Concord, 30 October, 1843

My Dear Friend,-I seize the occasion of having this morsel of paper for twenty-five pounds sterling from the booksellers to send you, (and which fail not to find enclosed, as clerks say,) to inquire whether you still exist in Chelsea, London, and what is the reason that my generous correspondent has become dumb for weary months.  I must go far back to resume my thread.  I think in April last I received your Manuscript, &c. of the Book, which I forthwith proceeded to print, after some perplexing debate with the booksellers, as I fully informed you in my letter of April or beginning of May.  Since that time I have had no line or word from you.  I must think that my letter did not reach you, or that you have written what has never come to me.  I assure myself that no harm has befallen you, not only because you do not live in a corner, and what chances in your dwelling will come at least to my ears, but because I have read with great pleasure the story of Dr. Francia, which gave the best report of your health and vivacity.

I wrote you in April or May an account of the new state of things which the cheap press has wrought in our book market, and specially what difficulties it put in the way of our edition of Past and Present. For a few weeks I believed that the letters I had written to the principal New York and Philadelphia booksellers, and the Preface, had succeeded in repelling the pirates.  But in the fourth or fifth week appeared a mean edition in New York, published by one Collyer (an unknown person and supposed to be a mask of some other bookseller), sold for twelve and one half cents, and of this wretched copy several thousands were sold, whilst our seventy-five cents edition went off slower.  There was no remedy, and we must be content that there was no expense from our edition, which before September had paid all its cost, and since that time has been earning a little, I believe.  I am not fairly entitled to an account of the book from the publishers until the 1st of January....  I have never yet done what I have thought this other last week seriously to do, namely, to charge the good and faithful E.P.  Clark, a man of accounts as he is a cashier in a bank, with the total auditing and analyzing of these accounts of yours.  My hesitation has grown from the imperfect materials which I have to offer him to make up so long a story.  But he is a good man, and, do you know it? a Carlylese of that intensity that I have often heard he has collected a sort of album of several volumes, containing illustrations of every kind, historical, critical, &c., to the Sartor. I must go to Boston and challenge him.  Once when I asked him, he seemed willing to assume it.  No more of accounts tonight.

I send you by this ship a volume of translations from Dante, by Doctor Parsons of Boston, a practising dentist and the son of a dentist.  It is his gift to you.  Lately went Henry James to you with a letter from me.  He is a fine companion from his intelligence, valor, and worth, and is and has been a very beneficent person as I learn.  He carried a volume of poems from my friend and nearest neighbor, W. Ellery Channing, whereof give me, I pray you, the best opinion you can.  I am determined he shall be a poet, and you must find him such. I have too many things to tell you to begin at the end of this sheet, which after all this waiting I have been compelled to scribble in a corner, with company waiting for me.  Send me instant word of yourself if you love me, and of those whom you love, and so God keep you and yours.