Letter from Anna Mary Howitt, London, to Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon, 1847 December 26 : autograph manuscript signed.

Describing her gratitude for Barbara's Christmas greeting; noting that she also received holiday greetings from Mary Merryweather (a Quaker friend of Bessie Parkes, who was interested in the conditions of female factory workers), Eliza Fox, and her cousin Emily; planning to write to Mrs. Surrey; noting that there is, to her, nothing in the world more affecting than the present of a poor person, and it has unspeakable value; expressing that she is glad to hear Barbara likes Berthold Auerbach's The Professor's Lady (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1847?) , which was translated by Mary Howitt; expressing that she is also pleased to hear that Barbara likes Edward Youl's story, though her father has misgivings about it; describing how their affairs are "still unsettled and miserable"; noting the gloomy weather and their dealings with creditors and debt; hoping that in the end, the truth will conquer, and describing the stress they are experiencing; describing her mother's translation projects and reviews of her father's new book, "The Hall & the Hamlet"; stating that she knows Barbara hates crossed letters; describing how Eliza Fox has been spending Christmas in Essex, and that Mr. Fox has recently been ill; describing how Alfred reads to her while she draws, and how she likes a book "in which good and not evil is victorious"; asking if she has read Leigh Hunt's Christmas book; waiting for Tennyson's new poems to arrive (The Princess); discussing woodcuts; noting her promise to send Barbara sketches of her compositions; wishing Barbara a happy new year. Postscript at bottom of page stating that she wishes Barbara would read "The Hall and the Hamlet."