Foreign Office
27 May 1861
Dear Sir
The volume has been bound up ready for publication several weeks, but whether the Trustees, who move slow, have actually sent out the work I really cannot say: the last time I enquired at the Secretary’s office, some weeks, ago, was I heard that the supreme decree had not yet been issued. I have been rather unwell, and was confined to my room nearly a month, by which I was in the dark as to out-of-door movements. While at home I worked hard at my assyrian vocabulary, and I find I have got together some 5000 or 6000 entries all in alphabetical order, and to each word I have usually more references than one: sometimes a dozen I find this already very useful; but it is only a nucleus. Rawlinson <1> has not appended any translation to the work, but he has rapidly advanced with his transliteration and version, to accompany his own copies.
Believe me yours Truly
Edwin Norris
H F Talbot Esq&c &c
P.S I will bring your letter before our next Council.
Notes:
1. Sir Henry Creswicke Rawlinson, 1st Baronet (1810–1895), orientalist.