[Charles Haddon Chambers, Australian dramatist in England, lover of Dame Nellie Melba.] Autograph Letter Signed to Mrs Allhusen, giving plans for his visit to New York, in explaining why he cannot visit her country house Stoke Court, Buckinghamshire.

Author: 
Charles Haddon Chambers [Charles Haddon Spurgeon Chambers] (1860-1921), Australian dramatist who settled in England, where he had an affair with Dame Nellie Melba [Allhusen family, Stoke Court, Bucks]
Publication details: 
17 May 1911; on letterhead of 14 Waverton Street, Berkeley Square, W. [London.]
£65.00
SKU: 23998

Chambers is not mentioned in Dame Nellie Melba’s entry in the Oxford DNB. She met him in London in 1895, and their affair ended for unknown reasons in 1904. It is clearly the ‘notorious’ affair in whose fame Chambers ‘rejoiced to the last’, according to Somerset Maugham’s devastating assessment of the man in ‘A Writer’s Notebook’ (1946). Harry de Windt gives a markedly kinder account of Chambers in his ‘My Note-Book at Home and Abroad’ (1923). The recipient of this letter is Osma Mary Dorothy Allhusen (1877-1965), wife of Conservative MP Augustus Henry Eden Allhusen (1867-1825) of Stoke Court, Buckinghamshire. 2pp, 12mo. Nineteen lines of text. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded once. Signed ‘C Haddon Chambers’. His reply has been delayed by absence from town. ‘It is extremely kind of you to invite me to Stoke Court & I should so much like to come to you - but alas! I shant be in England on 8th July according to present arrangements.’ He suggests a visit ‘sometime in the Autumn’. He is ‘going to New York to produce ‘Passers By” in September, but expect to be home at the end of October.’