LETTER: Autograph letter signed.
COWDEN-CLARKE (Mary), 1809-1898, writer, Shakespearean scholar and poet. Autograph letter signed, addressed to the poet and children's writer Mary Leathley (1819-1899). One page, quarto, approximately 220 words, Genoa, 17 March 1887, on paper with a plan of Genoa at the head of the letter, the Cowden-Clarkes' residence (apparently) being marked in green by Mary Cowden-Clarke for Leathley to see her exact location.
After thanking Leathley for her latest letter and the "two lovely poems it enclosed, to my Brother Alfred and sister Sabilla (with whom I reside here), and we all three immensely admired them and cordially enjoyed them, - especially the "Legend", Cowden-Clarke refers to her home in Genoa: "To give you an idea of the spot on which your charming Poems were read, I write upon Plan=Paper; and we three were sitting in a window together overlooking the glorious view of the Genoa Bay. I should tell you that Alfred has had this particular window fitted up for me with one single frame of glass; so that the said "view" is seen to perfection, and moreover ensures me from draught, which I dread, as I am (to use Hostess Quickly's phrase) "as rheumatic as two dry toasts!" (The character "Hostess Quickly" was one that Mary Cowden-Clarke herself played on stage.) Cowden-Clarke concludes by referring to "a biographic sketch of my dear Father" which she is sending her and asking that her love be sent to "dear Miss Jane Cobden when you see her", a reference to the long-lived feminist and radical Jane Cobden Unwin (1851-1947), the daughter of the radical politician Richard Cobden (1804-1865) and the wife of T. Fisher Unwin (1848-1935).
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