To Emerson on The Atlantic - photo 1

To Emerson on The Atlantic

Lot 267
16.06.2023 10:00UTC -05:00
Classic
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$ 6 048
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUSA, New York
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ID 967467
Lot 267 | To Emerson on The Atlantic
Estimate value
$ 6 000 – 8 000
LOWELL, James Russell (1819-1891). Autograph letter signed ("JR Lowell" and again "JRR" in text) to Ralph Waldo Emerson, Cambridge, 19 November 1857.

Four pages, bifolium, 175 x 111mm (separation to spine fold). Custom green cloth clamshell.

Writing to R.W. Emerson about the founding of The Atlantic Monthly and his essay "Solitude and Society." A superb letter between two literary giants concerning the foundation of one of the most influential publications of the last two centuries. An important letter by the magazine's first editor to Emerson. Emerson was present at the dinner-party given by Moses Dressler Philips where Philips announced his intention to found what soon became as one of the finest publications in the English-speaking world. It is still in print and influential with its shortened title, The Atlantic. Lowell opens commenting on the public reaction to Emerson's poetic contribution to the first issue: "You have seen, no doubt, how the Philistines have been parodying your 'Brahma' - and showing how they still believe in their special god Baal & are unable to arrive at a conception of an omnipresent Deity. I have not yet met with a clever one or I would have sent it to you for your amusement." Validating the adage that there is no such thing as bad publicity, Lowell observes that Emerson's detractors "are advertising the Atlantic in the very best way, & Mr. [Francis H.] Underwood tells me that the orders for the second number are doubling those for the first." Lowell predicts that Emerson would find the second issue "an improvement," over the first and offers a preview of its contents, mentioning pieces by many of the most prominent American writers of the nineteenth century, including Prescott, Bryant, Longfellow, Holmes and Whittier himself, and adding that he thought it "is a very good list." Emerson's latest poetic contribution was "to go into No 3, simply as a matter of housewifery because we had already three articles at $50…."

Emerson's essay, "Solitude and Society," was to appear in the forthcoming second issue (and is listed No. 12 in this letter), which Lowell claims "has only one fault – that it is not longer, but had it been only a page there would have been enough in it." Lowell then asks, if Lowell used "the word daysman deliberately? It has a technical meaning & I suppose you used it in that sense. Mr. Nichols (the vermilion pencil) was outraged & appealed to me. I answered that you had a right to use any word you liked till we found some one who wrote better English to correct you. Or did you mean the word to be merely the English of journeyman?" (Lowell was referring to the line: "He envied every daysman and drover in the tavern in their manly speech." See, The Atlantic Monthly, December 1857, p. 225). Lowell offers his hope that Emerson would be able to supply "something more for No 3 before you go off to lecture. The number promises well thus far - but I wish to make it a decided advance. You have no notion how hard tested we are - out of 297 Mss – only at most 6 accepted. I begin to believe in the total depravity of Contributions." He closes thanking Emerson, "in special for one line in 'Brahma' which abides with me as an intimate[:] "'When one they fly, I am the wings' You have crammed meaning there with an hydraulic press. Will not Thoreau give us something from Moosehead?" Provenance: Christie's East, 14 May 1997, lot 115.
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