ALS to Daniel S Ford, the editor of The Youth's Companion, Boston. Single, cream, machine made sheet 155x200mm, watermark HIERATICA [illegible], folded once. Traces of glue down the left hand edge of first page. Dated [Tuesday] 1 June 1886.
The Public Face of Wilkie Collins IV 169.
[engraved black monogram and address] 90, GLOUCESTER PLACE, PORTMAN SQ. W. ranged right London 1st June 1886 Dear sir, I have only waited to thank you for your letter, and for the very kind manner in which you have excused delays on my part which I regret, until I could report that I have |
at last begun the second of the three stories called "Victims of Circumstances." In a few days more the mss will I hope be on its way to Boston. I am only now well enough to get back to my desk -- after some suffering from neuralgic troubles. It is needless to add that I shall be delighted to make Mr Rideing's acquaintance on his arrival in |
London Faithfully yours Wilkie Collins I shall go straight on to the third and last of the stories, before I attend to any other literary engagement. In the meantime will you kindly let [del] my agent Mr Watt (of 34 Paternoster Row London) know on what dates you propose to publish the stories, so that he may preserve my English copyright by simultaneous publication here. |
NOTES
Daniel S Ford was the editor of The Youth's Companion from 1866 to
1899.
Wilkie
wrote three pieces for The Youth's Companion, all about circumstantial
evidence leading to a miscarriage of
justice in which someone was wrongly executed. The first story, 'A Sad Death and
Brave Life' was published on 19 August 1886 and the second 'Farmer Fairweather'
on 16 December that year. Until recently it was thought that only these two were
ever written. But recently the third story, referred to in this letter, has been
identified by Professor Graham Law. 'The Hidden Cash' was published on 21 April
1877. An edition of all three stories with a detailed introduction by Law
is published by the
Wilkie Collins Society The First Complete Edition of The Victims of
Circumstances Discovered in Records of Old Trials WCS June 2002.
This contemporary advert is possibly for an annual edition of The Youth's Companion published later. The reverse lists stories and features a picture of a girl.
The reference in the last paragraph of the letter is to William H.Rideing (b. c1853), an Englishman who worked on the staff of The Youth's
Companion from around 1881-1918. An
account of his meeting with Wilkie was published in his book Many
Celebrities and a Few Others published in 1912.
Alexander Pollock Watt (1834-1914) had been Wilkie's literary agent since December 1881. Watt was the first truly professional literary agent in England, he counted Conan Doyle among his clients. He was Collins's literary executor after his death dealing with the sale of his manuscripts and copyrights.
Wilkie had finished writing The Evil Genius on 9 March. After that he got involved in another copyright dispute over the performance of The New Magdalen.