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New-York — Sep. 18 — 48
My Dear Sir — I would take it as an especial favor if you could spare me half a dozen copies of the last “Messenger” — that containing my notice of Mrs Lewis's Poems. I will return to Richmond shortly, and will then hand you the money for these. Please send them by Express.
I presume that there will be no need of my seeing a proof of “The Rationale of Verse” — I am quite willing to trust to your accuracy. If, upon reading the article more carefully, you find in it anything you disapprove, I will give you other papers in place of it, or refund you the money. I mention this because I am aware that you accepted the essay, without having thoroughly perused it, merely through kind feeling to myself personally — for all which I hold myself your debtor.
Most truly yours,
Edgar A Poe.
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Notes:
According to the auction catalog, this letter was written with brown ink on blue-ruled wove paper. The envelope page is stamped “Paid,” and bears Poe's initials as well as Thompson's address. Accompanying the letter is a letter from Rosalie Poe to Richard Henry Stoddard (incorrectly identified in the catalog as “R. H. Goddard.” The only sentence quoted from this letter, asking Stoddard to send her one or more of Poe's letters from Thompson's estate, is: “Will you be so kind as to let me have one as I am in very bad circumstances, and would like to use them for my benefit.” Thompson died on April 30, 1873, and Stoddard served as his literary executor. Rosaslie died on July 22, 1874, so this letter is presumably from the second half of 1873.
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[S:0 - MS, 1848] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Works - Letters - Poe to J. R. Thompson (LTR276a/RCL720a)