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 : Loudoun Castle [near Galston], to Robert Burns, 1790 Sept. 23.

BIB_ID
363698
Accession number
MA 49.76
Creator
Dunlop, Frances Anna Wallace, 1730-1815.
Display Date
1790 Sept. 23.
Credit line
Purchased by Pierpont Morgan before 1913.
Description
1 item (8 p., with address) ; 24.4 cm
Notes
Addressed to "Mr. Robert Burns / Ellisland / Dumfries."
Dunlop likely reacquired these letters after Burns's death and left them to her descendants with the Lochryan manuscripts (42 of Burns's letters to Mrs. Dunlop and some autograph poems, now MA 46 in the Morgan's collection).
Franked by W. Kerr at "Edinr. Twenty eighth Sept. 1790."
Part of a large collection of letters from Frances Dunlop to Robert Burns. Letters in the collection are described in individual records; see MA 49 for more information.
The two sheets of this letter are not bound on consecutive pages.
With postmark and trace of a seal.
Provenance
General Sir John Wallace; by descent to Sir William Thomas Francis Agnew Wallace; bequeathed to his brother, Colonel F.J. Wallace; acquired by Robert Borthwick Adam before 1898; purchased by Pierpont Morgan before 1913, possibly from the London dealer Pearson.
Summary
Discussing the pleasure she finds in writing her own poetry; wishing he would write to her more frequently; commenting on her earlier advice to him to take up farming; reflecting on their recent losses of family members; giving a negative account of her widowed daughter's spirits; noting that she thought Burns might visit her while he was in the country to bring home his wife and son; mentioning Jenny [Janet] Little; asking how he stands "this dismal harvest"; telling him that she will be at Loudoun Castle "till Mrs. Henri lie in"; wondering what he thinks of the works of Samuel Bourn.