CHARLES GODFREY LELAND - AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED 03/26/1890 - HFSID 18760

CHARLES GODFREY LELAND
Poet and occultist Charles Godfrey Leland wrote this letter to Howard M. Jenkins, editor of the Friends' Intelligencer, in 1890. In it, he relates an anecdor of fellow authors William Makepeace Thackeray and Bayard Taylor reading his translation of poet Heinrich Heine. A rare and desirable piece full of literary content!
Autograph letter signed "Charles G Leland". Red pencil underlinings in unknown hand. 4 pages, 4¾x7¾, 1 sheet folded, front and verso. Brighton, England, March 26, 1890. Addressed to Howard M. Jenkins, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In full: "Dear Mr Jenkins . I was almost as glad to see your 'sig' as to get the unexpected checque for which, however many thanks. - Recd $17.50 in full for contribution to date. I am very glad to hear that my reminiscences of my dear friend were liked. A friend here who was much pleased with them, remarked that the style was very naive [sic] and original, and that it is a great pity that so few biog.ragphies [sic] consisted of anecdotes which set forth the subject so vividly. And that is a great pity also that there are many great men of whom there are no such personal anecdotes facts preserved. I have long had the idea to write a book of such sou venirs [sic] of the great men whom I have met and illustrate it with sketch por=traits [sic] of their faces. I will give you one Thackeray and Bayard Taylor though it sounds more like a vain puff myself , as told by a Mr R. of Boston . - Once Thackeray and Taylor went to New York together.My translation of the Pictures of Travel of Heime was 'piping hot for the press', and they passed the trip,and some time after,in reading it aloud to another by turns. Tayl Both men prided themselves on their skill in reading, and Hiene's alternate strains of mirth and melancholy gave them food opportuni ties [sic] for display. Thack-eray's praises of the [sic] translation were very great, he said that I was perhaps the only man who brought would bring a Heine style to trans-late Heine. If you care to publish this dont [sic] let it out as coming from me. But all vanity apart the pic ture [sic] of Taylor and Thackeray reading Heine by turns and roaring with laughter is a good one. Mr Pennell Iam glad to know keeps up a correspondence with you. Hoping that all is well with you I reamin Your friend." Postscripted: "P.S. If you publish the Thacky anecdote.pray send me a copy." Journalist and historian HOWARD M. JENKINS (1842-1902) was the editor of several newspapers and magazines, including the Philadelphia Quaker newspaper Friends' Intelligencer (1885-1902). "Heine" is German poet HEINRICH HEINE (1797-1856).British satirist and novelist WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY (1811-1863) wrote Vanity Fair (serialized 1847-1848, published in book form in 1848). Among Thackeray's other works are The Book of Snobs (1848) and The Virginians (1857), which contained a critical portrayal of George Washington. Writer, illustrator and translator BAYARD TAYLOR (1825-1878) covered the 1849 California Gold Rush for the New York Tribune. He also wrote travel books (The Lands of the Saracen; or, Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain, 1855), poemsand novels, translated Goethe's Faust (1870-1871) and was U. S. Minister to Germany in 1878. American poet, journalist and anthropologist CHARLES GODFREY LELAND (1824-1903) was probably best known during his lifetime for his humorous poems that reproduced the German-English dialect of the Pennsylvania Dutch and were collected in Hans Breitmann's Ballads (1871). He became a journalist in 1853 and was published in numerous periodicals, including P. T. Barnum's Illustrated News, the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin; he also edited Graham's Magazine. An inheritance from his father allowed Leland to leave the rat race behind in 1869 and study folk tales and occultism throughout the U. S. and Europe. His other major work came from this period: Aradia, or: The Gospel of the Witches (1899), in which he claimed to have discovered a form of pre-Christian Italian witchcraft that had survived into the present day in Tuscany. His other anthropological and occult works include The English Gypsies (1873), Algonquin Legends (1884) and Legends of Florence (1895-1896). Leland was also an important figure in the American Arts and Crafts movement. He was the founder of a school, based on the Arts and Crafts movement that taught crafts to poor children in that city in 1880; it proved so successful that it was incorporated into the public school system as the Public Industrial Art School of Philadelphia. Fragile. Lightly toned. Signature and body of letter have bled lightly in places but are legible. Show-through touches signature and body of letter. Paper loss in top left corner of page 2 touches body of letter but not signature. Page 2 is missing top left corner. Heavy separation at top and bottom edges of spine. Folded twice and unfolded. Pinholes where folds and spine touch. Otherwise in fine condition.