BIB_ID
363786
Accession number
MA 49.86
Creator
Dunlop, Frances Anna Wallace, 1730-1815.
Display Date
1791 May 3.
Credit line
Purchased by Pierpont Morgan before 1913.
Description
1 item (6 p., with address) ; 23.2 cm
Notes
Addressed to "Mr. Robt. Burns / Ellisland / near / Dumfries."
Docketed.
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).
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 letter is dated and docketed May 3, 1791, but Dunlop mentions that "this is the last day of May" near the end of her letter. It is unclear whether she misdated the first page or whether she took weeks to complete the letter. The published version dates the letter May 30, 1791.
With postmark and seal.
Docketed.
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).
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 letter is dated and docketed May 3, 1791, but Dunlop mentions that "this is the last day of May" near the end of her letter. It is unclear whether she misdated the first page or whether she took weeks to complete the letter. The published version dates the letter May 30, 1791.
With postmark and 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
Telling him that she is back at Dunlop; mentioning a visit from her son John, his wife, and their third boy; commenting on the death of one of her oldest friends; reporting that she has "heard of [her] sons in the Indies -- James safe from battle and Anton returned to Bombay with a ship named the Racer"; morosely dwelling on the past, and commenting on her "awakened sense of every advantage [she has] forever lost"; reiterating how much she values his letters; asking for news of his wife and baby.
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