To John Palgrave Simpson, 5 July 1866

ALS to John Palgrave Simpson dated [Thursday] 5 July [1866], on plain laid paper 179x115mm watermarked JOYNSON 1865. The letter is tipped into an extra-illustrated edition of The Life of Dickens by Frank Marzials, London 1887 p114.

The Public Face of Wilkie Collins II 41

	9. Melcombe Place Dorset Square N.W. July 5 My dear Palgrave Simpson, Here I am again! This time, it is to ask a question. A friend of mine has written an opera- -book, at the request of certain music sellers who commissioned him to produce the work, [del] who have received it, and who have expressed themselves perfectly satisfied with it.
	The time has now come for the [del] author to ask for his price (a matter not hitherto settled /or even entered on, as I understand,/ between him, and the music sellers); and the question is what ought the demand to be? The Libretto [del] is in four acts – and the author has only produced /one / other work of the same sort [del] , set to music, and performed at a country “Festival.” I am utterly ignorant in these matters. [del] Can your dramatic experience tell me what is the average
	price paid for /an English/ libretto in four acts by the English music-sellers? Or what is the average price asked, by the average English librettist? My friend is very modest about his claims – but he wants /to ask/ the fair remuneration for a work executed on commission, and received by the person commissioning it. Forgive my troubling you about this. I ought perhaps to add that the musical part of the enterprise (with which my friend has nothing to do) has broken down – and that the sooner he sends in his demand the better.
	How did the Lighthouse go off? Had you a good audience? And did you act to your own satisfaction? Starving and physic are helping me to get my foot into an old patched boot – but I am still feeling the horrid depression which gout and gout’s remedies always produce. Ever yours Wilkie Collins

NOTES

The friend was Frederick Enoch, poet and member of the staff of the publisher Smith, Elder, as a letter to him of the following day makes clear. The libretto in question has not been securely identified, but the other work referred to is the cantata The Bride of Dunkerron with words by Enoch set to music by Henry Smart, performed at the Birmingham Music Festival on 9 September 1864 – see the review in The Times of the following day, p.9c.

Palgrave Simpson was performing in Collins's play The Lighthouse which Collins had been unable to see due to his illness..

Collins was suffering - as he often did - from gout and had given up taking the standard remedy Colchicum, an extract of meadow saffron, because of the side effects of nausea and vomiting. He was probably now taking laudanum.