[ Cholera; Charles Greville, celebrated diarist and first-class cricketer. ] Autograph Signature ('C Greville') to part of letter.

The Greville Memoirs caused an uproar on its publication in 1874. Queen Victoria described it as a 'dreadful and really scandalous book' which should be 'severely censored and discredited'. Disraeli characterised its author as 'the vainest being—I don't limit myself to man—that ever existed; and I don't forget Cicero and Lytton Bulwer […] when he was not scandalous, he was prolix and prosy—a clumsy, wordy writer […] a more verbose, indefinite, unwieldy affair, without a happy expression, never issued from the pen of a fagged subordinate of the daily press'. On both sides of a piece of paper cut from a letter. In good condition, lightly aged. The verso reads: 'Sir, | Your Most Obedt Servant | C Greville | 28 Nov. 1831 | A Report to be transmitted accordingly on Monday in every Week. -' The recto reads: '[…] requesting, by desire of Viscoun Palmerston, that a Weekly Repo may be made out and transmi to that Department relative to the state of health in London with reference to Cholera Morb I am to desire that you will […]'. Note: "The first incidence of cholera in England occurred in Sunderland in October 1831 when a ship, carrying sailors who had the disease, docked at the port. The ship was allowed to dock because the port authorities objected to, and therefore ignored, instructions from the government to quarantine all ships coming from the Baltic states. From Sunderland, the disease made its way northwards into Scotland and southwards toward London. Before it had run its course the disease had claimed some 52,000 lives."