Horace Greeley writes to Thoreau:
Yours of the 17th received. Say we are even on money counts, and let the matter drop. I have tried to serve you, and have been fully paid for my own disbursements and trouble in the business. So we will move on.
I think you will do well to send me some passages from one or both of your new works, to dispose of to the magazines This will be the best kind of advertisement whether for a publisher or for readers. You may write with an angel’s pen, yet your writings have no mercantile, money value till you are known and talked of as an author. Mr. Emerson would have been twice as much known and read if he had written for the magazines a little, just to let common people know of his existence. I believe a chapter from one of your books printed in Graham or The Union will add many to the readers of the volume when issued. Here is the reason why British books sell so much better among us than American—because they are thoroughly advertised through the British Reviews, Magazines and journals which circulate or are copied among us.—However, do as you please. If you choose to send me one of your MSS. I will get it publisher, but I cannot promise you any considerable recompense; and, indeed, if Monroe will do it, that will be better. Your writings are in advance of the general mind here—Boston is nearer their standard.
I never saw the verses you speak of. Won’t you send them again? I have been buried up in politics for the last six weeks.
Kind regards to Emerson. It is doubtful about my seeing you this season.
Yours,
Horace Greeley
“Thoreau’s ‘new works’ were his Week and Walden. Munroe did finally take the first and publish it at the author’s expense in 1849. Its complete failure postponed the publication of Walden until 1854. Then Thoreau, taking Greeley’s advice, permitted him to publish excerpts in the Tribune to arouse interest in the book.”
