Autograph Letter Signed from Bartholomew Price, Sedleian Professor of Natural Philosophy at the University of Oxford, proposing to Julian Yonge ('Yonge') that his sister Charlotte Yonge write a series of educational books for the Clarendon Press.

Author: 
Bartholomew Price (1818-1891), Sedleian Professor of Natural Philosophy and Master of Pembroke College, Oxford, mathematician [Julian Yonge (1830-1892), brother of writer Charlotte Mary Yonge]
Publication details: 
Bude, Cornwall. 24 July 1865.
£135.00
SKU: 13222

4pp., 12mo. Bifolium. With mourning border. Good, on lightly-aged paper. The letter begins: 'My dear Yonge, | I dare say you remember my telling you of the proposed series of educational books to be issued from the Clarendon Press, Oxford, and asking whether your sister would be willing to undertake any English books, if the Delegates of the Press should make an offer to her. I believe I explained to you that I spoke as a member of a Committee which had charge of the proposal and arrangement of these books in the first instance, but that the sanction of the whole Committee and finally of the whole Board of Delegates was necessary before an engagement could be made.' He continues by explaining that as 'an offer for an English reading book has now come to us from another quarter', he would be glad 'to know your sister's views respecting the matter'. Her 'views' on the matter may be 'quite consistent with an English reading book, as with several such graduated in order, prepared by other people', so that 'she and others would work concurrently'. He stresses her importance to the project: 'If she declines at once, all is at an end. If she would like to work for the Delegates of the Clarendon Press, I shall with pleasure place before them such proposals as she may make'. He concludes: 'Knowing however the success of her attempts in raising the character of English literature, and the earnest desire of some of our Delegates to provide better educational books than many now in use I see no insurmountable obstacle before us'.