W. Jerdan Esq.
31 Sackville St
23 June /44
Dear Sir
I intend sending you a Copy of my new work the Pencil of Nature <1> which I expect will be published tomorrow. I have met with difficulties innumerable in this first attempt at Photographic publication, & therefore I hope all imperfections will be candidly allowed for, and excused – I have every reason to hope the work will improve greatly as it proceeds, & that British Talent will come forward and assist the enterprise The Complexity of the Art requires a division of labour; one person should invent new processes while another puts in execution those already ascertained, but hitherto I have been the chief operator myself in the different branches of the invention.
Believe me Yours very truly
H. F. Talbot
Editor of the Literary Gazette Wellington St.
[filing notation, added in another hand:]
1844
H F Talbot
1432
Photography
Notes:
1. WHFT, The Pencil of Nature (London: Longman, Brown, Green, & Longmans, June 1844–April 1846 [issued in six fascicles]).