Autograph letter signed : [Constantinople], to [Messrs. Bradbury and Evans?], 1844 Sept. 19.

Written during his two-month tour of Constantinople, sending "sketches and contributions of our fat friend" and commenting on his trip: "I have been hurried, miserable, bug-bitten, sea-sick and exceedingly delighted with what I have seen but it is gone through in a frightful hurry, and I very much fear for the book." He goes on to inquire if [Richard] Doyle will illustrate his book, expresses a desire to "sketch a few hundred of the astonishing figures to be seen every day" but says "above all I wish I was back again in poor dear old England." He comments on planned projects ("Lemon will be pleased to hear I am now going to write the Novr. number of Barry Lyndon") and literary matters ("Punch is talked about everywhere ... Its health was drunk in the Dardanelles the other night by some Oxford men.") Thackeray's observations on this trip were published in Punch as "Travelling Notes of Our Fat Contributor," and in book form as Notes of a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo (Chapman and Hall, 1846).