s expenses paid first class if he has to travel for any testing,” Marly Rusoff, my agent, noted as if that were a mere formality, and everyone nodded as if that were a mere formality.) All examiners of the play would be required to study it in controlled conditions where copying would be impossible and only after being bound by bloodcurdling nondisclosure agreements. Random House legal would offer any assistance they could to my U.K. copyright attorney to accelerate the clearance of my right to assert ownership of the text.
Jennifer Hershey, the editor, cleared her throat and very tactfully, very sweetly said that they certainly wished to spare me any work I didn’t “feel like doing.” This included the editing, annotation, and Introduction. I didn’t have to put my name on any of it, if I wanted to “get back to your next novel, which we’re all really looking forward to.” We weren’t here to talk about me, plainly. I was free to go prepare some kind of high-tension financial instrument that could catch and contain the tsunami of royalties rolling my way.
But I refused to yield to my senior partner. I spoke with unpracticed and sincere eloquence. This was my family’s project. And I loved it. It mattered to my family and to me that our name be represented in the process and in the publication. It had to be that way. Everyone happily nodded. Jennifer asked again, just to be sure I understood what kind of workload I’d be taking on, if I was certain I didn’t want to hand off the editorial tasks to an acknowledged Shakespeare scholar? I did not. “I would rather not publish with a house that didn’t trust me to handle this responsibility.” Silence.
“Fantastic then.” Someone new chimed in that they liked “the publicity story line,” but I could see them regrouping to attack again on this point later.
As the authentication process achieved “agreed-upon benchmarks of physical and textual authenticity,” I would be fed larger slices of my advance. In the meantime, Random House would manage all publicity and marketing, including the cover design and any supplementary material in the final edition. I would write an Introduction, which, I insisted (based on their obvious unwillingness to let me do the job at all), could not be abridged or altered without my consent. They inhaled, smiled, agreed. The Introduction would include a synopsis, a presentation of general historical context, and an essay outlining the evidence for the play’s authenticity. I would also oversee, with Jennifer, any other necessary work preparing the play for a “general audience.” I would give talks and publicity interviews as needed after publication. I also sold them the license to produce at a later date a paperback for theater use and to co-publish with the university of their choice an academic edition, with essays by eminent professors.
The house’s publicity machine was ignited. Jynne Martin, my usual publicist—and an award-winning poet in her own right, since, in this century, poets cannot