Three Autograph Letters Signed (all three 'W. Elwin') to historian Alexander William Kinglake (1809-1891).

All three letters 12mo, and closely written. All three with rusted pinholes at head. A valuable correspondence, in which one of Victorian England's leading critics describes his response to the work of one of the age's foremost historians. LETTER ONE (1 page, 26 lines, good): He thanks Kinglake for sending his 'new volume' [of 'The Invasion of the Crimea']. 'I am reading it with great delight. The work to me is unique both in military & literary history. I never read a book before which gave a description of a battle in all its parts, so as to convey a true picture of what a battle really is.' Continues in the same vein, laying on the praise. 'Many of the passages are full of pathos, & grandeur, & when I read them aloud in our domestic circle thehy stirred the hearts of old & young alike.' Concludes 'If the work were far less distinguished for its intellectual beauties it would deserve immortality for its fearless honesty. An author who loves nothing better than truth is rare.' LETTER TWO (2 pages, 33 lines, good): Another paean of praise, beginning 'I find your new preface delightful for its contents, & the vigour & felicity of the language. Newspapers write more & more in superlatives, & exaggerate everything for the sake of effect. I suppose we have all felt this in the accounts of the Egyptian Campaign, [...]'. Discusses Lord Bury and 'one of the most comical instances on record of a man digging a pit for another & falling into it himself. I never saw Lord Bury but once, & then only for an instant, but I know his father & the family calibre. With sundry good qualities, to be a little weak, a little vain, & a politician for what you can get runs, I think, in the blood.' Returns to Kinglake's 'volume' in the last paragraph, with yet more praise. LETTER THREE (two pages, 27 lines, with some wear at foot affecting a couple of words of still-decipherable text): He has read Kinglake's letter 'with a pride & pleasure greater than you yourself probably feel at the completion of your masterly work. The modes of treating history were hacknied, & did not seem capable of much novelty. I know scarce anything inn fiction more original than yours, & the originality has everywhere tended to one end, [...] I look upon your history as absolutely unique, [...] it had been a war far less memorable in its consequences it would have been rendered memorable by its historian, [...]'.