Documents associated with: Balestier, Wolcott
Record 13 of 17
System Number: 02079
Date: 21 May 1891
Author: William Heinemann[1]
Place: London
Recipient: JW
Place: [London]
Repository: Glasgow University Library
Call Number: MS Whistler H180
Document Type: TLS
WM HEINEMANN,
PUBLISHER.
TELEGRAPHIC ADDRESS:
"SUNLOCKS, LONDON."
21, BEDFORD STREET,
LONDON,
W. C.
May 21, 1891.
My dear Mr. Whistler,
How dare you be ill? This is too bad, really. I shall discontinue taking the "Pall Mall Gazette."[2] What is the good of all these penny 'awfuls,' if they do not apprise one of real danger ahead? I am off, unfortunately, to-morrow morning to Cumberland, and I know that, with your natural kindness, you will excuse my coming to inquire. But in the meantime I am putting Balestier[3] on the scent, who only came back this morning, and he shall report to me everything.
Now with regard to the "Songs on Stone,"[4] I will hear nothing of American interlopers. Why, it was quite understood that I should quietly feel my way into the matter. I have even in Paris reconnoitred the field, and also in that wicked Munich, where, as you charmingly said, Ibsen[5] meets his Hedda Gablers[6]. And now I bring you the first American publisher[7], and besides a friend, so he tells me, of your family - before the exodus, and you crush me with the news that there are other pilots who know the dangerous coast of publicity as well as I. This is hard and terrible; so you must leave everything till I am back - next Tuesday or Wednesday - (p. 2) until you are well, and then we must talk it all over, and arrange matters as they should be.
Believe me, my dear Mr. Whistler,
Yours very sincerely,
Wm Heinemann
James M'Neil [sic] Whistler, Esq.
This document is protected by copyright.
Notes:
1. William Heinemann
William Heinemann (1863-1920), publisher [more].
2. Pall Mall Gazette
Society paper in which JW's letters and social activities were regularly featured.
3. Balestier
Charles Wolcott Balestier (1861-1891), novelist and literary agent [more].
4. Songs on Stone
A series of lithographs, Whistler, James McNeill, Songs on Stone, London, [n.d.], then planned by Heinemann and JW. Their intention seems to have been to publish a series of four plates in Britain and America in periodic parts. See Heinemann's earlier letter to JW dated 19 May 1891, #02078 (see also W. Heinemann to JW, #02080 and #02083). However, the project was never completed and appears to have been abandoned by the spring of 1894 (see W. Heinemann to JW, #02086).
5. Ibsen
Henrik Johan Ibsen (1828-1906), playwright [more].
6. Hedda Gablers
'Hedda Gabler,' one of Ibsen's most famous plays, written in 1890.
7. American publisher
William Henry Appleton (1814-1899), publisher [more].