Letter from Thomas De Quincey, London, to Charles Knight, 1824 November 4 : autograph manuscript signed.

Saying that since he last saw Knight, he has written two papers for Taylor and Hessey's London Magazine, one on Goethe's Wilhelm Meister and one on the novel Walladmor, "a German hoax;" explaining that he has written these essays to discharge a debt to Taylor and Hessey, and he is conscious of his responsibilities towards Knight's journal; saying that he worked for two months "as hard as I was able under my decaying state of health" on two articles for Knight, "one entitled Secret Memoirs of a Learned Jew ; the other one The Political Econ of the Athenians;" explaining why his work on the articles has been interrupted (ill health and the need for a particular German book); explaining that he embarked on a translation of Walladmor with the understanding that Hessey would advance him money that he might otherwise have made working for other periodicals, but in the end Hessey has refused to advance him anything and he has not completed the translation; discussing other aspects of the project that make it unpromising; asking Knight to allow a bill to go unpaid for a fortnight; writing "I have suffered much more in the course of my recovery than in my illness : and I am only just regaining my power of writing with any speed;" assuring Knight "I consider my first services as always due to you : and, but for this loss of the entire month of October, I trust that before this time I should have made that evident."