BIB_ID
106335
Accession number
MA 1836
Creator
De Quincey, Thomas, 1785-1859.
Display Date
Edinburgh, Scotland?, 1839? December 25.
Credit line
Gift of William H. McCarthy, Jr., 1957.
Description
1 item (4 pages) ; 11.3 x 9.4 cm
Notes
The addressee is not named in the letter, but based on De Quincey's references to his autobiographical writings, it is most likely to have been the publisher William Tait, who was publishing De Quincey's autobiographical essays in Tait's Edinburgh Magazine during this period.
De Quincey lists the date of writing as "Wednesday Dec. 25." Based on the contents of the letter, earlier catalog records have suggested that it may have been written in 1839. December 25th fell on a Wednesday in 1839.
De Quincey provides no place of writing. If the letter was written at the end of 1839, he may have been writing from Edinburgh. He and his children moved into Mavis Bush Cottage, Lasswade, in January 1840.
De Quincey lists the date of writing as "Wednesday Dec. 25." Based on the contents of the letter, earlier catalog records have suggested that it may have been written in 1839. December 25th fell on a Wednesday in 1839.
De Quincey provides no place of writing. If the letter was written at the end of 1839, he may have been writing from Edinburgh. He and his children moved into Mavis Bush Cottage, Lasswade, in January 1840.
Provenance
From the Sentimental Library of H. B. Smith, page 65.
Summary
Explaining in detail his financial situation; saying that because of a case of embezzlement, he was not able to pay his rent in August and it has been put in the hands of debt collectors; writing that he paid half of the bill, but he still has a balance of £22.10, which is due today; asking whether "on my putting into your hands 2 sheets of the Autobio. together with as much more of a 3rd as well be equal to that sum, - and sub conditione of course that you find the MS equal to your expectations, - whether under these conditions I may look to you for that sum;" saying that this is the only bill he will trouble Tait about, though he may have other small expenses in the near future; writing in a postscript: "The urgency to me of this case arises thus : I am under a bond to quit the House in 5 days on failure of payment. This condition I was obliged to concede in consequence of the embarassment into which Mr. Duguid's defalcation had brought me on August 25."
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