BIB_ID
318631
Accession number
MA 849.11
Creator
Sterne, Laurence, 1713-1768.
Display Date
[1760] May [i.e., Mar.] 8.
Credit line
Purchased by Pierpont Morgan, 1912.
Description
1 item (3 p., with address) ; 20 cm
Notes
Address panel with postmark and evidence of a seal and addressed "To / Miss Formantel / at Mrs. Joliff's in Stone gate / York."
Part of a collection of letters from Laurence Sterne to his mistress Catherine Fourmantel, a professional singer whom he met in York in 1759. Letters in the collection have been described individually in separate catalog records; see related collection-level record for more information.
Sterne has dated the letter "May 8th 176." Corrected month and year of writing from Curtis.
Part of a collection of letters from Laurence Sterne to his mistress Catherine Fourmantel, a professional singer whom he met in York in 1759. Letters in the collection have been described individually in separate catalog records; see related collection-level record for more information.
Sterne has dated the letter "May 8th 176." Corrected month and year of writing from Curtis.
Provenance
By descent to Mrs. Henry Weston, the daughter of a friend of Fourmantel's; John Murray (1778-1843), who allowed Isaac D'Israeli to publish five letters from this collection in his Miscellanies of Literature; by descent to his son John Murray (1808-1892); by descent to his grandson A.H. Hallam Murray; purchased by Pierpont Morgan in 1912.
Summary
Reporting that he has arrived [in London] safe and sound "except for the Hole in my heart, which you have made." Remarking that he has had the greatest honors paid to him and is "engaged allready to ten Noble men & men of fashion to dine" and that Garrick has offered him theater boxes and "undertaken the whole Management of the Booksellers, & will procure me a great price." Assuring her that he misses her and wishing, as he sits alone in his bedchamber at ten o'clock at night, that he could squeeze her hand. Remarking "I send my soul perpetually out to see what you are doing -- wish I could convey my body with it."
Catalog link
Department