This little book, which is all about my childhood, should indeed go to no other person but you, who did so much to make that childhood happy.
Do you know, we came very near sending for you this winter. If we had not had news that you were ill too, I almost believe we should have done so, we were so much in trouble.
I am now very well; but my wife has had a very, very bad spell, through overwork and anxiety, when I was LOST! I suppose you heard of that. She sends you her love, and hopes you will write to her, though she no more than I deserves it. She would add a word herself, but she is too played out. - I am, ever your old boy,
R. L. S.
Letter: TO W. E. HENLEY
[NICE, MARCH 1883.]
MY DEAR LAD, - This is to announce to you the MS. of Nursery Verses, now numbering XLVIII. pieces or 599 verses, which, of course, one might augment AD INFINITUM.
But here is my notion to make all clear.
I do not want a big ugly quarto; my soul sickens at the look of a quarto. I want a refined octavo, not large - not LARGER than the DONKEY BOOK, at any price.
I think the full page might hold four verses of four lines, that is to say, counting their blanks at two, of twenty-two lines in height. The first page of each number would only hold two verses or ten lines, the title being low down. At this rate, we should have seventy-eight or eighty pages of letterpress.
The designs should not be in the text, but facing the poem; so that if the artist liked, he might give two pages of design to every poem that turned the leaf, I.E. longer than eight lines, I.E. to twenty-eight out of the forty-six. I should say he would not use this privilege (?) above five times, and some he might scorn to illustrate at all, so we may say fifty drawings. I shall come to the drawings next.
But now you see my book of the thickness, since the drawings count two pages, of 180 pages; and since the paper will perhaps be thicker, of near two hundred by bulk. It is bound in a quiet green with the words in thin gilt. Its shape is a slender, tall octavo. And it sells for the publisher's fancy, and it will be a darling to look at; in short, it would be like one of the original Heine books in type and spacing.
Now for the pictures. I take another sheet and begin to jot notes for them when my imagination serves: I will run through the book, writing when I have an idea. There, I have jotted enough to give the artist a notion. Of course, I don't do more than contribute ideas, but I will be happy to help in any and every way. I may as well add another idea; when the artist finds nothing much to illustrate, a good drawing of any OBJECT mentioned in the text, were it only a loaf of bread or a candlestick, is a most delightful thing to a young child. I remember this keenly.
Of course, if the artist insists on a larger form, I must I suppose, bow my head. But my idea I am convinced is the best, and would make the book truly, not fashionably pretty.
I forgot to mention that I shall have a dedication; I am going to dedicate 'em to Cummy; it will please her, and lighten a little my burthen of ingratitude. A low affair is the Muse business.
I will add no more to this lest you should want to communicate with the artist; try another sheet. I wonder how many I'll keep wandering to.
O I forgot. As for the title, I think 'Nursery Verses' the best. Poetry is not the strong point of the text, and I shrink from any title that might seem to claim that quality; otherwise we might have 'Nursery Muses' or 'New Songs of Innocence' (but that were a blasphemy), or 'Rimes of Innocence': the last not bad, or - an idea - 'The Jews' Harp,' or - now I have it - 'The Penny Whistle.'
THE PENNY WHISTLE: NURSERY VERSES BY ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. ILLUSTRATED BY - - -
And here we have an excellent frontispiece, of a party playing on a P. W. to a little ring of dancing children.
THE PENNY WHISTLE is the name for me.
Fool! this is all wrong, here is the true name:-
PENNY WHISTLES FOR SMALL WHISTLERS.