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Auction: 16043 - Autographs, Historical Documents, Ephemera and Postal History
Lot: 36

Documents
Walter Scott
1832 (c.) undated autograph entire addressed to Lady Frederick Adam (wife of Scott's friend, the Lord High Commissioner of the Ionian Islands). Written shortly before Scott’s death, on his return from a grand tour of Europe (the unsteady handwriting betraying his failing health). "Dear Lady Adam / I am flattered by your kind enquiries after the last born of a large family, but they have not reached Naples or I at least have not seen them. When ever I get hold of a book seller again I will be too happy to make up ..." . and is signed "Walter Scott". With red wax seal and hand delivered.


In 1831, with his health failing, he undertook a grand tour of Europe, and was welcomed and celebrated wherever he went. He returned to Scotland and, in September 1832, died (in unexplained circumstances) at Abbotsford. John Gibson Lockhart, in his "Memoirs of the life of Sir Walter Scott", had speculated that the "last jotting of Sir Walter’s Diary", recording his "starting from Naples on the 16th of April", was "perhaps the last specimen of his handwriting" (IV, 314), but the present brief letter could post-date that entry. Photo

Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet, FRSE (1771 – 1832) was a Scottish historical novelist, playwright and poet.

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Sold for
£210