Letter to Mr Stoddart (29 december 1891)
This letter was written by Arthur Conan Doyle on 29 december 1891 to Joseph M. Stoddart, the editor of the Lippincott's Monthly Magazine.
Letter
12 Tennison Road
- South Norwood
- Dec 29 /91.
My dear Stoddart,
Your genial letters are always a pleasure. Pray accept every possible good wish for the coming year, and remember me very kindly to Mr Craige Lippincott & Mr Kimball, should you see them.
Parkman's researches draw the student of early American history more and more towards Canada, where the life and colour of courtiers, soldiers, Jesuits, Coureurs des bois &c make a more vivid picture than the drab though solid Puritanism of the Atlantic sea-bard. But what I am doing is to begin at the Court of Louis the fourteenth, introduce there a New Yorker and a Boston man, and then work back to the Puritan Colonies through Canada. I think I see my way fairly well now. The main bulk of the book will lie in France, but there will always be a strong American tinge.
I should joy to come over, but it is such a job to get away — but come I will as soon as ever I can make a way clear. It is so pleasing to me to think that my little books have made friends over there. Have I some subtle distant strain of American blood, or why is it that my heart always warms so towards your great country. I should love to see an International Vigilance Committee for the extermination of the wretched Place hunters and newspaper scribblers who make mischief between the two great brother races. Surely it is the last sin that an Anglo-Saxon can commit. Either the Republic and the Empire will neutralise each other to the end of time, or they will eternally coalesce into one mighty Anglo-Saxon bond, which with the same ideals in all forms of thought, will span the earth and will — but where the deuce have I got to now!
I'll gave you a bit of advice in exchange for what you so kindly gave me. Since my dear friend Balestier's unhappy death, there is a great gap in the Anglo-American publishing trade, and any man who came over here who was genial & sympathetic, who would interview all the authors personally, and who was prepared to pay guarantees in advance as well as good royalties, would have a good chance of sweeping the English market. The broken thread may be spliced again however, and the chance gone in a few weeks. At present, I fancy, it exists. A mere man of business can't fill Balestier's boots. I think you might however, if you cared to enter upon another British campaign. What does anyone care about Lovell! But Balestier was a power.
Well, adieu, and may we soon look upon your genial face & pray bring Mrs Stoddart with you
- Yours very cordially
- A. Conan Doyle
