Shadow of great britain

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——Empire Publishing Group Company Motto

In the Office of the Provost of the University of Göttingen, the oak table is covered with thick files and academic papers.

Outside the window, the golden autumn leaves swayed gently in the evening breeze, as if to remind the passage of time.

Arthur's head was buried among piles of academic documents. If it weren't for the top hat on his head, no one would have noticed that there was a six-foot-tall young man sitting here.

His eyes scanned the academic papers submitted at electromagnetic conferences. Although as the oldest detective in Britain, he had long been accustomed to following clues about criminals during his career as a police officer, now he had to carefully study these obscure academic articles.

But reviewing academic articles is not the most painful part of it. The most painful thing for Arthur is that almost all of these articles are written in Latin, and the remaining small part is in French.

Although Arthur learned Latin well when he was studying at the University of London, and the French taught to him by Alexandre Dumas was sufficient for daily communication, this does not mean that he can smoothly use these two languages ​​for academic communication.

Because these articles contain too many professional academic terms and terminology, and the Latin course of the history major at the University of London never teaches electromagnetic terms. As for the French taught by Alexandre Dumas, although the fat man taught Arthur a lot Rare words, but many of those words are not elegant.

Therefore, in order to understand these articles, Arthur had to keep Latin and French academic dictionaries at hand for reference at any time.

From time to time, he picked up a pen and made notes on the side. Occasionally, his brows furrowed. Without thinking too much, he must have encountered an incomprehensible concept.

The office was so quiet that the only sounds that could be heard were the turning of pages and the ticking of the wall clock.

Time passed by, and even the steaming black tea had already cooled down.

But Arthur obviously had no intention of tasting it at this time. His attention was completely focused on the manuscript in front of him. The electromagnetic enthusiast racked his brains to try to find some pattern or clue from these complex data and theories.

Suddenly, he stopped what he was doing and focused on a certain paper, with a thoughtful expression on his face.

He tapped the table gently, seeming to be thinking about some of the arguments in this paper. After a while, he began to draft some notes on the blank paper next to him. Occasionally he looked up and looked out the window, and suddenly sighed: "This is simply not a job for humans."

The red devil, who was lying on the armchair with a black tea cup, took a sip of tea, shook his head without raising his eyelids and said: "You can do 1+1, but you don't understand 2+2?"

Arthur laughed at himself and said: "I can't prove that 1+1=2, Agares, I never thought that in your heart, I would be so praised."

"If you can't even prove that 1+1=2, then where did you get the courage to take over the job of reviewing academic papers?" The Red Devil mocked: "A pig-raising expert can be a senior superintendent, but that doesn't mean you You can be an artist and a researcher of natural philosophy.”

Arthur leaned on the chair and tasted the stale herbal tea. The bitter taste made him frown: "Agares, I know your power lies in language, science and art, but you are exalting yourself like this. The remarks are still too shameful. Those German theoretical electromagnetics are a lesson to you.”

When Agares heard this, he just picked his ears: "My dear Arthur, since the script of "Turandot" was completed, your character has once again returned to the mean appearance it is now. I originally I think this experience can give you some lessons on personal growth.”

"You should have thought of it earlier." Arthur stretched and said, "I am even more heartless now than before."

As Arthur said this, there was a sudden knock on the door.

"Please come in."

The door of the office was pushed open, and the two noisy Jews squeezed in together without any humility.

"Damn it! Heine, you are such an uneducated guy."

"Sorry, Mr. Disraeli, I don't think I am uneducated. You have to know that for a person, prenatal education is very important. My mother read elegant literary works when she was pregnant, so I became a poet. As for You, your mother read mostly gangster novels when she was pregnant with you, so you became a British politician."

"Your person is almost as intolerable as your poetry."

"Really? That's really unfortunate because I'm planning on publishing more."

Although Disraeli was already a famous figure in British politics, compared with Heine, who made a living by making harsh comments, he was obviously still a level below.

He slapped Arthur's desk and shouted at his old friend: "Arthur, as the major shareholder of "The British", I firmly oppose the continued publication of Mr. Heinrich Heine's works."

Arthur was used to their conflict scenes, so he took a sip of tea and said, "Is there anything wrong? Benjamin, I know you two have a bad relationship. But you have to know that British readers like Heinrich very much." According to the current situation in the London publishing market, the standard price of a three-volume novel in London is 31 shillings and 6 pence, while the unit price of a one-volume book such as a collection of poems is even more expensive. Heinrich’s book can easily sell two to three thousand copies, so why do we have to struggle with money?”

Disraeli grabbed his collar as if he had heard some appalling and terrifying news, adding to the drama for himself as if the protagonist in a classical drama was facing life and death: "Money? Materialistic desires! Yes, it is these things that corrode It’s true that Heine’s books are very popular, but as a well-known magazine, we have a more sacred mission on our shoulders! We cannot allow the opinions of the small German citizens! , decadent and radical republican ideas and concepts that lose ethics and morals infect this land! "

Heine heard this and snorted disdainfully: "Then you should start by removing Elder Carter's works from the shelves!"

"Shut up!" As soon as Heine mentioned Elder, Disraeli immediately felt guilty.

Although on the surface the best-selling authors of "The British" are Alexandre Dumas, Dickens and Disraeli, in fact, if you include those anonymous works that cannot be published through formal channels, the author with the largest circulation of "The British" is Elder Carter.

Even excluding Carter's poetry collection "Flowers of Evil" which was banned by the House of Commons Publishing Committee, this well-known Royal Navy military writer still published such works as "Scent of a Woman", "The Hangover", "The Amazon Jungle", "The Adventure of Dolphins", "Speed ​​5" "Sea Miles", "The British Monk's Journey to the West", "Look! "White Bone Demon" and other short story collections.

Although these short stories are destined not to be discussed on the table, nor will they pass the censorship of book publishing, you have to admit that everyone, whether in the upper class or the middle class, likes such stories. Even low-level workers who don't know many people like to spend their free time in taverns in the East District and hear some of these adult stories written by writers.

Moreover, since these shoddy and questionable books without exquisite packaging are mostly printed through underground channels, there is no need to pay taxes and fees, and the printing cost is also very low, so their selling prices are also very close to the people. Because even if the price of such a single-volume story collection is reduced to 6 shillings, a return on investment of up to 80% can still be obtained.

The combination of the three major factors of a large market, low prices and high investment returns further promotes its spread.

Later, even though "The British" felt that the money was too shabby, they stopped privately distributing these short story collections, but they could not stop underground pirates from continuing to reproduce Elder's unknown masterpieces.

In response to this phenomenon, Sir Arthur Hastings, the original shareholder of "The Englishman", also privately published a literary commentary on this phenomenon.

"These books belong to a new category of fashion novels. Although I am reluctant to admit it, I still have to admit: Elder has made a unique historical contribution to the development of erotic literature. In the entire history of British literature, He is both an epoch-making figure. If "The Memoirs of Fanny Hill" can be called realistic erotic literature, then Elder's boring essays belong to romantic pulp novels, which I hear many people praise today. Charles Dickens is the new Shakespeare, and Elder deserves equal praise. He is also Shakespeare, but his achievements are only underground."

This phenomenon also caused the editorial department of "The British" to learn from it.

At an internal meeting at the beginning of the year, after a collective vote by shareholders, everyone agreed that we should cut off our arms, wave goodbye to the shameful entrepreneurial era of those years, and assume the social responsibility of promoting progressive ideas that "The British" should have shouldered.

Of course, not all shareholders voted in favor, and Alexandre Dumas expressed his indignation at the decision to block Elder's essays.

The honest and loyal Mr. Dumas thinks: Elder has not many strengths, and if he is not allowed to write even this, then aren't the rest all shortcomings?

Alexandre Dumas also angrily rebuked Disraeli at the meeting. He believed that this boy had started to pretend to be aloof since he was elected as a member of the parliament, and wanted to transform "The Englishman" into a gospel for pastors to preach. For this reason, he also put down harsh words and reminded everyone: "The success of "The British" is due to its own positioning as a fashion novel. Although Elder's works are a bit vulgar and are not suitable for direct publication on the page, . However, if we blindly reject the consistent principle of diversity and continue like this, what will be the difference between us and "Blackwood" in the future?

Alexandre Dumas's strong opposition brought this shareholder meeting to a hasty end, but the issue of how to properly handle pulp novels, serious literature, art criticism, etc. that are not suitable for unified articles on the page of "The Englishman" still exists.

It happened that Heine mentioned Elder's matter. Arthur glanced at the scattered academic papers on the table, and a new idea suddenly burst into his mind.

According to the conventions of academic conferences, the academic reports here should be compiled into a volume and published uniformly.

There is no decent publishing house in small Göttingen, so professors and lecturers here often have to submit academic papers to academic journals in Berlin or Munich if they want to publish academic papers.

Such a good opportunity, instead of taking advantage of others, why not give it to "The British Man"?

Of course, this is not to publish scientific papers in a literary magazine like "The British", but to create a new magazine in the same way as the supplement "The Economist" was originally created.

Although "The Economist" was just an unknown new journal at that time, due to the active contributions of economists from the University of London such as Mill, it soon expanded from the "Westminster Review" to the "Edinburgh Review" and other publications. Liberal political publications have their reader base divided in their hands.

The British Journal, which has piles of academic reports at electromagnetic conferences across Europe, not only has the honor of being the first to announce the concept of resistance to the whole of Europe, but can also open up scientific journals with the reputation of Gauss, Faraday, Ampere, Oersted and others. market.

Correspondingly, Elder's anonymous pulp novels should also be taken out separately and serialized in a new publication. This will not damage the reputation of "The British" and can be cut off in time if something goes wrong in the future, just like the family Same as the shell banks used to handle funding from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Moreover, the new publications hatched by such a vertical business strategy also have different magical uses.

"The British" mainly targets the middle class, while "The Economist" targets the City of London and Whitehall Street. Pulp novels are popular and very profitable, and scientific journals are even more impressive.

At least for the German scientific community, mastering authoritative scientific journals means that you control the path of countless scholars to promotion and wealth. After all, in the German education community, an important criterion for measuring academic reputation is how many papers you have published in authoritative journals. . As for the UK and France, although there are no hard and fast rules for the papers published by scholars, everyone still regards it as an important indicator in private.

The scholars of the Royal Society are clamoring to reform the system, isn't it because they found that many members of the society have never published natural philosophy papers in the "Annals of Nature"?

Arthur rolled his eyes and politely interrupted the quarrel between Heine and Disraeli.

"Benjamin, after thinking about it, what you said is not completely unreasonable. We even discussed this issue early on. "The British" is a publication based on British society and focuses on publishing trendy fashion novels. For example, "On Romance" A work like "Pai" is obviously more suitable for serialization in a specialized literary review magazine or the art review section of a newspaper."

Heine was taken aback by Arthur's argument. He thought the boy wanted to repent: "Arthur, you can't just listen to this guy's words. I believe that the middle class in Britain have enough appreciation to read "On "Romantic".

When Disraeli saw that Arthur actually agreed with his point of view, he immediately laughed and said: "Yes, Arthur, you are right, our "British" should have changed it long ago! We are a novel magazine, not Refugee camps, although I sympathize with some people and am willing to donate to them, but I don’t think our pages should be filled with a bunch of Polish soldiers, French emperors, Italian sailors or German citizens.”

"Of course." Arthur smiled: "That's because we have a better place to accommodate them, such as our supplement "The Economist".

"Huh?" Disraeli heard what Arthur meant: "Are you going to publish "On the Romantics" in The Economist?"

"In fact, it is not appropriate to publish it there. As I said before, if possible, it is best for us to create an inclusive newspaper."

"Newspaper?" Disraeli pondered: "You want to expand our business? This... is not impossible. But if we want to run a newspaper, our current manpower must be expanded at least three or four times, hiring seven or eight people. Reporters, a few new editors have to be added, and the printing equipment needs to be updated. Arthur, you should remember, right? My previous failed investment was to run a newspaper. The process of running a newspaper is not on the same level as running a magazine."

"I have also considered this." Arthur nodded slightly: "So I think that at this stage it is best for us to start by adding new magazines and expanding our business."

Arthur tapped his fingers on the hill of papers on the table: "For example, first start a scientific journal to test the waters. The University of Göttingen has ready-made academic resources, and we can easily find reviewers and editors here. The only thing missing here is experienced publishing practitioners and distribution experience.”

"Scientific journal?" Disraeli made a mental calculation. He simply did the calculations, shook his head slightly and said, "I don't think this is necessarily a profitable business."

Arthur did not speak outright, but just hinted at him: "But this may be able to solve the Duke of Sussex's urgent needs. Benjamin, sometimes publications don't just have to consider money. As you said, "This is a matter of social progress and ancient England."

As soon as Disraeli heard about the Duke of Sussex, his keen political sense immediately made him realize that there might be opportunities for political speculation.

"I...I seem to have heard that the Duke of Sussex is keen on sponsoring art and science. Does he also want to publish a paper on natural philosophy?"

"It's not just him." Arthur hinted: "There are many people interested in natural philosophy in Britain. Otherwise, why else would the nobility, generals of the army and Royal Navy, as well as bankers and factory owners be rushing to join? What about the Royal Society?"

Heine also sensed something was wrong, and he sneered: "So what are you going to call this new magazine? "Election Bribery"? "

"No." Arthur smiled: "Heinrich, you can call it "Nature" or "Science", pick one?"

"Then let's call it "Nature." Heine shook his head and said: "Because it is in line with the natural laws of thousands of years, but it is not "Science" at all."