WHITTAKER

See her entry, and that of Whittaker, in the Oxford DNB. 1p, landscape 12mo. A corner of the letter carrying a few words of text has been torn away on opening; it is still attached, beneath a red wax seal, so that the entire document is present in two parts. Otherwise in fair condition, lightly aged and worn. Addressed by Mitford 'To / Messrs. Baynes & Son / 23 Paternoster Row'. Begins: 'Miss Mitford presents her Compts. to Mr.

An interesting correspondence on theatre matters, from one of Canada's most influential critics and designers to 'a favourite poet', the English verse dramatist Christopher Fry. Whittaker discusses, among other matters, mutual acquaintances including Sir John Gielgud and Leonard White, past productions of Fry's plays, a 1998 meeting with the playwright at his West Dean home, and a reading he organises of Fry's 'A Ringing of Bells' at the Toronto Arts and Letters Club. The eight letters are in good condition, lightly aged.

For the background to this letter see William Otto Henderson, 'The Lancashire Cotton Famine 1861-65' (1934) and Angela V. John, 'By the Sweat of their Brow' (2013). Between 14 April and 16 October 1862 Whittaker published a dozen letters on the 'Lancashire Distress' in the London Times, under the pseudonym of 'A Lancashire Lad'. Edwin Waugh, in his 'Home Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk During the Cotton Famine' (1867), describes Whittaker as 'one of the first writers whose appeals through the press drew serious attention to the great distress in Lancashire during the Cotton Famine.