BYRON'S LETTERS TO DOUGLAS KINNAIRD ... - Get a Free Blog

there still remain 4336. to account for to Lady B. and to myself. – – You have now ten Cantos of D. J.
(I am writing the eleventh) – and the Island in hand – can you make no arrangement
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[above address:] with Wright or others for the publication? I know that the work {D.J.} is by far the
most popular of mine. – – –
You may reckon upon eleven or twelve Cantos being forthcoming (the Gods willing) and I shall
probably make the work a hundred {in time} – if I live – just to show these fellows that [below
address:] I am not the boy to be put down by their outcry. – –
As to the merits – I think that the subsequent Cantos will be found as good as the others on the whole –
and better in some parts. – You must not mind occasional rambling I mean it for a poetical T. Shandy –
or Montaigne’s Essays – with a story for a hinge. 145 – I hope that you will not let these lawyers {H.}
and trustees do as they please with my interests in my absence. y rs ever N. B. — — —
April 23rd – 26th 1823: The Blues published in The Liberal No 3.
May 8th 1823: Byron writes the fragmentary Don Juan Canto XVII.
Byron to Douglas Kinnaird, from Genoa, April 19th 1823:
(Source: text from NLS Ms.43454; not in 1922 II; BLJ X 152-4)
[To, The Honorable Douglas Kinnaird. / Messrs Ransom and C o . / Pall Mall. / London. / Angleterre. //
Inghilterra.]
A pair of single sheets.
April 19 th . 1823
My dear Douglas /
Hobhouse will have communicated to you my interview with Cap t . B1aquiere – and the
substance of the subsequent letter which I have had from B. (dated Rome) I have not yet sent a copy of
the letter to H. but merely a summary of the contents. – – –
If I go up into the Levant – I shall want all the credit you can muster for me – from monies received or
to be received – that is, as far as you think it prudent to venture. – I should think that you might sell my
ten Cantos – you had a thousand offered for the seven – which is not a fair offer – but with the adjunct
of the three new ones – and the four Cantos of the Island – and the permanent copyright of the poems
(already published) to be collected into volumes – I think you might get a decent value {for the whole}.
– Firstly – if I go up – there’s some risk of not returning – and in this case – my latest works would
hear some value merely as such – 2d ly . – if I do come back – I shall probably bring some poesy or prose
worth the looking for – as I know the Country – and it is an interesting time. – Murray ought to pay
something for “Werner” I have made enquiries
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and find that at Paris at least – the sale of four hundred copies of a work – pays its’ expences – – now
M. sold six thousand by his own account – then how can he have lost? – – The question besides
is – – whether the eight and twenty years copy right are not worth something – as it will sell with the
others – as long {at least} as they sell – What they may do at home – I know not – but abroad – they
have a great sale – if I may judge by the number of editions – in France and Germany – and America. –
– Did you get the Scotch deed? – You have never answered about Webster’s bond – (in Hanson’s
hands) I see similar sales (L d Moira’s bonds for instance) in the papers daily – and I would willingly
sell it – for what it may fetch – Rowley – {&} Capron – in Savile Row would be likely to buy it. – –
With regard to the Noel payments if they are eventually so secure – you could let me have a credit on
those due (I speak in case of my Greek expedition) and also on the Exchequer bill (reconverting it into
cash) as well as on my {own} July dividends. – – and I must positively require that
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2.) you do not make any further payments at present either to Baxter or to any one else 146 – I have
occasion for all the floating sums I can collect – and as the Creditors are few in number – not great in
145: This, one of the most revealing things B. wrote about Don Juan, is thrown in to fill up the paper.
146: K. pays Baxter for B.’s Napoleonic coach just before B.’s death.
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