[Lord Coleridge, jurist and Liberal politician.] Autograph Letter Signed, lamenting that the recipient ‘Dickenson’ is having to sell his library, discussing his own and the love of books, their friendship and his Devon home.

An evocative artefact of a bygone age of well-read men with substantial libraries. See Coleridge’s entry in the Oxford DNB (in addition to his achievements he was the great-nephew of the poet). 3pp, 12mo. On a bifolium. In good condition, lightly aged. Signed ‘Coleridge’ and addressed to ‘My dear Dickenson’. Coleridge’s hand is not an easy one, and the following rendition is in parts tentative. He begins by stating that he is touched ‘not a little’ by Dickenson’s letter, not having forgotten ‘old days in Harley Street & [St George’s?] Square’. He grieves at ‘the necessity you mention [i.e. the sale of Dickenson’s library] for I remember your Library & I know what it is to know & love one’s books, were it only or at least chiefly in my case the outsides; much more when a man knows the insides as you do’. He has many of Dickenson’s books himself, but there are some he will endeavour to possess himself of, and he will certainly mention Dickenson’s sale wherever he feels ‘it may be useful’. He wishes Dickenson and his wife might ‘come some day into Devonshire & see what I have been doing there in the church & the house - my Library is as yet very empty but it is a nice room & when I move down my London books into it it will look very well filled & fit I hope for a scholar’. He continues: ‘How many years it is since you & I met in the streets of Wells - Many indeed of our contemporaries have gone before us; it cannot be long before we have to go too.’ He ends by remarking that he looks back on their long acquaintance with ‘very great pleasure’. In a postscript he notes that Lady Coleridge and Mrs Dickenson are unacquainted.