The text of this letter cannot be published online or in print because of donor stipulations related to the gift of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow letters to UW Libraries Special Collections. But this text and encoding was prepared by Elliott Stevens in the WIN 2022 TXTDS 404 class taught by Prof. Geoffrey Turnovsky.
This source is in the UW Libraries Special Collections. In order to read it, I had to visit the UW Libraries Special Collections in Seattle, WA.
Henry Wadworth Longfellow was a poet, but he was also a prolific letter writer and organizer of translation projects as well as mentor to translators. This letter shows Longfellow's ways of not only encouraging a translator to start a project but also outlining how it could be done and why it should be done.
With the digitization, transcription, and encoding of this letter between Longfellow and Pennock, I hope to emphasize this overlooked aspect of Longfellow's work. I also aim to provide useful context, references, and links to attend the letter.
In preparing this letter, I chose to include its line breaks in order to give the readers an idea of just how small this letter was. I also chose to include the penciled note that indicates how much the buyer of this letter, Andrew Hilen, paid for it because a study could be done that looks into the cost of doing certain kinds of academic work.
There are already
in English two good books
on the Scandinavian Mytholo-
gy, as you well know;
the work of
Still, I say for one, go on likewise with yours, if it is a good book: for in America we have as yet done nothing for the Northmen, except to write their history.
Something more we might do for the men who first discovered our Country!
In addition to this book you speak of, I wish you would write one on Icelandic Literature. There is no such book in English.
This you might follow by one on Danish Lit. and then a third on Swedish. Work enough for a life time.
In the Astor Library at New York, you will find the necessary ma- terials.
You have my God-speed in this work.