To Mr Alexander Spencer.
“Riedenburg, Aug. 5, 1846.
“With a houseful of company and every imaginable kind of confusion around me, I have barely time for a few lines in reply to your last.
“Curry wrote asking what price I placed on my right to the books, and I replied demanding a full a/c of all sales up to date. My London publisher, who fortunately happened to be with me, advised me as to the course to take.... I shall write fully and lengthily by Mr Chapman, who leaves on Saturday for London.”
To Mr Alexander Spencer.
“Riedenburg, Bregenz, Aug. 15, 1846.
“My chateau continues full of company, with the visits of daily new arrivals. Baron de Margueritte, wife and daughter, one party. The Baron’s sister was married to John Armit of Dublin. Dudley Perceval, son of the late Spencer Perceval; then Charles Dickens and wife, with two of the Bishop of Exeter’s family expected,—not to speak of my worthy publisher, Mr Chapman, and wife, from London, who are so pleased with their visit that, like kind folk, they have stayed three weeks with us. I like him greatly, and his wife is a remarkably good and favourable specimen of London.
“As for Curry, his letter was a mild, courteous, mock-friendly, expostulatory, but semi-defiant epistle, talking about our old and intimate business relations and the hope of their [being] one day revived, and asking me to set a price upon my interest; to which I responded by asking for the data of such a demand, a full and true statement of a/c. It seems that he offered to sell his share to C. & H., and asked them, for his moiety, £2500! while he had the insolence to offer me £200 for mine. This Chapman himself told me, and also added that his (Curry’s) great anxiety was now to purchase my share, in order to bring the whole commodity into the market in a more eligible shape, as few booksellers would buy a divided copyright.
“Chapman says, on reading these letters and hearing all the case, that he never heard of any man being more shamefully treated,—that I have been outrageously rogued and robbed throughout. When the accts. come,—if they ever do,—Chapman will have them examined by their own accountant, so the great point at present would be to ask him to forward these to me as early as possible.
“My answer (to Curry) was civil but dry. No notice did I take of his hopes of future dealings nor the half intimation that a legal case was a game à deux. I merely said: Let me see how I stand, and what would be a fair sum to ask [as a settlement] for the past.