1892-03-27 to Charles Scribner’s Sons

Autograph letter signed, Princeton University, 410 words

[Edited for paragraph breaks, capitalization, spelling and punctuation.]

8 Kings Bench Walk, Temple

[Sunday] March 27th 1892

Dear Sir

Many thanks for your kind letter. It is really most kind of you and believe me I appreciate your kindness. I was delighted with your edition of Vain Fortune. I was equally delighted with your share, the editing and the general get up of the book, as I was with my share, the rewritten portions of the book. This may seem fatuous but the book did please me. The Mummers Wife is a stronger book but I don't think it is so perfect a book. It is very absurd to write in this way about one's own book but I only know one way of writing and that is to write down exactly what is passing in my mind.

Regarding the other matters, I have only to say that I have every confidence in your judgment. When I have finished Mother and Child I will send you the manuscript with full authority to strike out and modify. But I do not think you will find much to alter.

In my early books I wrote in full determination to irritate certain people whom I still continue to consider foolish but whom I no longer wish to irritate. The book is, as I told you in a former letter, an essentially honest book, a book that everybody would sympathise with, and that is the main point. If I succeed in the execution, the book will be immensely popular...

Enfin, I will send you the typewritten manuscript and if you decide to publish the book you will send plates to my London publisher. I suppose that that is the way the matter will ultimately be arranged.

I intend to publish this autumn a collection of short stories and these too I will send to you.

You will oblige me very much if you will let me know how Vain Fortune is selling. You will soon know pretty well how the public takes to the book and, if not asking too much, perhaps you will be good enough to send me two or three of the principle reviews. I shall be glad if you will send the book to Howells and Hawthorne .

Again thanking you for the excellent way you have corrected the proofs, I beg to remain

Very truly yours

George Moore