Helen
Hunt Jackson 2-2-23g transcription
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Helen Hunt Jackson Papers, Part 2, Ms 0156, Box 2, Folder 23g, Thomas
Niles to HHJ, 1877.
Dear Mrs Jackson I am so sorry my last title does not please you. I have asked the opinion of a great many and they all, without hesitation, fix upon Hetty's Strange History as the very best of all. If the reason you urge against it is a good one, why will not the same objection apply to Mercy Philbrick's Choice and hosts of other novels? Bulwer has "strange story" wh. comes pretty near a "A Strange History". Kingsley has a "Hetty." There is a novel called "Two Lives" I feel quite certain. "Hetty Gunn" seems to me to be very weak as compared with Hetty's Strange History and the more I think about this latter & the oftener I write it the better I like it; it certainly arrests the attention quite as Effectively as did the mystery of "Mercy Philbrick's Choice" One feels a desire to learn at once all about this Hetty who was she & what was her "Strange History?' Do try to think with me on this subject? I shall feel very badly to adopt a title wh. does not please you - in fact I will not do so. The Sonnets will have to go over till another year, I guess. We are also having lovely weather without snows. Little Lewis & his father are on the farm at eastern Point - a Paradise for three months to come & both of them are in excellent health. All proof went to you day before yesterday or rather on the 11th. Yrs very truly T. Niles addressed as usual [In HHJ's hand] |
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