Árbók Landsbókasafns Íslands - Nýr flokkur - 01.01.1991, Page 78

78
ANDREW WAWN
In the extracts printed below, I have as far as possible retained
the inconsistencies and eccentricities of Dasent’s spelling, punctu-
ation, capitalisation and word division, in both English and
Icelandic; the paragraphing and other dispositional features have
not been retained. I have tried to arrange the letters in as plausibly
accurate a chronological sequence as possible, though Dasent’s
frequent reluctance to mark the year when dating letters makes
this an extremely uncertain enterprise.
[? 1847]. I am worked to death with the French Revol" - but I
write a line to say that you never said the MS [Ed. of the Icelandic-
English Dictionary] could be completed for 3 or £400. Cleasby
wishes to know if it can. The best way would be that a joint letter
from Krieger8 & Gíslason9 should come saying tliat they undertake
the work on such & such terms, specifying the amount of money.
In fact a regular business letter which yours have not been.
March 8 1852. My dear Thomsen. Your kind present of the
Antiquités Russes'0 reached me the day before yesterday and put me
in mind that I ought long ago to have acknowledged the Dansk-
Icelandic Dictionary of Gislason," ... Pray accept my best thanks for
both books, the first being a very splendid, & the second a very
useful work. I still say however may the Cleasby-Gislason Diction-
ary soon appear or rather be ready for the press, for one feels the
want of it terribly in one’s Icelandic reading. I dare say you will
laugh at the Idea of my Icelandic reading, but I can assure you that
the world will not be long before it sees some proofs of it. Between
ourselves my Translation of the Njal-Saga with an introduction on
the state of Iceland in the x,h century is nearly ready to go to press,
but I do not wish this to be generally known in Copenhagen, so
please observe a discreet silence on the matter till I give you leave
to speak. There are still several editions of sagas which I have not
got in my library, & I shall trouble you soon with a list of them,
which I shall beg you to beg, borrow or steal for me in
Copenhagen.
8. Andreas Frederick Krieger (1817-93), scholar and diplomat; he shared responsibility
with Konráð Gíslason for carrying on Cleasby’s work on the Icelandic-English dictionary.
9. Konráð Gíslason (1808-91); see Benedikz, op.cit., 1989, pp. 18-22.
10. Antiquités Russes d’aprés les Monuments Historiques des Islandais et des Anciens Scandinaves,
ed. C.C.Rafn, 2 vols. (Copenhagen, 1850-2).
11. Dönsk orðabók með íslenzkum þýðingum (Copenhagen, 1851).