Richard Ford
1840.
it up and send it me per coach? I hope to do the little book before February.
The Handbook for Travellers in Spain, here first mentioned, seems to have been undertaken almost in jest. In 1839, when Ford was dining with John Murray, the publisher, his host asked him to recommend a man to write a Spanish guide-book. “I will do it myself,” replied Ford, and thought no more on the subject. But, after his return from abroad, Murray definitely asked him to write the book. His estimate of the time necessary to complete the work proved far too moderate. Instead of six months, the myrtle and ivy-clad garden-house at Heavitree, to which he retired as a study, was for nearly five years the scene of his labours. Week after week he sat at his inky deal table, clad in his Spanish jacket of black sheepskin, surrounded by shelves laden with parchment-clad folios and quartos, by pigeon-holes crammed with notes to repletion, and by piles of manuscript which gradually encumbered the chairs and floor. Here he entertained his visitors with his book-rarities, and poured forth his complaints, half serious, half humorous, of the slavery to which he had condemned himself.
In spite of its modest title, the Handbook is really a most entertaining encyclopedia of Spanish history and antiquities, religion and art, life and manners. But the slavery might have been less protracted if it had been mitigated by fewer distractions. Nor had Ford acquired the habit of prolonged labour on a lengthy subject. Review writing had encouraged him in the short bursts of literary industry, concentrated on a comparatively restricted field, which were most congenial to his natural tastes and character. No doubt, as time went on, and as he realised the magnitude of his task, he grew heartily weary of the Handbook. But it may be doubted whether the form is not the best that, under the circumstances, he could have chosen. At all events, no trace of effort appears in the lively vivacious style which communicated to the reader a prodigious mass of information in the easiest possible manner.
More than two months passed before the book was begun. Even then it was interrupted by other literary work.
Heavitree, 13 September, 1840.
The Minaños are duly arrived, and to-morrow will leave this library for a den in a cottage here in my garden, where I am going to retire and compose Handbook. What a mass of matter the said Minaño contains, and how will it be simmered down into a gallipot guide-book?
I have no news yet of the macaroni; but it is in London. Let me know how you feel as to sharing in the rotuli. There is no delicacy in refusing, if the taste be swamped by eating German sour crout, as there are more amateurs for that article hereabouts than for Rafaello ware. By the way, I could indeed turn one honest penny by those pots and plates, having been offered guineas for what cost scudi, and having weeded my collection very nearly to the amount of the prime cost. The marbles are still in the agents’ custody, as I have nowhere to put them here. But buying what one does not want is the veritable malaria of the Via Babuino.