31 March 1870 • Buffalo, N.Y. (MS: NN, UCCL 00451)
I am grateful always for sincere & voluntary eer expressions of satisfaction with the bookⒶemendation, & therefore I am grateful for the pr knowledge that you & yours have derived pleasure from reading it. Mrs. Browning knew right well that one such note of private & voluntary commendation g Ⓐemendation is able to give an author more comfort than the patronizing crit Ⓐemendation speeches toleration, imbecile criticism toleration and awkward English of forty Nation critiques can take away.2explanatory note
In return for the Nation notice (which I had not seen,) I enclose a notice written by the traveled & scholarly David Gray, of the Buffalo Courier. It is at least good English—a merit which the Nation notice lacks.3explanatory note
Chas F. Wingate Esq
200 210 Ⓐemendation E. 31 30th Ⓐemendation N. Y.Ⓐemendation4explanatory note
Charles Frederick Wingate (1848–1909) was a New York correspondent (“Carlfried”) of the Springfield (Mass.) Republican.
The Nation’s 2 September 1869 review of The Innocents Abroad was indeed patronizing. The unidentified critic said, in part:
It might better have been a thinner book, for there is some dead wood in it, as there has to be in all books which are sold by book-agents and are not to be bought in stores. The rural-district reader likes to see that he has got his money’s worth even more than he likes wood-engravings. At least, such is the faith in Hartford; and no man ever saw a book-agent with a small volume in his hand. (Nation 9:194–95; reprinted in Anderson and Sanderson, 21–22)
Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s observations on “private & voluntary commendation” have not been identified.
Gray had spent most of 1865–68 traveling in Britain, Europe, and the Holy Land, recording his observations in a series of fifty-eight letters to the Buffalo Courier (reprinted in Larned 1888, volume 2; see also Larned 1888, 1:100–128). His long review of Innocents appeared in the Courier on 19 March 1870, nearly eight months after the book’s publication. A clipping of the review survives in the Mark Twain Papers, and the full text is reprinted in Enclosure with 31 March 1870 to Charles F. Wingateclick to open link.
Wingate lived at this address with his parents (Wilson 1869, 1193).
MS, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations, New York City (NN).
L4 , 102–103.
R. R. Bowker Collection.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.