ALS signed “J. R. Lowell,” four pages on two adjoining sheets, 4 x 5, December 5, 1853. Letter to attorney and editor Francis Henry Underwood. In part: “How truly sorry I was to hear of the blowing-up of your magazine. But it is not so irreparable as if it had been a powder-magazine, though perhaps all the harder to be borne because it was only in posse & not in Esse…Although I could prove by a syllogism in Barbara that you are no worse off than you were before, I know very well that you are, for if it be bad to lose mere coin, it is still worse to lose hope which is the mint in which most gold is manufactured. But, after all, is it a hopeless case? Consider yourself to be in the position of all the world before the Mansion our Uncle Thomas (as I suppose we must call it now—it has grown so respectable) was published, & never to have heard of this Mr. Jew-wit…There are as good fish in that buccaneering sea of Bibliopoly as ever were caught, & if one of them have broken away from your harpoon, I hope the next may prove a downright Kraaken on whom, if needful, you can pitch your tent & live.” A toned mounting strip along the left edge, otherwise fine condition. Accompanied by a brief article about this letter. This letter concerns Underwood’s abandoned plans for a new periodical that would be antislavery in tone and literary in content, with a launch date targeted for January 1854. Underwood canceled the publication, largely for financial reasons, but did not abandon it. His concept was realized in 1857 when he launched The Atlantic Monthly, with Lowell as its editor. Pre-certified PSA/DNA.
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