BIB_ID
408126
Accession number
MA 35.42
Creator
Burney, Fanny, 1752-1840.
Display Date
[1813 December 24].
Credit line
Purchased by Pierpont Morgan, 1905.
Description
1 item (1 page, with address) ; 18.1 x 11.5 cm
Notes
FBA gives only "Friday morning" as the date of writing. In The Journals and Letters of Fanny Burney (cited below), Bloom and Bloom suggest that this letter was most probably written in 1813. "December 24", which was a Friday in 1813, is visible on the postmark.
No place of writing is given. In the published correspondence, Bloom and Bloom list 63 Lower Sloane Street in London, where FBA was living in 1813, as the probable place of writing.
Signed with initials.
Address panel with postmarks: "Captain Burney / James Street, / Westminster."
No place of writing is given. In the published correspondence, Bloom and Bloom list 63 Lower Sloane Street in London, where FBA was living in 1813, as the probable place of writing.
Signed with initials.
Address panel with postmarks: "Captain Burney / 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
Saying that her son Alex has not yet returned home from Cambridge and she is waiting for a visit from her nephew Clement (also a student at Cambridge), who may bring news of him; writing that, in these circumstances, "I cannot positively, therefore, say Yes, but I will not say No, to keeping Christmas Day at your hospitable board"; adding that if they do not arrive between three and four, he can assume that Alex has still not returned, but that otherwise she hopes to be there; sending "kindest regards" to his wife Sarah Payne Burney and his children Sarah and Martin (whom she addresses as "Sally and Martinus").
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