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Phila Sept 28/39 —
Dear Sir —
As your wish in having your Tales printed is not immediately pecuniary, we will at our own risqué & expense print a Small Ed say of 750 copies. This run if sold — will pay but a small profit, which if realized is to be ours. The copy right will remain with you, and when ready a few copies for distribution among your friends, will be at your service.
If this is agreeable will you have them prepared & Mr Haswell will be ready to go on, say by Tuesday —
Very Respt
Lea & Blanchard
To
Edgar A. Poe Esq
They shd [[should]] make 2 vols of a page like Isabel say 240 pages each.
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Notes:
This letter was first printed by George E. Woodberry, 1909, pp. 375-376. The number of copies to be printed has sometimes been read as “1750” rather than “750,” but there is verification for the 750, as noted by William Charvat, “A Note on Poe’s ‘Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque’,” Publishers Weekly, CL, November 23, 1946, pp. 2957-2958.]
The book of tales mentioned in this letter became Poe’s Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque (Philadelphia: Lea & Blanchard, 1840). “Haswell” is presumably G. D. Haswell, of the Philadelphia firm Haswell, Barrington & Haswell. “Isabel” refers to Henry T. Tuckerman’s Isabel; or, Sicily, A Pilgrimage (Philadelphia: Lea & Blanchard, 1839).
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[S:0 - MS, 18xx] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Misc - Letters - Lea and Blanchard to Poe (RCL207)