CHARLES MACKAY - AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED 11/18/1867 - HFSID 73355

CHARLES MACKAY
The Scottish journalist gives his permission to a friend to republish some of his work on the Fenian Brotherhood, a radical Irish-American group, and signs name in black ink
Autograph letter signed: "Charles Mackay" in black ink. 3 pages integral leaf, 4½x7 folded, 9x7 flat. November 18, 1867. Addressed to Charles Kent, Esq. Original mailing envelope included. In full: "My dear Kent, The enclosed little waif of mine, was published somewhere or other - I forget where - in 1848. It is even more applicable to the Fenians of today - than to the Irish agitators - (with [illegible] & others) of that comparatively remote period. - Revive it in the Sun - if it seem good to you - with such introduction as you like. - I never included it, in any of my Collected Poems - or avowed it. In fact, I had quite forgotten it, then I doubled accidently upon it this morning - Do as you wish with it - but if you do not republish it, send it back to me; - and if you do republish it, send me a copy of the book in which it appears. Ever 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. Toned. Corners rounded. Light surface creases. Light stains throughout. Otherwise, fine condition.