Not many of the lesser lights continued to write after their contributions were no longer in demand for _The Offering_. But there were a few who had written for the pure love of it, and who, in spite of their other duties, and a restricted life, still clung “to the dreams of their youth,” and kept up the writing habit, even beyond the verge of the allotted threescore years and ten. There is hardly a complete set of _The Lowell Offering_ in existence. I have Miss Larcom’s copies, which, added to my own, the result of many years of collecting, in the shape of gifts, make as complete a set as I have been able to find. The 1847 copy I never heard of outside my own collection. Mr. L. L. Libbie of Boston has nearly a full set, with a rare collection of bibliology relating to the magazine. The volumes in the State Library are neither perfect nor consecutively bound. A set of _The Lowell Offering_, complete to 1847, was sent by the mayor of Lowell to the mayor of Paris, “all neatly bound and lettered.” There are odd volumes, no doubt, in libraries or in private collections, but they are not complete enough to give an adequate idea of the magazine; and unless such a book as this were written, an historical record of what is now considered a most interesting phase in the history of early factory labor would not be preserved. I may add to this, that the Lowell Public Library contains the first five volumes, which are _The Lowell Offering_ proper. In closing this brief sketch of _The Lowell Offering_, it may be well to quote Mr. Thomas’s letter, written to the _Vox Populi_, Lowell, in answer to a request for information with regard to his connection with the magazine. _Dear Sir_,--Your letter of December 9th, 1872, solicits me to furnish, in some detail, the facts, as I now remember them, respecting the origin and early history of _The Lowell Offering_, the writers for it, etc. It would seem, by your epistle, that you have seen, and perhaps own, the second and later series of the unique publication, but that you question whether a copy of the first four numbers is in existence--indicating, I judge, that you have sought for them in vain. I am happy to inform you that your apprehension of total loss is “ruled out” by my possession of two complete sets of those first four numbers, lacking only the printed cover of Number One. You will not be surprised that my sons, to whom they belong, are unwilling to part with these memorials of their father’s brief residence in Lowell; but I hope that your earnest antiquarian call will awaken a response among the hidden or forgotten things of some one of your many readers. Meanwhile I will endeavor to make a compact statement of what you desire, with no more of personality than is necessary to an intelligible narrative.