CHARLES MACKAY - AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED 09/12/1872 - HFSID 73364

CHARLES MACKAY
The Scottish literary figure discusses a recent oration that he has heard, and offers his own point of view, signs name in black ink
Autograph letter signed: "Charles Mackay" in black ink. 2 pages front and verso, 4½x7¼ each, 9x7¼ flat. September 12, 1872. Addressed to J.C. Nelson, Esq. In full: "My dear sir, Your letter of the 8th reached me today - having been forwarded from Fern Dell. I shall not be in London until the 1st of October - when I shall be glad to see you. I cheerfully accept your request to allow my name to appear among the supporters of Mr. Linus Bank whose oration I should have been glad to hear...oddly enough the subject his discourses has been in my own mind as the enclosed slips will show. Please present one of them to him with my compliments. The song of Burns seems to imply that a man must be good if he is poor. Mine asserts that a man may be good even if he should to be rich: which is better". 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. Torn along creases, two separate pieces. Worn and slightly soiled. Corners creased. Otherwise, fine condition.