BIB_ID
408107
Accession number
MA 35.37
Creator
Burney, Fanny, 1752-1840.
Display Date
1821 August 28.
Credit line
Purchased by Pierpont Morgan, 1905.
Description
1 item (5 pages, with address) ; 18.2 x 11.3 and 22.8 x 18.8 cm
Notes
FBA gives the place of writing as "11 Bolton Street," the address in London at which she was living during this period. See the published correspondence, cited below, for additional information.
Signed with initials.
Address panel with postmarks: "Admiral Burney, / 26 James Street, / Westminster."
Signed with initials.
Address panel with postmarks: "Admiral Burney, / 26 James Street, / Westminster."
Provenance
Purchased by Pierpont Morgan from the London dealer Quaritch in July 1905 as part of a collection of Burney's correspondence and fragments of manuscripts, bound in three volumes. Disbound in 1925.
Summary
Discussing the recent rainy weather; asking him not to recount a humorous story she'd told him about collecting a small legacy to their sister Esther, so that she can tell it herself; explaining that she also wants to keep the story from Esther until the negotiations are wrapped up and she can give Esther her part of the legacy; writing that she is determined to drink tea with him soon and intends to "find my way to you in a manner fitting & becoming for an Admiral's Sister, even though it should Rain -- as Alex says it does upon the Jura Mountains of Switzerland, -- Cats & Dogs"; writing that she has only had one letter from Alex since she last saw James; mentioning the joy and pride she feels in signing herself "an Admiral's Sister"; adding that Frederica Locke has sent "many kind compliments of congratulations for you"; commenting that she hopes he and his wife Sarah had a pleasant "rustic ramble", and "that you stayed out while the Season was Seasonable, & got to your quarters just before this new Winter's usurpation. I remember, many years ago, upon a similar elementary Jumble of January with June, Hetty [Esther's nickname] very gravely wrote me word she thought it so unjust, that she was meditating an application to Lord Mansfield, to demand whether such swopping were Legal."
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