literature of the day at that time you probably remember. I was
quite carried away by it, and so anxious to own a copy, that I
determined to publish an American edition. I consulted James Munroe
& Co. on the subject. Munroe advised me to obtain a subscription to
a sufficient number of copies to secure the cost of the publication.
This, with the aid of some friends, particularly of my classmate,
William Silsbee, I readily succeeded in doing. When this was
accomplished, I wrote to Emerson, who up to this time had taken no
part in the enterprise, asking him to write a preface. (This is the
Preface which appears in the American edition, James Munroe & Co.,
1836. It was omitted in the third American from the second London
edition,[1] by the same publishers, 1840.) Before the first edition
appeared, and after the subscription had been secured, Munroe & Co.
offered to assume the whole responsibility of the publication, and
to this I assented.

[Footnote 1: Revised and corrected by the author.]

"This American edition of 1836 was the first appearance of the
'Sartor' in either country, as a distinct edition. Some copies of
the sheets from 'Fraser,' it appears, were stitched together and sent
to a few persons, but Carlyle could find no English publisher willing
to take the responsibility of printing the book. This shows, I think,
how much more interest was taken in Carlyle's writings in this country
than in England."

On the 14th of May, 1834, Emerson wrote to Carlyle the first letter of
that correspondence which has since been given to the world under the
careful editorship of Mr. Charles Norton. This correspondence lasted
from the date mentioned to the 2d of April, 1872, when Carlyle wrote his