Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Autograph letter signed : place not specified, to Robert Southey, 1798 July 28.

BIB_ID
122241
Accession number
MA 1152
Creator
Lamb, Charles, 1775-1834.
Display Date
1798 July 28.
Credit line
Purchased, 1941.
Description
1 item (3 pages, with address) ; 32 cm
Notes
Address panel with trace of a seal and postmark and addressed to "Mr. Cottle / Booksellers / High Street / Bristol / for Robert Southey."
This is said to be Lamb's first letter to Southey that has been preserved. The "Theses quaedam theologicae" (pp. 2-3) were sent to S. T. Coleridge in the summer of 1798.
Inscriptions/Markings
Watermark: Britannica in triple oval with shield, surmounted by crown.
Watermark: Countermark: Curteis and Sons 1797.
Provenance
A. Edward Newton (formerly with his bookplate); his sale (New York, May 15, 1941, no. 589).
Summary
Thanking him for a book and discussing literary matters. Hinting that his birthday is 10 February ("new Stile") and referencing the legend about a woman who was cursed to give birth to 365 children in one day. Noting that Coleridge has "emigrated" to Westphalia, enclosing a list of theological questions Lamb has sent "to be by him defended or oppung'd (or both) at Leipsic or Goetingen," and reporting that "Samuel Taylor hath not deign'd to answer" these questions.