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British Library, Add MS 47890. Not previously published.
These letters were edited with the assistance of Carol Bolton, Tim Fulford and Ian Packer
For permission to publish the text of MSS in their possession, the editor wishes to thank the Beinecke Rare Books and Manuscript Library, Yale University; Berg Collection of English and American Literature, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations; the Bodleian Library Oxford University; the British Library; Boston Public Library; the Syndics of Cambridge University Library; the Syndics of the Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge; Haverford College, Connecticut; the Historical Society of Pennsylvania; the Hornby Library, Liverpool Libraries and Information Services; the Houghton Library, Harvard University; the John Rylands Library, Manchester; the Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas; Luton Museum (Bedfordshire County Council); Massachusetts Historical Society; McGill University Library; the National Library of Scotland; the Newberry Library, Chicago; the New York Public Library (Pforzheimer Collections); the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York; the Public Record Offices of Bedford, Suffolk (Bury St Edmunds) and Northumberland, the Master and Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge; the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne; the Trustees of the William Salt Library, Stafford, the Wisbech and Fenland Museum; the University of Virginia Library.
A research grant from the British Academy made much of the archival work possible, as did support from the English Department of Nottingham Trent University.
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I will not let Burnett go
without writing by him – tho unfortunately I have nothing
pleasant to communicate. his good fortune
My Mother is
in a wretched state. today a little better – yet still so
diseased in her bowels that thex possibility of recovery is very small – &
so weak that Carlisle thinks she if she lives – she will always be an invalid.
she has been delirious – that symptom is gone – she now
keeps her bed – rising only to have it made – & unable
to rise without assistance. for my own part I do not expect
her recovery – it seems to me so little like miracle as x not to be within reach of hope – . & Edith also is
very unwell – miserably unwell – & in a state of
miserable depression. Of course I now go out as little as
possible – & at home I
have no other comfort but what my good old folios afford me,
& the totally
forgetfulness of all present circumstances.
Coleridge has left town – somewhat uncivilly without letting us know of his departure. We saw him so little that it is no loss to us – . Burnett I shall miss – but thank God he is well off at last.
I do little – a mere nothing – my mornings
are fiddle-faddled away with Mr
Corry in sheer idleness – at home I am up &
down to my mothers room – & as often as I can sit down –
someone interrupts me. still my reading goes on – & some
little I contrive to historianize.
Forget not when George returns to send the catalogue.
There are at your house some large-paper
copies of the second Anthology
One quarter of my engagement with Corry is expired – to a second year it is impossible that I should extend – I waver in my plans where to think of settling – for beauty & for oeconomy Keswick pleases & suits me – but it is a long way off! – to Bristol you are my only tie – something depends upon my Uncle – his library will be a loadstone from which I must not stray too far. –
In May I suppose we move for Ireland – I shall try to make a holyday month & see you at Bristol on my way. In one way I like the prospect before me – inasmuch as there appears little danger of a second condemnation to imprisonment in London.
Our love to Mrs
Danvers. I have great hopes of a mild winter – she
will feel its benefit – & I am feeling it –
I had nearly again forgotten. – if you have not got rid of that yellow waistcoat of which we bought one each the night before I left Bristol for Lisbon – keep it for me. mine is gone at the pockets – but Edith says if she has yours she can make mine new again.
Miss Barker has made me a black velvet cap to keep my poor ears warm.