1_st_ _January_ ’94.
MY DEAR CHARLES,—I am delighted with your idea, and first, I will here
give an amended plan and afterwards give you a note of some of the
difficulties.
[Plan of the Edinburgh edition—14 vols.]
. . . It may be a question whether my _Times_ letters might not be
appended to the ‘Footnote’ with a note of the dates of discharge of
Cedercrantz and Pilsach.
I am particularly pleased with this idea of yours, because I am come to a
dead stop. I never can remember how bad I have been before, but at any
rate I am bad enough just now, I mean as to literature; in health I am
well and strong. I take it I shall be six months before I’m heard of
again, and this time I could put in to some advantage in revising the
text and (if it were thought desirable) writing prefaces. I do not know
how many of them might be thought desirable. I have written a paper on
_Treasure Island_, which is to appear shortly. _Master of Ballantrae_—I
have one drafted. _The Wrecker_ is quite sufficiently done already with
the last chapter, but I suppose an historic introduction to _David
Balfour_ is quite unavoidable. _Prince Otto_ I don’t think I could say
anything about, and _Black Arrow_ don’t want to. But it is probable I
could say something to the volume of _Travels_. In the verse business I
can do just what I like better than anything else, and extend
_Underwoods_ with a lot of unpublished stuff. _Apropos_, if I were to
get printed off a very few poems which are somewhat too intimate for the
public, could you get them run up in some luxuous manner, so that fools
might be induced to buy them in just a sufficient quantity to pay
expenses and the thing remain still in a manner private? We could supply
photographs of the illustrations—and the poems are of Vailima and the
family—I should much like to get this done as a surprise for Fanny.