Beschreibung:

Three autograph letters, including a cynical tirade about a recent hardship.
Chevely Park and London: Friday , [n.d. but endorsed “1840” in pencil at head, now erased]-9 September 1841. 9¼ pp., folded sheets (varying in size, 119 x 179 mm to 184 x 112 mm), the 1837 and 1841 letters with gilt-edged paper. Condition: the 1837 letter with one edge reinforced; the 1841 letter with address panel cut round (80 x 126 mm), browned and with one edge renewed, the second sheet renewed at crease, postmark. Provenance : From Maggs, July 1997 and April 2001. Friday , n.d.: “M Blessington” to “My dear Mr. Reeves”. The greater part of the letter is a “cynical tirade” about an unnamed hardship that has befallen Mr. Reeves, “…I confess to you this sad event has disgusted me more than ever, with a world of the duplicity, and selfishness of which, I thought I had nothing more to learn. But I feel more for others on such occasions than for myself because they have not yet proved as I have done, how false the world can be…” The Countess concludes on a happy note, however, with a description of the bucolic setting that surrounds her, “…what a fine old place this is, redolent of flowers, and with a Park with glorious old Trees, and a Terrace worthy to be painted by Watteau…” She briefly mentions the dandy Ct. [Count Alfred] D’Orsay , with whom she and her husband lived in a famous ménage-á-trois. 18 July 1837: A quick thank you note and an apology to “My dear Mr. Perry” for the Countess’s brief reply due to ill health: “When I tell you that I am a Victim to the Influenza…you will forgive the brevity and dullness of this note…” 9 September 1841: Signed “Marguerite Blessington” to Madame de Leutre at Paris, remembering a visit to Avignon, in French. Including ephemera: an engraved portrait of the Countess after a drawing by A.E. Chalon; a French newspaper clipping; and two contemporary French bookseller’s notes, one describing a soirée at Avignon in 1840--presumably during the same trip referred to by the Countess in her letter--at which a server, mesmerized by the Countess’s famous beauty, dropped his tray at her feet.