Autograph Letter signed, to John H. Ingram.

Bookseller Notes

Fawcett, then in her mid-thirties, writes to Ingram having 'now come to the conclusion not to undertake the work which you have kindly offered to me', due to the amount that she has 'to do for my husband' which has left no 'uninterrupted time for writing'. These were indeed busy years for Henry Fawcett, postmaster-general in Gladstone's second administration, but his wife had also begun to establish her reputation as a public speaker.Though addressed as 'John W. Ingram' on the envelope, the recipient the address confirms was in fact John Henry Ingram, best-known as a biographer of Edgar Allan Poe, but who wrote sufficiently variously to make the precise project being discussed difficult to deduce.