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National Art Library, London, MS Forster 48 D.32 MS 24. Previously published: John Forster, Walter Savage Landor. A Biography, 2 vols (London, 1869), I, pp. 365–366 [in part].
These letters were edited with the assistance of Carol Bolton, Tim Fulford and Ian Packer
For permission to publish the text of MSS in their possession, the editor wishes to thank the Beinecke Rare Books and Manuscript Library, Yale University; Berg Collection of English and American Literature, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations; the Bodleian Library Oxford University; the British Library; Boston Public Library; the Syndics of Cambridge University Library; the Syndics of the Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge; Haverford College, Connecticut; the Historical Society of Pennsylvania; the Hornby Library, Liverpool Libraries and Information Services; the Houghton Library, Harvard University; the John Rylands Library, Manchester; the Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas; Luton Museum (Bedfordshire County Council); Massachusetts Historical Society; McGill University Library; the National Library of Scotland; the Newberry Library, Chicago; the New York Public Library (Pforzheimer Collections); the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York; the Public Record Offices of Bedford, Suffolk (Bury St Edmunds) and Northumberland, the Master and Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge; the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne; the Trustees of the William Salt Library, Stafford, the Wisbech and Fenland Museum; the University of Virginia Library.
A research grant from the British Academy made much of the archival work possible, as did support from the English Department of Nottingham Trent University.
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I have a letter this evening from Murray which I would inclose to
you, if it were not for the time which would be lost in sending it round for a frank. The sum of it is that it would relieve his mind
from some very natural & very unpleasant feelings, if you would allow him to procure another publisher for this Commentary, into
whose hands he will deliver it ready for publication, & with whom he will settle for you.print <publish> any personal attack upon him, – this manuscript he never read, looking forward to the
perusal of the book as a pleasure. – What he wishes will be no inconvenience to you, & no doubt you will readily assent to it, – “I
confess, he says, I hesitatingly propose this, for I fear even you could not now speak of this to the author in any way that would not
offend him. I will however leave it entirely to you, & if you say nothing about it, I will publish it without any farther trouble
to you or Mr L. however painful, from my peculiar situation, if will prove to me.” – These are his words. For my
own part I should feel any fear of giving offence as the only thing which could occasion it. It is but for you to signify your assent
to Murray in a single line, & the business is settled without any injury to any
persons feelings. That it is purely a matter of feeling with him I verily believe. His not reading the MSS. was a compliment to the
author, & a mark of confidence in him.
I have conceived a poem which will be more difficult of execution than Kehama,lay the scene paint such a future state as should be consistent with the hopes & reason of the best
& wisest men. An earthly story must be chosen, in order to have the interest of earthly passions, – but the point of view should be
from the next stage of existence. Perhaps this is not very intelligible, – such as it is however it is the seed which I a
from which I am confident a fine tree might arise.