BIB_ID
403502
Accession number
MA 8917.40
Creator
Lowell, James Russell, 1819-1891.
Display Date
1842 December 13.
Credit line
Acquired from the University of Illinois, 1961.
Description
1 item (2 pages) ; 24.9 x 20 cm
Notes
At the bottom of the letter, Lowell gives the place of writing as "Boston U.S.A. No. 4 Court St."
Provenance
Acquired from the University of Illinois, 1961.
Summary
Thanking her for her letter about his collection A Year's Life (1841); telling her he now feels it was published prematurely but he hopes to send, in the future, volumes "worthier for me to give & for you to receive"; explaining that, because of the lack of an international copyright law, "American authors are forced to compete with the cheap republications of English books, & the consequence is that all our literature is fast taking the periodical & cheap form of magazines"; writing that he is about to start publishing a new magazine, "which I hope to make an instrument for the elevation of letters here, & for the creation of a right feeling in regard to many important matters"; asking if he could publish some of her poetry in it, though he cannot yet offer payment; asking her if she thinks Tennyson would be willing to contribute a poem; concluding: "Do not look upon this as if I came cap in hand begging for halfpence. If I thought less highly of you, I should not have asked this favor of you."
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