BIB_ID
193136
Accession number
MA 4729.1-25
Creator
Dolgorukiĭ, Dmitriĭ Ivanovich, kni︠a︡zʹ, 1797-1867, sender.
Display Date
Barcelona, Spain ; Madrid, Spain ; Málaga, Spain ; various other places, between 1828 and 1844.
Credit line
Gift of Mrs. Frances K. Clark, 1992.
Description
25 items (110 pages) ; 25.1 cm and smaller
Notes
Most letters docketed.
The letters came to the Library folded, wrapped, and tied in a brown wrapper marked "Letters to Washington Irving from Prince Dolgorouki" (preserved). Irving, writing to his friend Antoinette Bolviller on 28 May 1828, described Dolgorouki's letters this way: "Would that I had the turn and taste for letter writing of our friend the prince, to whom it seems a perfect delight; who like an industrious spider, can sit in that little dark room and spin out a web of pleasant fancies from his own brain; or rather, to make a more gracious comparison, like a honey bee goes humming about the world, and when he has visited every flower, returns buzz--buzz--buzz to his little hive, and works all that he has collected into a perfect honeycomb of a letter." The donor of the letters, Mrs. Frances K. Clark, is a great-great-great-great-niece of Washington Irving.
With three additional letters: Antoinette Bolviller (Madame d'Oubril's niece), autograph letter signed, dated Madrid, 8 March 1830 (12 pages); Timothée Dehay (a Parisian bookseller), autograph letter signed, dated Paris, 17 September 1829 (2 pages); and a Mr. Gessler (the Russian consul general, who visited Granada with Irving in 1828), autograph letter signed, dated Cadiz, 17 June 1828 (3 pages).
The letters came to the Library folded, wrapped, and tied in a brown wrapper marked "Letters to Washington Irving from Prince Dolgorouki" (preserved). Irving, writing to his friend Antoinette Bolviller on 28 May 1828, described Dolgorouki's letters this way: "Would that I had the turn and taste for letter writing of our friend the prince, to whom it seems a perfect delight; who like an industrious spider, can sit in that little dark room and spin out a web of pleasant fancies from his own brain; or rather, to make a more gracious comparison, like a honey bee goes humming about the world, and when he has visited every flower, returns buzz--buzz--buzz to his little hive, and works all that he has collected into a perfect honeycomb of a letter." The donor of the letters, Mrs. Frances K. Clark, is a great-great-great-great-niece of Washington Irving.
With three additional letters: Antoinette Bolviller (Madame d'Oubril's niece), autograph letter signed, dated Madrid, 8 March 1830 (12 pages); Timothée Dehay (a Parisian bookseller), autograph letter signed, dated Paris, 17 September 1829 (2 pages); and a Mr. Gessler (the Russian consul general, who visited Granada with Irving in 1828), autograph letter signed, dated Cadiz, 17 June 1828 (3 pages).
Provenance
Mrs. Frances K. Clark, descendent of Washington Irving's family.
Summary
From the Russian diplomat who served in Madrid, London, Rome, and Constantinople. Dolgorouki and Irving were close friends while Irving was in Spain working on his life of Columbus and the Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada, the manuscript of which is in the Morgan Library. The two made a trip to Granada together in May 1829 to visit the Alhambra. Notes from Constance d'Oubril, the wife of the Russian minister in Madrid, are appended to 3 of the letters (3, 14, and 22), and 2 have notes from her daughter Marie, in a childish hand (3, 22).
Catalog link
Department