Autograph letter signed : New York, to Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 1842 December 28.

Thanking her for her kind words about his poem "Wakondah"; discussing the derivative nature of American poetry; discussing the need for an international copyright law and the difficulties an American author faces: "He has in truth and in effect no paymaster--no Publisher--no Public. He may at times make his voice heard but it is in the midst of so great a din and clashing of, what is here called, the Mammoth Press--in venting of ill-gotten gains--the pluckings and plunderings of British Literature--that it perishes almost instantly. There are two re-publishing Establishments in this city, which (to give you a notion of the Extent of this system) pledge themselves to issue a new work complete, every week: upwards of 100 novels or other British productions a year for which the British author is not only to have nothing, and the American still less--that is not even the privilege of appearing in print on any terms whatever"; commenting on the type of periodicals being published in the United States; responding to her question about Charles Dickens's American Notes for General Circulation and calling it an "eminently sincere and honest book"; giving a summary of the American reception of, and his own opinion on, the works of Browning, Tennyson and Horne; writing that it is a great pleasure to know that anything he has written will be seen by Mary Russell Mitford, "a name thronged with kindly associations in America"; sending an accompanying parcel (no longer with the letter) with copies of Graham's Magazine and the Boston Miscellany that contain poems by EBB; referring to her poem "The Cry of the Human": "I cannot avoid saying, that I concur in the general verdict that it is one of the most successful poems you have written. You must know that you are in some request when I tell you I had a message from Boston soliciting the original M.SS. as something more than commonly valuable"; telling her that Graham's Magazine would be interested in publishing other poems by her in the future and that he could arrange "the money-part", including making it possible for her to draw funds from Wiley & Putnam in London immediately.