to bring about a new distinctly American literary style, and to reverse the British literary establishment's disdain for American writers. He followed Irving's precedent of using temporary residence in London to earn more money and notoriety from the British literary market. London publishers had already pirated Seventy-Six and Logan, but Neal hoped those companies would pay him to publish Errata and Randolph if he were present to negotiate. They refused. Neal brought enough money to survive for only a few months on the assumption that "if people gave any thing for books here, they would not be able to starve me, since I could live upon air, and write faster than any man that ever lived." His financial situation had become desperate when William Blackwood asked Neal in April 1824 to become a regular contributor to Blackwood's Magazine. For the next year and a half, Neal was "handsomely paid" to be one of the magazine's most prolific contributors. His first Blackwood's article, a profile on the 1824 candidates for US president and the five presidents who had served to that point, was the first article by an American to appear in a British literary journal and was quoted and republished widely throughout Europe. As the first written history of American literature, the American Writers series was Neal's most noteworthy contribution to the magazine. Blackwood provided the platform for Neal's earliest written works on gender and women's rights and published Brother Jonathan, but a back-and-forth over manuscript revisions in autumn 1825 soured the relationship and Neal was once again without a source of income. After a short time earning much less money writing articles for other British periodicals, thirty-two year-old John Neal met seventy-seven year-old utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham through the London Debating Societies. In late 1825 Bentham offered him rooms at his "Hermitage" and a position as his personal secretary. Neal spent the next year and a half writing for Bentham's Westminster Review. In spring 1827, Bentham financed Neal's return to the US. He left the UK having caught the attention of the British literary elite, published the novel he brought with him, and "succeeded to perfection" in educating the British about American institutions, habits, and prospects. Yet Brother Jonathan was not received as the great American novel and it failed to earn Neal the level of international fame he had hoped for, so he returned to the US no