Correspondence, Journals, and Memoirs:

Letter from John Galt to Oliver & Boyd.
12 Apr 1823.
I hereby in consequence of former Verbal communications make you an Offer of the entire Copy-right of my work to be entitled ‘The Bachelor’s Wife’ to be of a similar size to the Scrap Book, with my name on the Title page, for the sum of 125 Guineas to be paid by your Bill at 12 Months from the day of commencing the Printing. // If it should be considered adviseable [sic] on your part to extend the work by the addition of a second Volume or Volumes at any future period, I shall prepare the same on the above terms. On your accepting of this offer in writing the business will be considered as completed and binding on both parties.
Source: E, Acc 5000/140 (Letter Book, Agreements, 1814–47), p. 83 (copy).
Notes: Oliver & Boyd’s acceptance of Galt’s offer, also dated 12 Apr 1823, follows in the Letter Book (E, Acc 5000/140, p. 83).

Letter from John Galt to Oliver & Boyd.
14 July 1823.
[Galt acknowledges receipt of a Promissory Note at 12 months, from 1 July 1823, for £131. 5. 0. This is a settlement for the copyright of vol. 1 of The Bachelor’s Wife].
Source: E, Acc 5000/140 (Letter Book, Agreements, 1814–47), p. 90 (copy).

Letter from John Galt to George Boyd.
[?Sept 1823].
I send you back the first of the Spaewife, and more copy as I am now anxious to have about three sheets set up. I hope when I come to town to morrow I shall be able to get the revise of the first sheet & another proof. // I return also the two proofs of the Batchelors [sic] Wife. I will bring more copy for it with me meanwhile I wish how soon [sic] you could get the three first of the other ready.
Source: E, Acc 5000/188.
Notes: Letter is only dated ‘Monday’. It is docketed Mar 1824, but this seems unlikely as the novel appeared in 1823. Under the docket, in pencil in another hand is ‘[prob Sep 1823]’, which is a more likely date. Galt’s The Spaewife is EN2 1823: 35.

Letter from John Galt to George Boyd.
6 Oct 1823.
I expect to find the first volume of the Spae-wife completed. We shall now get briskly on with her, for as the Cardinal [i.e. Galt’s The Life and Administration of Cardinal Wolsey] will come in for the types of the Batchelor’s [sic] it will enable me to out shoot the press with the former. I am in hopes that you will think we improve as we proceed. // I beg you will let me know if you have done any thing with Mr Laing’s critique on Ringan. I am very desirous to enlist him as a help in points of research and like all authors, but myself! of course he requires to be conciliated.
Source: E, Acc 5000/188.
Notes: Letter is addressed from Eskgrove. Galt’s Ringan Gilhaize is EN2 1823: 33. Oliver & Boyd published the 3rd edn of Galt’s Life of Cardinal Wolsey in 1824. ‘Laing’s critique on Ringan’ is unidentified.

Letter from [George Boyd] to John Galt.
14 Oct 1823.
Agreeably to your request Mr Walker will hand you our note at twelve months for one hundred pounds to amount of the Spaewife. The credit on the balance must of course be extended according to the letters of agreement after the Book is finished at press.— // I am sorry to state that Ringan is moving very slowly here altho’ every thing has been done for it. [...] greater prospects are expected here of the Bachelor. I think you should embody more of the spirit of criticism than mere simple conversations, and the extracts [inserted: at the same time] all of a pure & valuable character [...].
Source: E, Acc 5000/188.
Notes: According to the docket, this is a copy of a letter to Galt. The letter is addressed from London, and so it is likely that Boyd wrote it while on one of his many business trips there.

Order of Books from B. J. Holdsworth to Oliver & Boyd.
Oct 1823.
4 copies of Bachelor’s Wife.
Source: E, Acc 5000/190.
Notes: Date and ‘B. J. Holdsworth’ from docket on letter. Benjamin Joseph Holdsworth was a London publisher and bookseller (BBTI).

Letter from John Galt to Gorge Boyd.
15 Nov 1823.
[First part of the letter concerns the printing of The Spaewife.] The Batchelors [printing] was suspended on account of the types being engaged otherwise, but I am promised that we shall proceed rapidly after Monday. I trust it is also to come out in the course of this year. [...] In going on with the Batchelor it has occurred to me that a very popular & most interesting selection might be made from Books of travels alone [...].
Source: E, Acc 5000/188.
Notes: Letter is addressed from Edinburgh.

Letter from George Thornton to George Boyd.
[14 Dec 1823].
[The letter primarily concerns The Spaewife, but also mentions Scott’s St Ronan’s Well (EN2 1824: 84).] The Bachelor is getting on well. He will make his debut about the beginning of the year. I think this will be easily accomplished.
Source: E, Acc 5000/190.
Notes: Letter is dated from postmark; it is only dated ‘Sunday morning’. Letter is sent to Boyd at Anderson’s Coffee House, Fleet Street, London. In a postscript, Thornton gently reminds his uncle to date his letters from London rather than Edinburgh.

Order of Books from Newman & Co to Oliver & Boyd.
[1823].
[2 copies each of The Bachelor’s Wife and Ringan Gilhaize].
Source: E, Acc 5000/190.
Notes: Date and ‘Newman & Co, Leadenhall St’ from docket on letter.

Letter from John Wilson to George Boyd.
8 Mar [1824].
[Thanks Boyd for sending The Bachelor’s Wife and Mackenzie, and praises the preface to Mackenzie.] I am rather a little puzzled as to the first, and wish Egeria had been less read in the Periodicals. But I have no doubt it will succeed, and observe that it’s reception by the Public is universally kind, which gives me much pleasure both on your own account and our excellent Friend Mr Galt who well deserves all favour & praise. // Will you allow me to recommend to your acquaintance Mr Picken from Glasgow, whose Tales of the West certainly shew very considerable talent & observation and power of writing. I think Mr Galt would like many things in his little Volume, and if you chance to write to him, be so good as tell him that I wish he would read the Volume.
Source: E, Acc 5000/191.
Notes: Oliver & Boyd published Galt’s The Works of Henry Mackenzie, Esq. With a critical dissertation on the tales of the author in 1824. Year is from docket on letter. Egeria is the housekeeper in The Bachelor’s Wife. Material from the work first appeared in Blackwood’s Magazine. Andrew Picken’s Tales and Sketches of the West of Scotland is EN2 1824: 76.

Letter from John Galt to George Boyd.
16 Mar 1824.
The papers are wonderfully favourable both to Mackenzie & the Batchelor’s [sic] Wife. I trust the result will be satisfactory to you. // [Also discusses the possibility of doing a book of sketches and essays on the subject of ‘Old Books’, possibly titled ‘The Moth’] I should not think of making it perhaps quite so thick as the Batchelor’s [sic] Wife.
Source: E, Acc 5000/188.
Notes: The letter also discusses proofs of Galt’s Rothelan (EN2 1824: 38).

Letter from Mrs John Dickinson to George Boyd.
17 Mar 1824.
[Thanks Boyd for sending books, including The Bachelor’s Wife. The Bachelor’s Wife] which you seem to pride yourself on is a facsimile of all Batchelor’s [sic] wives that ever I [illeg.] heard of. I only bless my stars that my good simple man was fairly tied up before she appear’d in print—for certainly the poor single Girls can have no chance after such a specimen of what Batchelors ought to look for; I expect to hear of a conspiracy among the Edinburgh spinsters to burn your ‘Wife’ at the Tollbooth [...] what a miserable old age you are providing yourself, with only that cold, learned Lady to wrap up your Gouty foot, & rub your rheumatic shoulder. I fear she will be no comfort to you. I advise you, as an experienced person, to keep clear of these Utopian wives. [...] [Mr Dickinson was] not a little surprized at his own want of sagacity in not waiting till Miss Egeria had publish’d what he should have look’d for [in a wife]. You Men are after all poor dependent creatures, & I only wonder we are not term’d ‘Lords of the Creation’ instead of you.
Source: E, Acc 5000/191.
Notes: Letter is dated from Nash Mills. John Dickinson was a papermaker who dealt with publishers such as Oliver & Boyd and Longman & Co; Mrs Dickinson’s Christian name is unidentified.

Letter from R Ogilvie Auld to George Boyd.
21 Mar 1824.
[Auld is travelling to Mexico in the employment of the ‘Anglo-Mexican Mine Company’.] I shall make the Bachelor’s Wife the companion of my Travels and return you many thanks for her.
Source: E, Acc 5000/191.
Notes: Either Auld is a relation of Boyd’s, or Boyd is his benefactor. The salutation appears to be ‘Dear Benefit’. The letter is in a familiar style—Auld sends the greetings of his father & mother, and asks whether Boyd has spoken to Auld’s uncle Bill. A letter of 20 Nov 1823 records that a copy of The Spaewife (EN2 1823: 35) was sent to ‘Messrs Auld, Scottish Hall, Fleet Street’.

Letter from John Galt to George Boyd.
12 Apr 1824.
[Galt discusses Rothelan and mentions The Spaewife.] // I was glad to hear from George Thornton that the Batchelor is doing pretty well. I wish it was such as to give encouragement to proceed with another volume while I am here, the materials for a curious one being so inaccessible at Edinburgh compared with London I could here make up a much better one than the former.
Source: E, Acc 5000/188.
Notes: George Thornton was Boyd’s nephew. Letter is addressed from 18 Downing Street, London.

Letter from John Galt to George Boyd.
23 Apr 1824.
[postscript] The Literary Gazette has been very sharp on the Batchelor’s Wife.
Source: E, Acc 5000/188.
Notes: Letter proper discusses Rothelan and The Spaewife. The Literary Gazette briefly noticed The Bachelor’s Wife in the number for 17 Apr 1824 (no. 378, p. 249).

Letter from Simpkin & Marshall to Oliver & Boyd.
5 May 1824.
[Request for books: ‘send as under which we shall be glad to have P first vessel’. All are requested at ‘10 P cent off as before’: 18 Bachelor’s Wife].
Source: E, Acc 5000/191.
Notes: Simpkin & Marshall also request 24 copies of Elizabeth Hamilton’s The Cottagers of Glenburnie (EN2 1808: 52) and 36 copies of Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship (EN2 1824: 40).

List of Stock on Hand, G. & W. B. Whittaker to Oliver & Boyd.
1 July 1824.
[87 copies of The Bachelor’s Wife at 0. 7. 0 each, totalling 30. 9. 0].
Source: E, Acc 5000/191.

List of Books Sold at Coffee House Sales, Oliver & Boyd.
18 Mar 1825.
[14 copies of The Bachelor’s Wife at 0. 6. 6 each, for a total of 4. 11. 0; ch[arge]d by O & B: 0. 7. 0 each: 4. 18. 0].
Source: E, Acc 5000/192.
Notes: Also lists details for Rothelan and The Magic Ring.

List of Stock on Hand, G. & W. B. Whittaker to Oliver & Boyd.
1 July 1825.
[21 copies of The Bachelor’s Wife at 0. 7. 0 each, totalling 7. 7. 0].
Source: E, Acc 5000/191.

Letter from John Galt to George Boyd.
18 Aug 1825.
[Galt writes to inquire about the sales of his books. Written on the inside sheet of the letter in another hand is the following:]
Stock 18 Aug 1825
Rothelan No. 2000
240 copies qrs
39 copies bds
[total:] 279 copies
25 copies Simpkin

Spaewife No. 3000
373 copies quires
37 copies bds
[total:] 410 copies

Ringan No. 3000
860 copies qrs
45 copies bds
[total:] 905 copies
12 copies Simpkin

Bachelor’s Wife No. 2000
198 copies qrs
105 copies bds
[total:] 303 copies
25 copies Simpkin.
Source: E, Acc 5000/188.
Notes: Stock list also includes figures for Galt’s The Life and Administration of Cardinal Wolsey (3rd edn, 1824). Galt is writing from Eskgrove.

List of Stock on Hand, G. & W. B. Whittaker to Oliver & Boyd.
1 Jan 1826.
[12 copies of The Bachelor’s Wife at 0. 7. 0 each, totalling 4. 4. 0].
Source: E, Acc 5000/191.

Letter from John Galt to Oliver & Boyd.
25 June 1831.
I will thank you to let me know by return of post in what condition stand the sales of my three novels, and whether you are disposed to bring them out in another form for a second edition.
Source: E, Acc 5000/188.
Notes: Galt writes from Barn Cottage, Old Brompton, London. Galt mistakes the number of his novels published by Oliver & Boyd: he brought out four novels, not three, with them, although it is possible that he does not consider The Bachelor’s Wife as a novel. There are two further letters from Galt to Oliver & Boyd, dated 4 Aug 1831 and 19 Dec 1831, both requesting permission to republish his novels in Colburn and Bentley’s Standard Novels series. Only Lawrie Todd (EN3 1830: 48) appeared in the series.