BIB_ID
409826
Accession number
MA 4647.21
Creator
Dickinson, Edward, active 18th century.
Display Date
undated [1752-1763].
Credit line
Purchased on the Gordon N. Ray Fund, 1989.
Description
1 item (2 pages) ; 23.2 x 18.4 cm
Notes
Lucy Cleland is not identified by name on the letter, but internal evidence strongly suggests that she is Dickinson's correspondent.
This letter is undated. Based on the contents, it appears to be from the period when John Cleland and Lucy Cleland were communicating through the lawyers Allan Auld and Edward Dickinson, a period which began in the early 1750s and lasted until, approximately, her death in 1763. The first dated letters from the correspondence are from 1752. See Hal Gladfelder's book Fanny Hill in Bombay (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012), pages 180-193, for a discussion of this correspondence.
The letter contains many crossings-out, edits and substitutions. It is not signed.
This letter is undated. Based on the contents, it appears to be from the period when John Cleland and Lucy Cleland were communicating through the lawyers Allan Auld and Edward Dickinson, a period which began in the early 1750s and lasted until, approximately, her death in 1763. The first dated letters from the correspondence are from 1752. See Hal Gladfelder's book Fanny Hill in Bombay (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012), pages 180-193, for a discussion of this correspondence.
The letter contains many crossings-out, edits and substitutions. It is not signed.
Provenance
Purchased at Sotheby's, London, December 14, 1989 (lots 11 and 12).
Summary
Telling her that he has just paid out to John Cleland forty-seven pounds and five shillings, as directed by her; enclosing Cleland's receipt and a letter from him thanking her for the gift (neither of these are with the item): "He told me [...] that he sho[ul]d make use of it to discharge every thing at the place where he lodged" and that he intended to "betake himself to a place of more retirem[en]t where he sho[ul]d apply himself to study, & endeavour to behave so as to gain your Approbation"; writing that John Cleland also said that "your bounty in giving him this sume was more than he expected or desired. That the allowance of 30 [pounds] a y[ea]r w[hi]ch you have been so good to make him for the future, he knows is more than he ought to take from you, & acknowledges he has no pretense to it any longer than his behaviour is such as you shall approve of [.] That whenever he shall act in such a Manner as to incurr your displeasure he is Content that that allowance shall be stopt"; adding that Cleland has asked him "to be witness for him to you, that he will never more trouble you with any of his difficulties, but Consider what you have now done for him, as the last bounty he is ever to expect from you"; writing that he is persuaded that John Cleland intends to "gain your good Opinion by his future Conduct & I hope & sincerely wish he may succeed."
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