WOLLSTONECRAFT

One page, 16mo (9 x 11.5cm), trimmed, staining (recto and verso, from being laid down in an album presumably) but text clear and complete: "Sir Percy Shelley would be obliged to Messrs Sewell & Co. to send home the articles he purchased today - before two o'clock tomorrow, as Sit Percy is going into the country and wishes to take the parcel with him." Note: a. Sewell & Co. were perhaps the silk mercers and drapers of Compton St., London; b. Image on website.

The present collection provides an interesting view of the response of a traditional novelist and biographer to the work of a proponent of 'The New Historical Fiction'. Margaret Forster was a noted British author, in addition to her many novels she published a number of biographies, including ones of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1988) and Daphne du Maurier (1993). On its publication in 1993 Sherwood's first novel 'Vindication' was both successful and controversial.

All five items good, on lightly aged paper. All five bifoliums, bearing traces of previous grey paper mount on the verso of the second leaf. LETTER ONE (one page, 12mo, 30 May 1865): He is 'very poorly', with a 'bad bilious attack which has threatened to turn into jaundice'. 'Yesterday I met Mr Herbert in Regent Street. We talked for a few minutes at cross purposes, my thoughts running on his journalistic prospects and projects, while he was thinking and speaking about his election at the Savage Club.