[Sir George Elliot, Conservative MP and industrialist.] Autograph Letter Signed to an unnamed lady, describing his desire for rest, his duties, his Welsh constituents at Newport.

Hailing from Gateshead, County Durham, Elliot was a self-made man: he began life as a colliery labourer and ended it as one of the richest men in England, his wealth at death being given as £575,000. See his entry in the Oxford DNB. His residence in Whitby containing an Egyptian mummy was visited by Bram Stoker and appears to have inspired his 'Tale of the Seven Stars' (1903). 3pp, two of them 12mo and one 8vo. Bifolium, with one page of text written across the central opening at right angles. In good condition, lightly aged and worn, with a little glue from mount along outer gutter. Folded twice for postage. The recipient is not named. The letter is addressed to ‘My dear Madam’ (‘I believe the above is the way you like or prefer to be addressed’) and signed ‘George Elliot’. A characteristic letter, with various content. The handwriting is difficult. The recipient is in ‘the bright B[oeair?] Square’, which he can ‘realise as an ideal of rest change & pleasure’. He ‘would give a great deal to be able to share the fine climate - but alas I am fixed to duties here and elsewhere in fact my advancing years are not so released from work & anxious care as they ought to be’. He bewails his ‘[savage?] habits of material work’, and does not know where he will spend his Christmas (‘I hope not in London’). He is ‘pleased our friends of G[?] Square have got so nice a Chateau’. The second half of the letter contains references to: ‘the sacred spot on the Hill where we spend some sober & happy useful time’, and to the ‘eventful’ nature of 1888. In the last paragraph he states his intention of going to Newport for a few days in the following week, to ‘bear with a Welsh deputation [?] asking to have the Local Go[vernmen]t Bill printed in Welsh to please & edify our Welsh Constituents’.