6 Michael’s Grove SW
15h January 1871
My dear Sir,
Mr Geo Smith called on me yesterday with some additional sheets of his Assurbanipal, and the unpleasant announcement, that the money supplied to him by a friend to Assyrian progress (£100) was exhausted. The quantity printed is something less than 200 pages, and the rest of the work, now ready for the press, may take 150 pages. My means are very limited (being only a pensioner) but I would willingly contribute a few pounds, say enough for a dozen pages or perhaps two dozen. I think he will apply to you. I enclose one of my sheets, to enable you to see what he is doing, and I think you will agree with me in thinking his work one of the best that has appeared, though I do not accept all his readings. He has the very great advantage of a position at the British Museum, where he has all the monuments under his care, and is thus able to correct errors in the plates printed which are, I am sorry to observe, numerous. I do not recommend any thing, but I should be very sorry to stop the printing of his work
Smith informs that Vol III is in the Bookbinder’s hand, and that we shall very soon have the long delayed work published. I know you will be glad to hear this and so shall I for I am working with the detached plates and do not always know how to rely on their being properly numbered, or on having always the last corrections in my hands.
Yours faithfully
Edwin Norris
H. Fox Talbot, Esq
&c &c &c