Letter from Wilkie Collins, London, to William Tinsley, 1868 July 11 : autograph manuscript.

Concerning the subscription list for "The Moonstone" and addressing Tinsley's concerns for it's future sales; saying "Both you and I might have good reason to feel discouraged, if this List indicated anything more important than the timidity of the Libraries - and possibly the poverty of the Libraries as well. As things are, we have only to wait a few weeks - until the book has had time to get talked about. I don't attach much importance to the Reviews - except as advertisements which are inserted for nothing. But the impression I produce on the general public of readers is the lever that will move anything - provided the impression be favourable. If this book does what my other books have done, in the way of stimulating the first circle of readers among whom it falls - that circle will widen to a certainty. It all depends on this. If Mudie is right in believing 500 to be a sufficient supply - then (judging from past experience) three fourths of my readers have deserted me! I, for one, won't believe this - and I am glad to find, from the close of your letter, that you have not lost confidence in the book either. It is (in the opinion of more than one good judge) the best book I have written. I believe it myself to have a much stronger element of 'popularity' in it than anything I have written since "The Woman in White". That book, Mr. Mudie, and the Librarians took in driblets - just as the public forced them. And this book, let us hope, will be another example of that sort of legitimate sale which...;" the final page of this letter is in the Parrish Collection at Princeton University and the text is as follows: "springs from a genuine demand. I have also to thank you for sending me my "author's copies" - which came here safely yesterday;" adding, in a postscript, "The "No Name" figures were 1st Edition. Four thousand copies, all sold. 2nd Edition, Five hundred copies. This proved to be over-printing. The 500 copies being on hand, and diminished, instead of adding to, the profits.