Description

Description: In this four-page autograph letter signed (Jan 18, 1859), William Spence thanks James Samuelson for a programme that brings together diverse entomologists with “social & sound considerations.” He also congratulates Samuleson on the sale of his first work, Humble Creatures: The Earthworm and the Common Housefly, published by John Von Voorst, 1858. Spence asks Samuleson to trust Von Voorst’s advice regarding an affordable shilling edition, simultaneously alerting him to the “difficulty in this easy & cheap edition is the cost of advertising without which there is no chance of sale” and their dependence on “extracts from reviews.”

Written on four sides of a folded 7” x 9” sheet of ivory wove paper. Item #A01817

William Spence (1783-1859) was an economist, entomologist, and writer. He was one of the founders of the Society of Entomologists of London and a Fellow of the Royal Society. With the leading entomologist William Kirby, he co-wrote the Introduction to Entomology in four volumes (1815-1826), among other publications.

James Samuleson (1829-1918) was a Liverpool industrialist and the founder and editor of the Popular Science Review and the Quarterly of Journal of Sciences. His first book (written with the assistance of J. Branton Hicks) Humble Creatures: The Earthworm and the Common Housefly (1858) was dedicated to the entomologist William Spence.

Condition: Horizontal mailing fold lines, otherwise very good condition.