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My plan then (with certain modifications which we may agree upon) is thus:

I will furnish an office, and take upon myself the sole charge and expense of Publishing a Magazine (name to be suggested by you) to be issued in monthly numbers at Oquawka, Illinois, containing, in every number, 96 pages, of the same size of those of Graham’s Magazine, on good paper and new bold-face long primer (literary critical reviews to be set in smaller type) at the rate of (five) $5 per annum. Of this magazine you are to have the entire editorial control, furnishing, at your expense, matter for its pages, which can be transmitted to me by mail or as we may hereafter agree upon. (The profits none.) You can make your own bargains with authors whose contributions you secure, and I am to publish upon the best terms I can — each incurring the expenses consequent upon his own department — and we are to share the receipts equally-the books to be faithfully kept in the publication office at Oquawka, and one-half of all receipts from subscriptions, and private and agency sales to be forwarded to you monthly, by mail or as you may otherwise direct.

If one thousand subscribers can be secured in advance (and I have your assurance that they can), I am desirous of publishing a Magazine of this character. Your plan for procuring subscribers strikes me as having been happily conceived, and from its very “originality,” exclusive of your own extended personal popularity, must succeed admirably. On my part, I think my influence probably would extend to probably 500 subs., but I depend mainly upon your name, which (whatever may be the title you may propose) must form a part thereof. The fact of your editorship must also be well displayed in the prospectus.

Oquawka is comparatively an unimportant point, but I think that such being the case would not injure at all the circulation of the Magazine. Those who would become subscribers, would be induced to do so by their confidence in the abilities of the Editor, and the names of the contributors — and after the appearance of the first number I would guarantee that none will be disposed to cavil at the style or manner of publication. Here I can, situated as I now am, do my work at a less outlay, do it as neatly, and enjoy every mail advantage that I could at St. Louis, being but 30 hours’ travel from that city, and being situated immediately upon the Mississippi, with daily connection with the Northern Canal and St. Louis, and directly upon the great daily mail line from the East, through Penn., Ohio, and Indiana. In short, I could have no advantage in St. Louis that I may not avail myself of herewhile here my expenses would not be so great as they would there, at least not in the beginning; — when the Magazine circulates five thousand copies it may be to our interests to publish it elsewhere-time will tell.

I have decided upon 96 pages — exclusive of cover; thinking that we had better begin with a work of this size. If, at the end of the first year, our circulation should justify, we can make a favorable impression as regards the stability of the work by enlarging to 112 pages or perhaps even to 128 pp.

I should expect you to be at one-half the cost of printing, say, 100 (perhaps a somewhat larger number) copies sent to editors in payment of insertion of prospectus.

If my plan accords with your views, you will immediately select a title, write me to that effect, and we will both commence operations. I will visit you at New York during the latter part of July or 1st of August, when we can settle minutiae and write out prospectus. We ought to put out the first number early in January next. Let me hear from you immediately.

And now that business is over — a word in your private ear. In conversing with a gentleman from Boston last year, upon the relative merits of some of our leading writers, I mentioned your name, and was surprised that he did not at once agree with me in my estimate of your poetic powers. He confessed that he had