[‘You need not fear my giving you any but cottage fare’: Mary Russell Mitford, author of ‘Our Village’.] Autograph Letter Signed, to Rev. Hugh Pearson, arranging a visit by him and Lady Henley.

An characteristic letter by the author of 'Our Village', written in the year of her move from Three Mile Cross, Berkshire, to nearby Swallowfield, itself eight miles from Pearson's home in Sonning. See the entries on Mitford and Pearson in the Oxford DNB. 1p, 16mo. On the recto of the first leaf of a bifolium which has been unfolded with the fore-edge of the second leaf attached to a nineteenth-century stub. In good condition, lightly aged. Between the stub and the page with the text of the letter, on what was the reverse of the second leaf, is laid down the cover of the letter’s envelope, with postmarked red penny stamp, addressed by Mitford to ‘Revd. Hugh Pearson / Vicarage / Sonning / Reading’. An satisfying piece of nineteenth-century arrangement. The cover of the letter is annotated in a contemporary hand ‘Octr. 21 / 1851.’ The letter is signed ‘M R Mitford’. Begins: ‘My dear Mr. Pearson / I need not say how delighted I shall be to see you & Lady Henley, or how much I feel the honour & the kindness of her visit’. She suggests that they do her ‘the further pleasure of lunching here’: ‘The days are so short now that I venture to make the proposal. You need not fear my giving you any but cottage fare’. She concludes by saying that she rejoices in ‘seeing Dr. & Mrs. Williamson my kind neighbours’. Note: A biography of Pearson (‘a notable figure within the church’) is appended to that of his father in the Oxford DNB.