Autograph Letter Signed ('W. Howitt') from the English author William Howett [to the editor of the Literary Gazette William Jerdan?], requesting a favourable review [of his 'Popular History of Priestcraft'].

1p., 16mo. On aged paper, with minor damage on removal from album. He requests 'the favour of an early notice in your journal, of the accompanying little volume if it be fortunate enough to meet your approbation'. The work has 'no object but to serve true religion & true liberty'. In a postscript he requests a 'copy of the paper containing the notice'. Howitt practised as a chemist in Nottingham between 1822 and 1836, when he moved to Esher, Surrey. According to his entry in the Oxford DNB, Howitt's 'Popular History of Priestcraft' 'became a standard work for plebeian advocates of church disestablishment'.