Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Autograph letter signed : Oxford, to William Angus Knight, 1900 February 25.

BIB_ID
409278
Accession number
MA 9256.17
Creator
Carpenter, J. Estlin (Joseph Estlin), 1844-1927.
Display Date
1900 February 25.
Credit line
Purchased by Pierpont Morgan, 1908.
Description
1 item (4 pages) ; 17.7 x 11.4 cm
Notes
Acquired as part of a large collection of letters addressed to William Angus Knight, Chair of Moral Philosophy at the University of St. Andrews and Wordsworth scholar. Items in the collection have been individually accessioned and cataloged.
Written on stationery embossed "109, Banbury Road, / Oxford."
Provenance
Purchased by Pierpont Morgan from William Angus Knight, 1908.
Summary
Concerning Knight's collection of Martineau correspondence; saying "I knew that you had a precious collection of Martineau letters: and I do not wonder at your desire that they should be published as a group by themselves, for they must be unique among the remains of this correspondence;" describing his difficulties with copyright relating to Miss Martineau's letters that she wrote to his late Aunt Mary Carpenter; saying "I was informed that the copyright lay with Miss Martineau's literary Executor, and permission to publish the passages which I desired was refused. Now I have not the smallest reason to suppose that Dr. Martineau's representatives would act in the same way. But you may like to know the exact facts. A week ago Dr. Drummond told me that he had just received a letter from Gertrude Martineau asking him & Upton to undertake a joint Biography. The papers, correspondence, &c, are all left at the disposal of his family (& I presume including Basil M.), & the sisters agree to assist Dr. Drummond by the collection of materials. - In the event of your project going forward in the way you indicate, I think that a general firm like Longmans or Macmillan would put the book before the public far better than our little hole-and-corner publishers. I should fancy that Longman himself might defray the cost of copying of which you speak. Otherwise, the Hibbert Trustees might be willing to make a grant, if they were quite clear that it was done with the consent of Dr. Martineau's family;" adding that he believes that the publication of this collection might reach a wider audience than the publications of his sermons and philosophical lectures.