ANNE RITCHIE - AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED 7/25 - HFSID 73177

ANNE RITCHIE. Autograph Letter signed: "Anne Ritchie", 2p (front and verso), 7x9. The Old Vicarage, Ware, Hirts (England), July 25, n.y. On black bordered mourning paper to "Dearest Rance", in full: Hester delighted me by bringing your kind welcome & messages & I fly off to you in spirit & gratefully - but I am now such an old broom stick that I don't dare accept the kindest of invitations only please do ask her without me! How happy one has been how good you all were to her, what an old horror of a lady tried to accompany your windswept piano. How I got back to it & to your blessed music and to Richmond's enjoyment. Things he cared for are such a joy now when there is so much to ache over. Dear Rance thank you again. Today is a grand solemn Birthday, that of little Mary he never saw, who seems to me more like him than any of them. The other children have been singing 'For He's a Jolly Good Fellow', to her. Her mother is so pleased that you remember her. We are all going for a picnic we will drink to you in foaming bumpers. I am every your very very very very affectionate old friend (& subject)". Ritchie (1837-1919) was the daughter of William Makepiece Thackery and was mainly educated by him. She wrote eight novels, but was best known for her memorials for other writers, including Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Charles Dickens. She wrote a biographical introduction to her father's collected works. She married her cousin, Richmond Ritchie, a civil servant who was knighted in 1907. Her step-niece was Virginia Woolf, who portrayed Anne Ritchie as "Mrs. Hilbery" in Night and Day. Slightly soiled. Otherwise, fine condition.