Autograph letter signed : Eversley, to [John W.] Parker, [1853].

Evaluating the first part of the manuscript of George Whyte-Melville's first novel, Digby Grand, which was published by Parker later in 1853; and offering advice on novel-writing: "I have gone carefully through it, and think it excellent ... But now I must protest, in the author's own name, against the way he is wasting material, by not having yet got into the way of managing plot ... I wish you wd make him understand that the one great secret of artistic plot is to give for the embryo of the end in the beginning itself, and to continue everywhere to excite expectation [the word "expectation" underlined]; so that every fresh character who comes on makes you involuntarily ask it.`Now--what is going to become of you [the word "you" underlined] at the end of the book.' "