[Countess of Blessington] Autograph Letter Signed M. Blessington to [F. Mansell Reynolds, novelist and editor of The Keepsake(?)]. See description below.

Three pages, 12mo, bifolium, good condition, in her sprawling hand, 1/4in. strip of glue from previous laying down on blank page 4. My dear Sir | Pray do not think me forgetful towards you in not answering your note received many days ago, but I am so occupied and fatigued with writing that I have not a [moment?] to myself, and after all I fear it will be impossible for me to fulfill [sic] my engagement with [publisher] Mr Bentley - | Excuse the brevity of this, I thank you for the [?], and I expect your book is universally read and as universally praised - | Always sincerely yours | M. Blessington. | Not a drawing has Mr Heath sent -. A slip of paper has been attached to page [3] giving the details about the correspondent F. Mansel Reynolds (address etc). Note [Background from 'The Victorian Web']; These appeared from time to time between July 1832 and December 1833. In the meantime, she asked Bulwer?s advice on writing novels. He was now a successful author and took her proposal to Bentley, who was to publish his next three books. Bentley offered Lady Blessington four hundred pounds for the copyright of her first book, a generous offer; in response, she produced six hundred pages in four weeks, of the total nine hundred and eight pages of The Repealers, published in three volumes in June 1833. This work contained thinly veiled references to her enemies in Ireland, but also directly complimented L.E.L.?s Romance and Reality. The success of her Conversations with Lord Byron and her novel obtained an offer for her to edit Heath?s Book of Beauty, the first volume of which Landon had produced. For Heath, the snob appeal of a Countess was more attractive than that of a mere poetess, however famous. She prepared her first issue during the summer of 1833 and it was published in November, to enable it to be shipped to America, India and the Colonies, but dated 1834. Contributors to this issue were her dear friends Walter Savage Landor and Bulwer, as well as Henry Bulwer and John Galt, and seven contributions from her own pen. Heath raised Lady Blessington?s salary when the Book of Beauty beat Landon?s popular Drawing Room Scrapbook by two thousand copies, a sore fact for Landon.