MS British Library Add MSS 54921: 229-30

Dear Mr Macmillan

One of my very first ventures in publishing was ‘Kenneth: or the Rear Guard of the Grand Army’. J.H. Parker of Oxford published it, on the half profits system, I retaining the copyright. There were two or three editions but it has gone out of print, though I am sometimes asked how to get it.

Also, about 1850 and 52, Masters published Henrietta’s Wish, and the Two Guardians, republished from the Churchman’s Companion. Both had fair success, and he gave me £20 and £25 for each successive edition I think three. I have heard no more of them for many years and now I learn that his successor has given up the publishing business and I believe the stock is handed to Mowbray. The Copyright is mine.

I hear of enquiries for the books at times. Would it be worth while for you to try to recover them?

The Bishop of Quebec has just asked me to let him have a former tale of mine for a Church paper. I have recommended him Kenneth, as there is much adventure but I have come to perceive that there are many mistakes, so that I do not so much care to have it revived as the other two, which I really think worth renewing

Yours truly
C M Yonge