"earlier reply" is correct and usable in written English.
You can use it when referring to a previously sent reply, such as "I apologize that I couldn't respond to your earlier reply in a timely manner".
In an earlier reply, he said: "We recognise that unexploded ordnance is a matter of grave humanitarian concern.
The Real Battle I remembered his earlier reply to the suggestion that Lady Chatterley's affair with Mellors was due solely to her husband's impotence.
And why do so many West Indian young men end up in a life of crime and gangs?" To which Abbott merely repeated her earlier reply another three times.
"Will you appoint a Special Prosecutor (ideally Patrick Fitzgerald) to independently investigate the gravest crimes of the Bush administration, including torture and warrantless wiretapping?" Instead of having Obama respond to Fertik's question, change.gov posted an earlier reply from Joe Biden who had said, "President-elect Obama and I are not sitting thinking about the past..
Author reply: We dealt earlier (reply to comment 2) with the reviewer's belief that the substantial energetic benefit we have identified would be an insufficient driving force to promote close physical association.
Mr. Kaempffert, who had covered Heisenberg's original breakthroughs in quantum mechanics 20 years earlier, replied in print that "liars do not win the Nobel Prize," and criticized Dr. Goudsmit's accounts as hot-headed and biased.
Thanking you for an early reply.
Thanking you for an early reply... View Article By Rivka Galchen By T.
I do hope that you will be able to let me have an early reply on these issues.
Awaiting your early reply I remain yours Truly Y 5180 Pte H S Lovett 2nd Sub Dept 1st B & D Tocumwal NSW He didn't even get a response.
In an early reply to Rawls, Crocker explains the value of paying attention to the relative position as a way of understanding the value of solidarity.
