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Berg Collection, New York Public Library. Not previously published.
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 was glad at seeing your hand writing this evening – & in truth you would have seen mine before – if I had had
heart to write to you – that could not be done without adverting to our removal from Bristol, a subject which still brings with it too
much pain to be ever voluntarily admitted into my mind. You will, I am sure, rejoice to hear x that it is probable I shall
soon again become a father, but indeed the recollection of what has past makes it to me a thing more of anxiety than of hope.
You seem in Mrs Newtons businessby for ourselves.
I have long looked among the advertisements for Alfred
As you may suppose it is some pleasure & some pride to look forward to the termination of this labour. In 1789 I
conceived the design of writing upon Madoc & in the course of that & the two ensuing years more than once began – In the winter
of 1794 the first book & half were written in the state which you may remember. In the spring of 1797 rewritt corrected
& carried on to the [MS torn] of the fourth book, in 1798 resumed & finished in 1799. It then remained till October 1801 when
the rewriting was commenced at Dublin − & this is the history. Yet so much of my thought & so many of my solitary feelings have
been fixed upon this object, that the getting rid of it at once – the turning it adrift, & making my main private delight public
property – seems the most serious thing I have ever done in my life. Not from any anxiety for its fate – for I know the acorn will come
up, tho I shall never see its growth, nor sit under the shade of my own Oak: but having considered it as my own great work, the
publication will bring with it a feeling that my great work is done – & that I may go to rest.
However there is the History
You tell me nothing of your own pursuits – do not however forget that I shall always take an interest in hearing of
them. Of your sister Sarahs marriage I am glad, looking at it with a calm &
uninfluenced mind – were she my own sister I should like you have some regret mingled. God bless her in her change! you will remember
me & Edith to her, & to your sister Mary − & Mary
Anne & your good Mother. We did not see them before our departure for obvious
reasons – in fact we were both nearly heart-broken − & both feel the blow still. howbeit sorrow is like unripe fruit – sour &
bitter only because unripe, & afflictions always mature into blessings. – I am in good health – indeed never better, only that my
eyes are still at times a vexation. Longman is to send down for my perusal a
Life of Chatterton by John Davis,is a has genius.