Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton.
Office of "All the Year Round,"
Wednesday, 23rd January, 1861.
My dear Bulwer Lytton,
I am delighted to receive your letter, and to look forward with confidence to having such a successor in August. I can honestly assure you that I never have been so pleased at heart in all my literary life, as I am in the proud thought of standing side by side with you before this great audience.
In regard of the story,[72] I have perfect faith in such a master-hand as yours; and I know that what such an artist feels to be terrible and original, is unquestionably so. You whet my interest by what you write of it to the utmost extent.
Believe me ever affectionately yours.
The same.
3, Hanover Terrace, Regent's Park,
Sunday, 28th April, 1861.
My dear Bulwer Lytton,
My story will finish in the first week in August. Yours ought to begin in the last week of July, or the last week but one. Wilkie Collins will be at work to follow you. The publication has made a very great success with "Great Expectations," and could not present a finer time for you.