ID 470358
Lot 261 | Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)
Estimate value
£ 600 – 900
Letter to W.M. Thomas. July 1890
HARDY, Thomas (1840-1928). Autograph letter signed ('Thomas Hardy', and also with initials after the postscript) to '[William Moy] Thomas', Savile Club, London, n.d. [shortly after 23 July 1890].
Three pages, 118 x 113mm, bifolium.
'I think it extremely ungenerous of the Globe to find fault with my verses...'. Hardy asks a drama critic to correct a statement that 'the performance in aid of Mrs Jeune's holiday fund for poor city children was not well attended', protesting that it had raised its target of 'about one hundred pounds', and that the somewhat thin audience was due to ticket-holders who 'stayed away on account of the unusual sultriness of the afternoon'. In a postscript, he complains 'Entre nous: – I think it extremely ungenerous of the Globe to find fault with my verses, written as they were for a purely charitable purpose, & in great haste, at the last moment'.
The recipient, William Moy Thomas (1828-1910) was a journalist and novelist. The poem which had been so ungenerously criticised is Hardy's 'Lines spoken by Miss Ada Rehan at the Lyceum Theatre, July 23, 1890, at a performance on behalf of Lady Jeune's Holiday Fund for City Children'.
| Artist: | Thomas Hardy (1840 - 1928) |
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| Place of origin: | Northern Europe |
| Artist: | Thomas Hardy (1840 - 1928) |
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| Place of origin: | Northern Europe |
| Address of auction |
CHRISTIE'S 8 King Street, St. James's SW1Y 6QT London United Kingdom | |
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