W. Harrison Ainsworth.
8th April 1872.
Upon seeing this ‘positive contradiction,’ I wrote a second letter to The Times, which the Editor kindly inserted:—
‘THE MISER’S DAUGHTER’
To the Editor of ‘The Times’
Sir—I am fully aware that you will not allow any controversy to be carried on in The Times upon such a trifling matter as this; but as Mr. W. Harrison Ainsworth gives a positive contradiction to my statement which appeared in The Times on the 8th inst., I have to beg that you will permit me to express my very great surprise at this denial, and also to express my regret that his memory should be in such a defective state, that he should have forgotten the circumstances and facts as to the origin of Oliver Twist and of The Miser’s Daughter; and I regret also that this contradiction of his will compel me, in justice to myself, to give, in a work I am preparing for the press, a full, true, and particular account of all the professional transactions between Mr. Ainsworth and myself, in which I shall prove, beyond all fear of contradiction, that I am the sole originator of what is called Ainsworth’s Tower of London, as well as another work bearing his name, but the ideas and suggestions of which were given to him by, Sir, your obedient servant, George Cruikshank.
10th April 1872.
P.S.—Allow me to add that it ought to be understood that it is one thing for an artist to illustrate an author’s own ideas, and quite a different matter when a literary man adopts and writes out the ideas of another person.
This second letter brought forth another contradiction (a flat one) from Mr. W. H. A.:—
To the Editor of ‘The Times’