CHARLES MACKAY - AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED 02/21/1853 - HFSID 73089

CHARLES MACKAY
The popular Scottish author and journalist asks friend, opera singer Willoughby Weiss, to come over for dinner, signs name in black ink
Autograph letter signed: "Charles Mackay" in black ink. 1 page front and verso, 5x8 folded, 10x8 flat. Written on Illustrated London News letterhead. London, England. February 21, 1855. Addressed to Willoughby Weiss, Esq., a English oratorio, opera singer, and composer. In full: "My dear sir, A friend of yours - "The Sultan" - is coming to my house of Monday evening next at 7 o'clock - and holds out a hope that you may be induced to come also. - Both myself and Mrs. Mackay will be delighted if you will do so - I think more, if Mrs. Weiss will make one of the party. If Monday will not suit you, Tuesday will suit both myself and Mr. Hatton equally well. Believe me, very truly". Charles Mackay (1812-1889) was an accomplished Scottish poet, journalist, author, anthologist, novelist and songwriter. An educated writer and scholar of languages, Mackay's career began as a journalist in London, where in 1834 he worked as an occasional contributor to The Sun; it was this same year that his first book Songs and Poems (1834) was published. The following year he took a job at the Morning Chronicle as an assistant sub-editor, a job he held until 1844, and during which he published his best known book Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (1841), a history of popular folly. Eventually the editor of the Illustrated London News, Mackay had become a successful literary figure in Great Britain, and in the 1850s and 60s began travelling North America, publishing his observations in Life and Liberty in America (1859) and working as a The Times correspondent during the American Civil War, during which he discovered and disclosed the infamous Fenian conspiracy. He is the father of novelist Marie Corelli and of the minor poet Eric Mackay. Normal mailing folds. Creased throughout. Worn and slightly soiled. Mounting residue on verso, torn and frayed. Corners creased. Otherwise, fine condition.