Letter from E.H. Cradock, St. Leonards-on-Sea, to William Angus Knight, 1877 December : autograph manuscript signed.

Concerning a book will Knight will write on the Lake District and Wordsworth; saying "I am delighted to hear that you are well disposed to undertake a work illustrative of the connexion between Wordsworths Poetry and the Lake Scenery. When I get back to Oxford I will send you some notes to look through and see what there is there which will work in with your idea. To carry it out you will probably want another summer on the spot, as I feel sure that more may be done by zealous and intelligent inquiry - and old people are moving away so fast that there is no time to be lost...To select a limited number of localities say 20 to 25 not generally known, such as those we visited together and to get therm drawn or photographed and engraved in good style and to illustrate each engraving with selected portions of the poetry [illegible] belonging - together with such explanatory notes on critical & philosophical connects as might be found desirable - Some localities might require reference to more than one poem - and where direct evidence fails of identity argument w'd be required to steer a high probability &c. I think the idea good - but it is open to the objections of expense - The art must be good and the get up of the work according to my conception of a high & rather costly sort - I mean the kind of book that is given as a present or a prize and which c'd not be expected to command a wide sale. What I think they call an 'edition de luxe.' I confess that the notion seems rather too ambitious and might perchance issue in a lamentable failure, whereas your more modest programme could undoubtedly have some success and might have a great one. Do you think it worthwhile to ask Mr. Douglas' opinion on the subject? Those experienced publishers know to their cost what will pay & what will not. I am afraid that nothing pays just now - as nobody seems to have any money;" adding, in a postscript, "Lady Richardson has a drawing of Wordsworths cottage at Hawkshead done many years ago before the erection of an out house on the spot where probably the ash tree grew. I believe that she visited the spot with W.W. If she & I live to the summer I will try my hand at cross examination."