CHARLES MACKAY - AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED 10/24 - HFSID 73090

CHARLES MACKAY
The popular Scottish author and journalist asks a gentleman about a possible autograph exchange, signs name in black ink
Autograph letter signed: "Charles Mackay" in black ink. 1 page front and verso, 3¾x5¾. London, England. October 24, no year. In full: "Dear Sir, On the other side is a list of a few autographs which I should be glad to exchange with you for any duplicate that you may have. Men of literary fame are those I should prefer, Burns & Walter Scott more especially. I will forward them whenever you say that they will suit you. Believe me, yours 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. Corners creased. Left edge frayed and slightly torn. Ink stains throughout. Slightly soiled. Otherwise, fine condition.