Writing to Thomas Hughes on September 13, 1859, Lowell says: "I tried my first "Biglow Papers" in a newspaper, and found that it had a great run. So I wrote the others from time to time during the year which followed, always very rapidly, and sometimes (as "What Mr. Robinson thinks") at one sitting. "When I came to collect them and publish them in a volume, I conceived my parson-editor with his pedantry and verbosity, his amiable vanity and superiority to the verses he was editing, as a fitting artistic background and foil." The following extracts from letters show, in detail, the evolution of the work. "You will find a squib of mine in this week's _Courier_," said he to Sidney H. Gay, on June 16, 1846, "I wish it to continue anonymous, for I wish Slavery to think it has as many enemies as possible. If I may judge from the number of persons who have asked me if I wrote it, I have struck the old hulk of the Public between wind and water...." On the last day of December, 1847, he says to C. F. Briggs: "I am going to indulge all my fun in a volume of H. Biglow's verses which I am preparing, and which I shall edit under the character of the Rev. Mr. Wilbur.... I am going to include in the volume an essay of the reverend gentleman on the Yankee dialect, and on dialects in general, and on every thing else, and also an attempt at a complete natural history of the Humbug--which I think I shall write in Latin. The book will purport to be published at Jaalam (Mr. B's native place), and will be printed on brownish paper with those little head and tail-pieces which used to adorn our earlier publications--such as hives, scrolls, urns, and the like." The latter part of 1848 found the poet busily engaged in getting out the book, and he wrote to Gay in September: "This having to do with printers is dreadful business. There was a Mr. Melville who, I believe, enjoyed it, but, for my part, I am heartily sick of Typee." In October he says: "I should have sent you this yesterday, but it was not written, and I was working like a dog all day, preparing a glossary and an _index_. If I ever make another glossary or index--!".... "... Hosea is done with," he says in November, "and will soon be out. It made fifty pages more than I expected and so took longer." The volume appeared on the 10th, and on the 25th he again writes to Gay: "... The first edition of Hosea is nearly exhausted already." The following retrospect, sent to the same friend on February 26, 1849, contains the lesson of experience: "There were a great many alterations of spelling made in the plates of the "Biglow Papers," which added much to the expense. I ought not to have stereotyped at all. But we are never done with cutting eye-teeth."