[Shirley Brooks (‘Epicurus Rotundus’), editor of Punch.] Long Autograph Letter Signed to his aunt ‘Mrs. Piffard’, regarding the bad treatment of his family by ‘W. B.’ [his brother William Alexander Brooks?].

See his entry in the Oxford DNB and Layard’s 1907 biography, the last stating that the Piffards were related to Brooks on his mother’s side. 3pp, 16mo. Fifty lines of closely-written text. On bifolium. Addressed to ‘Mrs. Piffard’ and signed ‘Charles Shirley Brooks’. In good condition, lightly aged, with part of paper mount adhering to blank reverse of second leaf. Folded twice for postage. It is not unlikely that the ‘W. B.’ referred to in the letter is Brooks’s brother William Augustus Brooks. Begins: ‘My dear Aunt, / It is proper that I should acknowledge an enclosure from you, and it is right that I should add a word, as the sending me a letter seems to imply that I should take some steps in reference to it. / I should not, however, say what I mean to say, if there were any chance of my injuring W. B.’s interests, but I feel that you comprehend the case. / What he says is, in one sense, true. His wife (a very good and hard-working one, who would have adorned a happy home) has withdrawn from him, with the 3 children. She left him one, whom he has deserted. / This course was forced upon her, by years of conduct which I do not need, or desire, to describe.’ He explains that he has ‘constantly helped them, with large or small sums’, but that he has ‘only recently learned that he always took possession of my remittances, & spent them in his own way. His wife was too high-minded to tell me this till now.’ He remembers that she used to take a kindly interest in him, and would not want her to think that he was ‘failing in my duty which I am, happily, able to perfom, & do propose to the best of my ability.’ Asserts that he is ‘the entire support of those who survive, & are in England. I had thought that a man of W’s age & ability should support himself, but I have always [?] when asked to do so.’