CHARLES MACKAY - AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED - HFSID 73092
Price: $400.00
CHARLES MACKAY
The Scottish literary figure explains that he cannot copy out ballads
from Percy's Reliques, but gives suggestions on where to buy it, signs
name in black ink
Autograph letter signed: "Charles Mackay" in black ink. 3 page
integral leaf, 4½x7¼ folded, 9x7¼ flat. March 8, no year. Addressed to Thomas
Silke, Esq. In full: "My dear sir, I cannot possibly find time to copy
out from Percy the [illegible] of this ballad - and I thought he I wrote to you,
that if you approved of the suggestion, you would have it set up at once: and
then have saved time. - Percy's relics may be got at any store for a trifle; -
and I should be obliged to you therefor to beg, borrow, buy or steal a copy; - I
have the whole of the balled of [Sawaine] set up - with the [illegible] of the
passages already quoted. Maxon has publish a cheap Edition of Percy; as you will
get it: Vol. 3 of his (Chap. 43). I am afraid it will look like "bookmaking" to
give more than one of the ballads at full length: but I will be better able to
see when I get the last proof tomorrow. It is unlucky that I should have been
called from home so suddenly; but it was unavoidable; as I wish to do my best
under the circumstances, to prevent further delay, Every 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. Light surface creases. Toned. Small stains throughout. Corners
creased. Pencil notes on verso in unknown hand. Otherwise, fine
condition.
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