Lot 192
De Quincey, Thomas
Rare Books, Maps, Manuscripts & Photographs
Auction: 10 January 2007 at 11:00 GMT
Description
Autograph note to his publisher William Tait. Holyrood Debtors' Sanctuary, Edinburgh, 4 February 1834, 16mo, 3 pages, asking Tait to visit him in the Debtors' Sanctuary (“…I cannot come to you without danger … emissaries are on the watch in all directions…”) to discuss proofs for his autobiographical sketches, asking for ten shillings for the necessities of writing (“Ink – Paper – Laudaenum – and some other”), and promising to send Tait “a corresponding portion of the new MS” in payment, signature cut away
Footnote
Provenance: Rev. William Denton, thence by descent.
Note: A note to his editor and publisher, revealing the chaotic conditions in which De Quincey was writing. De Quincey's precarious financial situation had finally collapsed the previous November and he had sought refuge in the Debtors' Sanctuary of Holyrood. He had recently begun working for William Tait, perhaps de Quincey's most sympathetic editor, who encouraged him to write his important "Autobiographical Sketches", the first group of which appeared in Tait's Magazine from February to May 1834.