SWINBURNE, ALGERNON CHARLES. Autograph letter signed ("AC Swinburne") TO THEODORE WATTS DUNTON ("My Dear Watts"), Holmwood, 10 April [1873]. 3 pages, 8vo, in tan ink , the year "1873" supplied in red ink by Thomas J. Wise. SWINBURNE AND JOHN CAMDEN HOTTEN An important letter regarding Swinburne's struggle to extricate himself from the publisher Hotten (notorious for pirating works by American authors). The shady Hotten held manuscripts by Swinburne dealing with flagellation and was essentially using this as a veiled threat in insisting on continuing to publish the poet; he had taken over Poems and Ballads from the failed Moxon in 1866. Watts-Dunton was Swinburne's newly acquired solicitor; he later became Swinburne's "keeper" and companion at The Pines in Putney. It was the lawyer's adroitness in dealing with Hotten and the latter's timely demise in June 1873 that finally freed Swinburne from his entanglement. See Donald Thomas, Swinburne: The Poet in His World (New York, 1979), pp. 128-30 and 156-57. "I quite thought you knew already that before the arbitration which was to decide the matter as it there stood, & which did so to the effect that I anticipated, I had given Hotten a verbal permission that Bothwell [eventually published in 1874 by Chatto & Windus] was in preparation. But my point is that all these previous questions were wound up and disposed of by the decision to which H. [Hotten] appealed, and which was given in my favour; and that since then we stand on a new footing and start from a fresh point of view; so that no further step could thenceforth be taken on the understanding of any former arrangement which that decision had virtually cancelled or pronounced to have no actual existence, until some fresh connection between us should be determined on; whereas none such has been or will be proposed or accepted..."
SWINBURNE, ALGERNON CHARLES. Autograph letter signed ("AC Swinburne") TO THEODORE WATTS DUNTON ("My Dear Watts"), Holmwood, 10 April [1873]. 3 pages, 8vo, in tan ink , the year "1873" supplied in red ink by Thomas J. Wise. SWINBURNE AND JOHN CAMDEN HOTTEN An important letter regarding Swinburne's struggle to extricate himself from the publisher Hotten (notorious for pirating works by American authors). The shady Hotten held manuscripts by Swinburne dealing with flagellation and was essentially using this as a veiled threat in insisting on continuing to publish the poet; he had taken over Poems and Ballads from the failed Moxon in 1866. Watts-Dunton was Swinburne's newly acquired solicitor; he later became Swinburne's "keeper" and companion at The Pines in Putney. It was the lawyer's adroitness in dealing with Hotten and the latter's timely demise in June 1873 that finally freed Swinburne from his entanglement. See Donald Thomas, Swinburne: The Poet in His World (New York, 1979), pp. 128-30 and 156-57. "I quite thought you knew already that before the arbitration which was to decide the matter as it there stood, & which did so to the effect that I anticipated, I had given Hotten a verbal permission that Bothwell [eventually published in 1874 by Chatto & Windus] was in preparation. But my point is that all these previous questions were wound up and disposed of by the decision to which H. [Hotten] appealed, and which was given in my favour; and that since then we stand on a new footing and start from a fresh point of view; so that no further step could thenceforth be taken on the understanding of any former arrangement which that decision had virtually cancelled or pronounced to have no actual existence, until some fresh connection between us should be determined on; whereas none such has been or will be proposed or accepted..."
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.jpg "Source: Christie's")
.jpg "Source: Christie's")
