Having seen by a paragraph in the Pall Mall Gazette that some of your books can be obtained from you, I write to you for I should like to have some of those that are mentioned. First I wish to have the new one, Goodbye, My Fancy.2 loc_zs.00615.jpg There it is mentioned that there is a "small Leaves of Grass, latest date, with 6 portraits, Morocco bound."3
This I should like to have very much. The edition which I now have of Leaves of Grass is that of 1881 called "author's copyright ed." published by David Bogue, London. I also have in a separate pamphlet, Preface to original edition loc_zs.00616.jpg 1855. But the small edition of the book that you now have would be greatly prized by me.
As I do not know the prices of either it or the new one, I am sending you by POO £ 1. and if there is anything further to pay, I will remit it immediately on hearing from you. I would like also to know what price is the other book mentioned in the newspaper, a large volume of Complete loc_zs.00617.jpg Poems & Prose, 1000 pages4 & whether it contains anything more than is contained in Specimen Days & Leaves of Grass. My edition of Specimen Days is 1883 by Wilson5 Glasgow, with a photograph.
I cannot write without saying how greatly I value and care for your writings. I have done so for many years, & I always watch with greatest interest for any loc_zs.00618.jpg news of you in the Pall Mall Gazette.
Your most beautiful poems on Death in Leaves of Grass appeal very strongly to me, but this is only singling out one series in that most beautiful book. Many beside these are very precious to me.
I wish you most earnestly every Blessing that the New Year can bring you, loc_zs.00619.jpg & peace & freedom from suffering. Peace, the truest Blessing, any of us can enjoy, & a happy looking forward to a fuller happiness in the New Life, when the Spirit can live its true life of joyous vigour unhindered.
I remain with true esteem dear sir loc_zs.00620.jpg Yours sincerely Mary AshleyI have November Boughs6
Address Miss Ashley 16 New King Street Bath England
loc_zs.00621.jpg sent poem Jan 9 1892 see note Feb 3 1892 wrote her 2/2/92 loc_zs.00622.jpgCorrespondent:
Mary Ashley (c. 1843–1903)
was a self-taught astronomer and a member of the Selenographical Society and the
Liverpool Astronomical Society. She may have owned her own observatory and
apparently garnered some international attention for her scientific drawings (A.
J. Kinder, "Letter to the Editor: Another Victorian Lady Astronomer," Journal of the British Astronomical Association 108
[1998], 338).