Collection of 24 Autograph Letters, signed ("Henry Wm. Herbert") to various correspondents, pertaining for the most part to his literary and sporting work. Written in New York at 74 Mercer Street, Carlton House, Summer St, and at The Cedars in Newark, New Jersey by Herbert, Henry William ("Frank Forester") - 1857

New York and New Jersey, 1857. Portrait illustration mounted. 59 pp. 1 vols. 4to and smaller. Letters tipped to quarto sheets and bound together in three-quarters green morocco for Charles Scribner's Sons by Jas. MacDonald & Co. Spine faded to brown. Bookplate. Some old splits or repairs to letters, generally about fine. Portrait illustration mounted. 59 pp. 1 vols. 4to and smaller. 'I am in some considerable want of money'. Henry William Herbert (1807-1858), grandson of the Earl of Carnaervon, arrived in New York in 1831. He had been educated at Eton and Cambridge, where his tastes for fast living, outdoor sport, and writing had disqualified him from following in the clerical footsteps of his father, the rector of Spofford and later dean of Manchester. Herbert travelled in the eastern U.S. and Canada until his money ran out, and returned to New York, where he taught classics at a prep school for Columbia, and became a prolific contributor to American periodicals. He wrote historical novels and was the American translator of Eugène Sue and several novels by Dumas.
He also drew upon his memories of hunting in Orange county, New York, to write his most famous book, The Warwick Woodlands, first published as sketches for the American Turf Register and Sporting Magazine, under the pseudonym "Frank Forester," and collected in book form in 1845. With his writings for The Spirit of the Times and for the Register, "he took on the role of the father of American sporting and hunting literature" (ODNB).
The early 1840s were a period of comparative prosperity for Herbert. he was married in 1839 and a son was born in 1841. Herbert's family bought him a property on the Passaic river in New Jersey, where he built a rural retreat, The Cedars. His wife died of tuberculosis in 1844, and their son was sent off to England to be raised there. Herbert was quick to take offense and fought several duels or armed confrontations. He was also chronically short of ready cash, as publishers delayed payments and magazines failed.

This collection of letters touches upon literary, social, and financial matters spanning most of Herbert's career, with fine turns of phrase and mention of mutual friends, current works, potential assignments, and the prospect of scandal. Comprising:

1. To John Trumbull, 20 April 1833, 2 pp. with integral address leaf, requesting the recipient's assistance in securing a favorable notice from Mr. King for the third issue of The American Monthly Magazine.

2. Autograph letter, signed ("Allen"), from Herbert's uncle Joshua, fifth Viscount Allen, 4 pp., 100 Mount Street, [London], dated 13 July 1835, regarding a Greek professorship at Columbia College for his nephew. (Nothing came of this.)

3. Saturday 25th [March] 1837, 1p., inviting the unnamed recipient to meet his cousin, Mr. Riddell, from Canada, and asking whether he was attending the Booksellers Feast on 30 March.

4. To George Roberts, editor of The Boston Notion, 3 pp., 24 April 1841, substantial letter, proposing a complete novel for the journal, and mentioning novels "Ringwood the Rover" (published 1843) and "The Maid's Revenge" (published as Marmaduke Wyvil (1843), and responses of Philadelphia and New York publishers to his queries. Roberts published several pieces by Herbert, including portions of the novel published as Chevaliers of France in 1853. Quoted in Van Winkle at p. 8.

5. To Rufus Dwinel, 23 August [1841], 1 p., substantial letter, proposing to pay a debt of thirty-five dollars with a draft on George R. Graham of Philadelphia, "proprietor and editor of the Ladies & Gentleman's magazine for $150 due me for literary matters at 6 days sight. ... I am in some considerable want of money at the moment in consequence of Sarah's very dangerous illness ... By the way I should not wish it offered at the Eastern Branch for reasons which I will explain when we meet."

6. [To George Graham?], 24 January 1842, 1-1/2 pp., "musch surprised that the draft for 150 dollars to the order of Messrs Benson & Hodges has not been paid according to your promise ... The whole article was I presume in your hands ...." Herbert was a regular contributor to Graham's through the 1850s.

7. [To an editor], 18 March 1842, 1 p., accepting "the offer of $100 down and 50 at the delivery of the last chapter," needing an answer before 10 April "for individual considerations," and pledging to deliver "in time for weekly publication a tale in 30 chapters averaging 8 pages each of my MS." Ringwood the Rover was published in the Saturday Evening Post from 19 March through 23 April 1842, and in book form the following year.

8. To editor John L. O' Sullivan, [summer 1845], 2 pp., "as it is stated in the papers that you and the Democratic are at length enfranchised from the (to me) 'baleful dominion' of the Langley's, and that you are about to publish henceforth on your own hook, I beg to tender my services to you either occasionally, or for a series of papers." Herbert mentions construction of "a little cottage" (The Cedars), and alludes to an article entitled Horae Otiosae, or Loose Leaves of Literary Leisure, published in Godey's for May 1845 (not noted in Van Winkle). He also reports that "The Wandering Jew which has kept me enchained for the last year and more is drawing to it conclusion."

9. [To Edward Carey or Abraham Hart] My Dear Sir, 22 May 1845, 2 pp., offering to sell a copy of Disraeli's Sibyl, just received from Colburn by steamer and at the Philadelphia Post Office with postage due of $17.45. Herbert is asking for his commission, "for I am disappointed in not obtaining a remittance by the steamer and am considerable poor! ... I have no Jew this Steamer, and am ready to go at Thiers if necessary hard all." Carey and Hart published the (pirated?) edition of Sibyl in 1845; the firm also published Thiers' Life of Napoleon. See BAL 8088.

10. [To A. Hart], 20 December 1848, 1 p., "I am almost ashamed to trouble you again about the 'Deerstalkers' ... as Bentley requires (as a sine qua non of publication) thirty days delay after the receipt of the MS in England, it will be necessary for you to delay twice that time here, in order fro give me the advantage of an English sale. I had hoped to have had some proofs from you ere now. ... My new book is going well." The Deerstalkers was published in London on 23 March 1849, and in Philadelphia by Carey & Hart on 18 April.

11. To Henry B. Hirst, c/o G. R. Graham, 4 April 1850, 2 pp., concerning plans to hunt snipe, and a change in the date of travel due to a north east storm. Herbert asks Hirst to "communicate my altered views to Graham and to tell McKenzie at the Columbia that he may expect me and my dogs on Saturday evening if it neither rain nor snow." Herbert's article "Spring Snipe Shooting of 1850" was published in Graham's for May. The Columbia House hotel was the scene of the "unpleasant encounter" with Judge Barton later in 1850, where a bar-room disagreement was fanned into something more by the "officiousness" of Hirst (see Hunt, pp. 88-9).

12. To George Graham, n.d. [ca. June 1854], 4 pp., concerning nonpayment of a draft for $200 following delivery of "the Ms of The Falls of the Wyalusing complete in XIV chapters ... I am very sure it is the best Temperance story you have published yet." [See letter 15]. In advertisements in the Water-Cure Journal, December, 1854, and American Farmers' Magazine, early 1855, as well as the Spirit of the Age, 14 February 1855, The Falls of the Wyalusing was advertised as forthcoming in the Saturday Evening Post for 1855; but Van Winkle (p. 189) and BAL (note at 4:138) report the work untraced in magazine or book appearances.

13. To an unnamed editor, undated, 1 p., writing from The Cedars, "I have nothing original which I can send you, not already published, of more importance than the translations of two epitaphs on the Greeks and Spartans, who fell at Thermopylae ... Here did we fight with Persian millions three, Peloponnesians twice two thousand, we." Signature faded. Possibly circa 1851, at the time of The Captains of the Old World.

14. To George Graham, 27 January 1853, 6 pp. 12mo, "I wrote to you on Saturday last in regard to the return all together on that day of all my drafts on you since Decr. 18th. I had no intimation whatever that our engagement was at end, or that a termination of it was desired by you." Herbert details articles and woodblocks sent to Graham on specific dates (verses on Wellington, a review of Bancroft). "It is a great hardship for me to be thrown out at this time of year when I had just refused all offers from two other magazines, being exclusively your contributor; and a great hardship to refund to Mr. Stringer the amount of the drafts returned. ..." He asks for the return of a woodblock of a duck printed in the February number, as he needs "a cut for my little book soon forthcoming."

15. To George Graham, 25 May 1854, 3 pp., "I send you today by Express the completion of the Falls of Wyalusing, which I hope will meet your approbation ... I had no option but to delay it, for Charles Scribner, who has in press my Captains of the Roman Republic, would have got the work finished by some other hand, and I should have lost my interest in it, had I not finished it on or before the seventh of this month. Immediately after which I set steadily to work on this story." He offers an electrotype of his drawing of the battle of Actium and an article on Mark Antony, the Mad Triumvir. ... The Cedars is looking very pretty and green after all these rains and I should be glad to see you here. I think you are making the Evening Mail quite the best paper, but I wish you were not so down on England."

16. To Colonel J. R. S. Denton, 5 September 1855, 2 pp., asking "if you can get the enclosed note discounted for me ... I must have the cash on Friday evening by six o'clock at the latest and without a chance of disappointment. ... In conclusion let me beg you (if you have heard any reports downtown to my disadvantage, I do not mean the least in money matters but to a row which occurred on Saturday night) to suspend your opinion until you hear the whole, when I pledge you my honor you will learn that I was right in every point."

17. To Mr Clark, 21 January 1856, 4 pp., in some distress, concerning Clark's guarantee of Mr. Britton's note, and Herbert's obligations to his publishers, Stringer & Townsend; "I hear on all sides of your enjoying four-in-hand sleigh rides, and I have literally been without coal in this freezing weather. ... Actions, only not words, can be of use now - if I am not relieved on or beforeSaturday, the house in which you have often received hospitality, will be closed; as my servants have all given me notice to quit if not paid up on that day ... This is a nice end of ten years toil and struggle to be thus mashed through no fault of my own."

18. To G.S. Williams, of Geneva, New York, 26 February 1857, 1 p., responding to a request for an autograph, noting that this is the third letter from Geneva seeking an autograph received "within four and twenty hours."

19. To John B. Hersh*, 20 March 1857, 5 pp., concerning a project to hatch grouse eggs and tame the birds. "I have succeeded with the eggs of the woodcock, brought from over a greater distance. The question is of time." Herbert suggests enclosing a ten acre parcel of land devoted to the project; and discusses quail, partridge, and introducing non-native birds. * Docketed at head, "'Hersh' is a pseudonym of John H. Beardsley, formerly of Cleveland, Ohio."

20. To Messrs. Harper & Bros., Cliff Street, [n.d., spring 1835], 2-1/2 pp., "I have got several chapters finished for you though not all written out," and discussing the length of the introductory chapter and preliminary pages; continuing, "Have you thought anything about publishing in England or not, or have you any objection to my taking some steps about it. It occurs to me that that I could get it done by Colburn ... I have a friend her now who is going immediately to England and will take measures if you say yes. ... I heard from Simms today he writes in great spirits about the Yemasee which he says is in great demand in the South." Harpers published The Brothers in July 1835 (Colburn began publishing Herbert only in 1840).

21. My Dear Colonel Denton, [n.d., ca. 1855?], 1 p., concerning an address for Mr. Andrews, Eastport, Maine,, and debts to be discharged, "at all events I will be prepared for the next on the day it becomes due " as I shall have a book ready for delivery before that time."

22. My dear Stringer, [n.d., after 1853], 3 pp., "Infamous and disgraceful are not strong enough words for the wretched botches which have been made of what I am confident to say are the three best drawings on wood ... No one of the drawings in the Game in its seasons came near these for beauty or finish and the cuts are not equal to the sixpenny things on the cover of yellow paper novels. ... Mr orr knows this as well as I do." American Game in Its Seasons was published by Scribners in 1853.

23. To William F. P. Wilson, Columbian Hotel, Philadelphia, undated, 1 p., with conjugate address leaf, "I take the opportunity of G. Halsted visiting your city to send you a line; I was truly sorry to learn the sad news you wrote me ... When are you coming to stay with me. I have two spre beds now comfortably furnished." George B. Halsted was later the president of the Newark Herbert Association which in 1876 erected the monument in Mount Pleasant cemetery bearing the motto "Infelicissimus".

24. To Rufus Dwinel, Broadway, [14 September 1841], 1 p., "I was equally amazed & disgusted at your note. It is the damnedest piece of rascality I ever heard, the price being the payment due to me for literary articles furnished at his own request. I send you enclosed seventy dollars every farthing I have in the house & will arrange the payment of the of the balance as speedily as possible. ... I beg you to get it kept quiet if possible for it will set the whole of this damned town talking again."

25. [To Abraham Hart], [undated, spring 1851], 1 p., "I enclose Mr. [?]'s note of last evening & leave the completion of the Sea-King. Will you oblige me by getting the draft for $40 cashed & enclosing it to me at the Columbia House ..." Hart published The Sea-King in June 1851. See BAL 8126.

A superb and important assembly of letters from the founder of American outdoor writing, attesting to his friendships and literary endeavors, and documenting his perpetually straitened circumstances. Provenance: John M. Schiff (Sotheby's, 11 December 1990, lot 178). See: Hunt, Frank Forester. A Tragedy in Exile (1933); Van Winkle, Henry William Herbert [Frank Forester]: A Bibliography of His Writings 1832-1858 (1936); White, Henry William Herbert & the American Publishing Scene (1943); BAL vol. 4, pp. 107-38