Title: Autograph Letter, signed, by the author of Two Years Before the Mast Author: Dana, Richard Henry, Jr. Place: Wethersfield, CT Publisher: Date: December 7, 1848 Description: 4 page Autograph Letter, signed. Approximately 6¼x4". Original envelope present. Dana addresses “The Misses Marsh”: “…I owe you an apology for not attending to the settlement of my account for the board of my family last summer. I will not pretend that it has been from forgetfulness. It has been partly owing to uninterrupted occupation, but yet more to a want of money. The embarrassment in business the last year has affected my family and myself indirectly more than ever before. But I am happy to say that this is now over and we are doing very well. I enclose fifty dollars, and after inquiry of Sarah as to dates etc. some small bills of hers, will send for the full amount, which I apprehend will be about $30.00 more…Sarah is well, and was at a small party last night at Mrs.Howe’s (Julia Ward)…”. A decade after he wrote an American literary classic of sea adventure "Two Years Before the Mast" neither fame or fortune had yet come to 33 year-old Boston attorney Richard Henry Dana, Jr. who, in his youth, had sailed as a common seaman around Cape Horn to California. The book did not arouse enormous interest until the very week Dana wrote this letter when President Polk informed Congress of the discovery of gold in the new US territory. Then the “rush” westward began and Dana’s book came to be recognized as one of the best American accounts of California under former Mexican rule. Still, like his literary father, who always seemed in financial straits, Dana, as explains in this letter to his wife’s aunts, was not yet able, either as writer or as lawyer who represented fugitive slaves, to support a patrician Boston lifestyle. He certainly had none of the literary luck of his wife’s friend Julia Ward Howe, who would one day gain instant renown by writing a poem titled The Battle Hymn of the Republic. Lot Amendments Condition: Creased from mailing; fine. Item number: 223503
Title: Autograph Letter, signed, by the author of Two Years Before the Mast Author: Dana, Richard Henry, Jr. Place: Wethersfield, CT Publisher: Date: December 7, 1848 Description: 4 page Autograph Letter, signed. Approximately 6¼x4". Original envelope present. Dana addresses “The Misses Marsh”: “…I owe you an apology for not attending to the settlement of my account for the board of my family last summer. I will not pretend that it has been from forgetfulness. It has been partly owing to uninterrupted occupation, but yet more to a want of money. The embarrassment in business the last year has affected my family and myself indirectly more than ever before. But I am happy to say that this is now over and we are doing very well. I enclose fifty dollars, and after inquiry of Sarah as to dates etc. some small bills of hers, will send for the full amount, which I apprehend will be about $30.00 more…Sarah is well, and was at a small party last night at Mrs.Howe’s (Julia Ward)…”. A decade after he wrote an American literary classic of sea adventure "Two Years Before the Mast" neither fame or fortune had yet come to 33 year-old Boston attorney Richard Henry Dana, Jr. who, in his youth, had sailed as a common seaman around Cape Horn to California. The book did not arouse enormous interest until the very week Dana wrote this letter when President Polk informed Congress of the discovery of gold in the new US territory. Then the “rush” westward began and Dana’s book came to be recognized as one of the best American accounts of California under former Mexican rule. Still, like his literary father, who always seemed in financial straits, Dana, as explains in this letter to his wife’s aunts, was not yet able, either as writer or as lawyer who represented fugitive slaves, to support a patrician Boston lifestyle. He certainly had none of the literary luck of his wife’s friend Julia Ward Howe, who would one day gain instant renown by writing a poem titled The Battle Hymn of the Republic. Lot Amendments Condition: Creased from mailing; fine. Item number: 223503
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