I take it as kind and friendly of you to defer to my wishes³ and refrain from publishing a discussion of my uncollected stories. I admit that my apple grower analogy logically applies only to those early stories which were written with, or rewritten by, other people. These stories I did not send to market, and they were printed without my knowledge.

I have to thank you for suggesting to me that there should be some public statement regarding these spurious stories., Aand since receiving your letter, I have had my lawyer make a definite statement regarding them in my will.

I am sorry that my letter had an acrimonious tone. I did, indeed, fear that you had some idea of reprinting some of these stories. Within the last five years efforts to reprint them have been made under various disguises; some were inserted, almost entire, in the manuscript of text books., Ssome were ingenuously inserted in books on pioneer life, etc., etc. The more honorable publishers, of course, had to ask my permission, and withdrew the stories and lengthy extracts at my request. One cheap magazine⁴ published “Her Boss”⁵, entire, and it was a tedious business to get the matter righted.

You seem to think it strange, Mr. Wagenknecht, that I wish to repudiate my early stories. It is not so much only that I wish to repudiate them, so that but I wish to keep them out of my way; ⬩W⬩S⬩C⬩ to keep them, and my early books, from bringing down upon me a heavy correspondence. which Such correspondence, added to the assistance I must give to the authorized translators of my books and the appeals from really serious students who are preparing theses for doctorate degrees, make a great drain on my time and energy. I give one-fifth of my time to professional correspondence of the nature just indicated - this does not include my personal correspondence. In short, my old books and my early stories are continually delaying, and get getting in the way of, my new books. New books have been coming along more slowly of late years, because the correspondence has grown so much heavier. My secretary⁶ has form letters to cover almost every sort of invitation and request, and forms to cover all the usual questions about my books. But a great many letters come in from teachers of English in this country and teachers of English abroad - English is now being intensively taught in the higher schools and all the universities of Europe⁷. These letters I must answer myself. They usually ask intelligent questions, sometimes enlightening ones. During the last three years, since the persecution of students and professors in Europe has become more acute, the drain on my time has been greater, and a good deal more than one-fifth of it now goes into foreign correspondence. The book⁸ I am now writing would have been completed a year ago, were it not for things that have happened abroad.

This is a long explanation, but I am sure you will admitunderstand that it is much more interesting and less fatiguing to work on one’s new book than to be perpetually answering questions about ⬩W⬩S⬩C⬩ the old ones, and I hope that you can readily understand the acrimonious tone of my answer to a letter which promised to start new complications afoot. If in your first letter you had told me definitely why you wished the information you asked for, the tone of my reply would have been different.