Images courtesty of University of California, The Bancroft Library.
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To President Benj. J. Wheeler3
Dear Sir,
Since the publication of Part I
of the Tebtunis Papyri I have heard nothing
from America, but hope that the 120 copies
for the Library of the University of California
reached their destination safely and that the
general style of the volume has given satisfaction.
There have been several good reviews already,
including one in the Athenaeum4 for Jan. 17, in which
if you saw it, you no doubt recognised the
lively pen of Dr Mahaffy.5 I trust also
that the arrangement between you and Mr
Frowde6 was of a satisfactory character. In
a letter received a few weeks ago he tells me
that the volume was having a 'steady sale', so
the £240 which form the share of the University
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of Califo[rn]ia in the expenses of p[r]inting,
ought to be covered before very long. In
a previous letter written before we left
England I mentioned that we should like
to be paid the remuneration for editing
the volume (£500 in all), and at the
risk of appearing importunate I venture
how to ask you if you could kindly
take steps so that that money sum is sent
without delay. Our income, at all
times slender, has been much reduced
the last two years owing to our doing
the Tebtunis volume instead of the
ordinary Egypt Exploration Fund publi-
cations, and when we return to England
we shall both of us be really very
'hard up'. We expect to leave Egypt
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in the fi[r]st or second week of April and to
reach Oxford by the middle of the month. It
would be a great convenience, if the money
could be sent in time to arrive by April
15th.
We have had a fairly successful season's
excavations so far, though it will be long
before we repeat the good fortune which
attended us in the year we were working
for the Univ. of Califonia. Our
next publication for the Fund (Oxyrhynchus
Papyri III) is being printed and will be
off our hands by in June. We shall then
devote the rest of the year almost entirely
to Tebtunis II, which should appear in the
course of 1904.7 We should like to have
a good many reproductions of photographs
(probably 15-20)8 and a couple of maps
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but on[ly] one or two facsimile[s] of
papyri will be necessary, unless you wish
for a large number. But I will write again
on this subject when we have made a
definite scheme of plates.
Mr W. Loring,9 the secretary of the British
School at Rome10 ( 2 Hare Court, Temple,
London E.C.) wrote to me the other day
asking me if an arrangement could be made
between the School and the University of California
by which arcaheological publications could be
exchanged. I suggested to him to write to you.
about it, but take this opportunity of
expressing my hope that you will view the
proposition with favour. The School
publishes an Annual volume, of which ^series the first
has appeared.11
1. A bracket encloses the two address lines at the top left corner.
2. Al-Shaikh Fadl, town directly across the Nile from Beni Mazar.
3. Sic. Middle initial should be "I," Benjamin Ide Wheeler.
7. It in fact appeared in 1907.
8. Grenfell apparently had in mind some of Hunt's photographs from the season (cf. P.Fay.). In the event, only two facsimiles (depicting papyri; cf next page) and one map appeared.
9. William Loring was the BSA's second Honorary Secretary.
11. Grenfell is thinking of Papers of the British School at Rome; it is the British School at Athens that has an Annual.