[D8850ADX], Phonogram from George Edward Gouraud, Richard Everard Webster to Thomas Alva Edison, November 1st, 1888
https://edisondigital.rutgers.edu/document/D8850ADX
→ View document with UniversalViewer
→ View document on Archive.org
→ Re-use this digital object via a IIIF manifest
Title
[D8850ADX], Phonogram from George Edward Gouraud, Richard Everard Webster to Thomas Alva Edison, November 1st, 1888
Editor's Notes
"Copy of phonogram from Sir Richard Webster to Mr Edison, Introduced by Colonel Gouraud. ### "Gouraud to Edison, November 1st 1888. ### Little Menlo, 6 o'clock, P. M. ### My dear Edison, ### I have sent you many phonograms from friends and from distinguished persons in England. This phonogram will probably interest you more than any I have sent you, when you know whose voice it is that will follow mine. You have never heard his voice as I have in all the litigations that has attended all your numerous inventions in this country; but you have seen and realized the fruits of his eloquence. Nor further words of mine are necessary when I say that the speaker is Sir Richard Webster, Her Majesty's Attorney General. Now listen to his voice. ### "Dear Mr Edison ### If you will allow me to address you in so familiar a way never having been personally introduced to you. It has been the greatest pleasure to me to advocate the merits of your inventions for many years past in England. One of the pleasantest recollections of my professional career was the argument in support of your Telephone Transmitter many years ago before Sir George Jessel, and I well remember many conversations with him afterwards when he expressed his intense admiration of the extraordinary grasp you seem to have of every detail in connection with that marvellous instrument. Since then, as you know, I have had the pleasure on many occasions of supporting your claims for inventions in connection with the Telephone and Electric Light, and I hope it will not be long before I shall have an opportunity of restoring to you one of the laurels which has been temporally plucked from your crown. I cannot close my very short letter to you without telling you how much I appreciated many years ago receiving a most hearty invitation from you, and I hope that some day or other I may find time to cross the Atlantic, and shall not forget that your most pleasant representative Mr Johnson then told me that you would expect me to spend almost as much time with you as I had intended for my entire visit to the United States. ### Gram 2. ### I did not expect my first letter to you would extend to a second sheet, but I think you could blame Colonel Gouraud for that. I was saying, when I had to change the paper, that since I have had the great pleasure of visiting Little Menlo, and although I do not suppose that the attractions of Little Menlo can compare with those of Menlo Park, yet still I can assure you that it is no unworthy representation to those of us who have not the privilege of seeing the Author of these inventions in his own home. Now, Mr Edison, goodbye. I hope someday that you will come to England, and at any rate I am sure that if you can do so the real scientific men of this country will show you that there is no one whose marvellous efforts and wonderful success in travelling out for himself every step of the most difficult and intricate paths of Invention is more fully appreciated than those of Thomas Alva Edison. ### I am always most faithfully yours, ### Richard G Webster, Attorney General. ### P.S. By Col Couraud ### To which I must add that the Attorney Genearl is the promised God-father-in-law of the Phonograph, he having kindly consented to look after the Phonograph, as he did and has after the Telephone and the Electric Light, and I have no doubt with equal success, which is all that you and I shall want." Gouraud
Recipient
Date
1888-11-01
Type
Folder/Volume ID
D8850-F
Microfilm ID
124:800
Document ID
D8850ADX
Publisher
Thomas A. Edison Papers, School of Arts and Sciences, Rutgers University