Autograph Letter Signed ('J A Froude') from the historian James Anthony Froude to 'Mrs Long', regarding

3pp., 12mo. Bifolium, on grey paper embossed with crest. In good condition, on lightly-aged paper, with slight damage to second leaf and with part of the paper to which it was attached still adhering to the blank reverse. He begins by declaring that he is 'much vexed' over a mix-up about a parcel of books 'I wrote expressly to London to desire that they might be sent here. As there is no help for it now I must beg you to believe it was not through carelessness of mine'. He asks her to send them on to Dartington, and to let him know the cost, which he will remit in postage stamps. 'The failure of the Photograph is what I feared - The only one tolerably successful was the only one in which I was allowed to choose my own attitude - I wonder whaht human being whose face was made of anything but wood or brass could retain anything of its natural expression - screwed up in a vice in the full glare of the sunshine'. He concludes with good news of his father: 'In a few days he will be in his normal health - and is to all appearances as likely to live ten years - as one'. The National Portrait Gallery lists a number of photographic portraits of Froude, none of them dated from before the 1860s.