CHARLES MACKAY - AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED 05/18/1859 - HFSID 73363

CHARLES MACKAY
The Scottish poet and journalist writes to Star newspaper in regards to his badly misprinted poem, signs name in blue ink
Autograph letter signed: "Charles Mackay" in blue ink. 3 pages integral leaf, 4x5 folded, 8x5. 2½x3¼ newspaper clipping featuring Mackay's poem "What Might Be Done" from his book Town Lyrics. May 18, 1859. In full: "Dear Sir, I notice in the "Star" of this morning, a quotation from a poem of mine, which was read recently, at the meeting of the Poem Society; in inaccurately given -". 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. Toned. Creased throughout. Corners creased. Otherwise, fine condition.