“As to ‘Nobs and Snobs,’ I know the theatrical managers:  they will not deal except with thieves, if they can help it.  Keep it ten years, if necessary, till some theatre will play it.  You will find that all those reasons they have given you will disappear the moment it is played in England, and then the game will be to steal it.  Copyright it in your name and mine, if a manuscript can be so protected, and I will enter it here in my name and yours.

“Considering the terrible financial crisis impending over the United States, I feel sad misgivings as to my poor ‘Cloister.’  It would indeed be a relief if the next mail would bring me a remittance,—­not out of your pocket, but by way of discount from the publishers.  I am much burdened with lawsuits and the outlay, without immediate return, of publishing four editions” (of “The Cloister and the Hearth").  “Will you think of this, and try them, if not done already?  Many thanks for the scrap-book and for making one.  Mind and classify yours.  You will never regret it.  Dickens and Thackeray both offer liberally to me for a serial story.” (Dickens then edited “All the Year Bound,” and Thackeray “The Cornhill Magazine.”)

On January 27, 1862, he wrote, “The theatrical managers are all liars and thieves.  The reason they decline my play is, they hope to get it by stealing it.  They will play it fast enough the moment it has been brought out here and they can get it without paying a shilling for it.  Your only plan is to let them know it shall never come into their hands gratis.”

In a letter undated, but written in the same month, he wrote, “My next story” ("Very Hard Cash").  “This is a matter of considerable importance.  It is to come out first in ‘All the Year Round,’ and, foreseeing a difficulty in America, I have protected myself in that country by a stringent clause.  The English publishers bind themselves to furnish me very early sheets and not to furnish them to any other person but my agent.  This and another clause enable me to offer the consecutive early sheets to a paper or periodical, and the complete work in advance on that to a book-publisher.  I am quite content with three hundred pounds for the periodical, but ask five per cent. on the book.  It will be a three-volume novel,—­a story of the day, with love, money, fighting, manoeuvring, medicine, religion, adventures by sea and land, and some extraordinary revelations of fact clothed in the garb of fiction.  In short, unless I deceive myself, it will make a stir.  Please to settle this one way or other, and let me know.  I wrote to this effect to Messrs. Harper.  Will you be kind enough to place this before them?  If they consent, you can conclude with them at once.”

Messrs. Harper Brothers had always dealt very generously and courteously toward Mr. Reade, and they were offered “The Cloister and the Hearth” in the first instance, but did not feel willing to pay as high a royalty as Messrs. Rudd & Carleton did, in the then depressed condition of the book-trade and in view of their having previously published and paid for “A Good Fight,” and hence the agreement made with the latter firm.  They evinced a spirit of kind forbearance in refraining from printing a rival edition of the work, and Mr. Reade remained on very friendly terms with them to the end of his days.