Autograph Letter Signed to Thomas Thompson of Liverpool.

Two pages, quarto. Well preserved, on good lightly-aged paper, but with the original piece of paper (which was roughly nine inches by seven and a half wide) now neatly cut into three strips (the top and bottom of which are two and three-quarter inches high, and the middle three and a half inches high). The text is extremely neatly written and entirely legible, and the whole easily repairable with archival tape. The whole of this long, interesting letter (thirty-five lines and a two-line postscript) is given over to the current craze for autograph collecting (for which see A. N. L. Munby's 'Cult of the Autograph Letter', 1962). She has clearly been trading autographs with her correspondent, and has kept all those he has sent, except that of David Garrick ('I do not except this in my thanks for the value of uch a prize is equal in the offer, whether wanted or not.') She has delayed sending some autographs in return, as her 'resources are almost drained'. 'I have been in London since I received your last, and have brought home a few autographs, some given by friends, and some purchased at a high price'. Discusses 'Pyndar Beauchamp'. 'The sale of autographs seems to have experienced some of the depression which has befallen all other trades.' Comments on the prices she had to pay for an 'Oliver Cromwell' and a 'James the first' (the latter being 'so scarce that it has never been found in any public sale'). She has also been given 'an Elizabeth', which completes her 'ist of English Sovereigns from her time to the present day'. She has learned from experience 'that one begins with caution and deals only in small matters, just dabbling on the surface, and then one plunges deeper and deeper, till one gets into a bottomless pit. Such I suppose is the progress of all hearty, genuine, collectors.' She is glad his 'collecting spirit' has survived his 'dissappointment'. Wonders what will become of her collection 'in the next generation', speculating that it will belong to 'some one who cannot appreciate it as I do; yet my heart is in my pursuit, and every acquisition is like a guinea added to the hoard of a miser'. Adds in postscript 'I bought forty portraits and wrote eight autographs while in London.'