CHARLES MACKAY - AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED 11/18/1863 - HFSID 73093

CHARLES MACKAY
The Scottish author and journalist writes to the Reverend James Fleming, updating him on his availability during his short trip to England, signs name in black ink
Autograph letter signed: "Charles Mackay" in black ink. 3 pages integral leaf, 4½x7 folded, 9x7 flat. Regent's Park, London, England. November 18, 1863. Addressed to Reverend James Fleming. In full: "My dear sir, Accept my thanks for the volume of Select Reading's & the newspaper which accompanied it, giving it favorable on account of the [illegible] of the excellent undertaking. - My time in England is so very limited, that I do not at present, see how I can spare a night to run down to Bath, in acceptance of your flattering invitation; though I should very much like to do so, if it were possible to manage it - if you thought my presence would be of any advantage to his career for have it least. Perhaps in a day or two, I shall be better able than I am at present, to give you either a decided 'yes - or an equally decided 'no'. Your second request is about as difficult to comply with as the first; - not from want of will; but really from want of time in my hurried visit to England - occupied as it is & a [illegible] or ten thousand demands of private & social life. Believe me, meanwhile, Yours 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.