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Lot 123

MEREDITH (GEORGE)

22 November 2011, 10:30 GMT
London, New Bond Street

Sold for £562.50 inc. premium

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MEREDITH (GEORGE)

Twelve autograph letters signed, ten to Lady Lawrence, one to her son William on his engagement and one to William's future sister-in-law, Miss Eyre Crabbe, regretting that he cannot attend the wedding; one letter written the day after the death of his wife; others discussing invitations, gifts, friends such as Morley, Maxse, Morison and Julia Stephen (Virginia Woolf's mother), his doctor's baldness and consequent ill-luck in love, the appointment of a governess, political events, etc., 32 pages, 8vo, Box Hill, 1882-1908

Footnotes

MEREDITH MOURNS THE DEATH OF HIS WIFE. Marie, his second wife, had died from cancer of the throat on 17 September 1885, three days before their twenty-first wedding anniversary; he wrote to Lady Lawrence the following day: "The end was very quiet...When I returned from town 40 minutes later, the dead hand was warm. No longer will that melancholy light at her window speak sadly but still of life to my chalet. I used to stand and watch in the night. She was a loyal soul; she will live with me till my surrender of the breath".

Elizabeth Lawrence, chief recipient of these letters, was married to the horticulturalist Sir Trevor Lawrence (commemorated by the eponymous medal issued by the RHS). They lived near Meredith at Burford Lodge, Dorking. Meredith was especially close to Sir Trevor's two sisters Louisa and Mary, writing a series of 120 letters to them between 1873 and 1909 (see The Letters of George Meredith, edited by C.L. Cline, 1970, ii). See illustration on preceding page.

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