Autograph letter signed.
8vo. 3 pp. on bifolium. Mounted on backing paper.
€ 180.00
To "Thistle" (Robert Hume Middlemass), editor of "The Bouquet", a monthly miscellany "culled from Marylebone Gardens", with thanks and praise for a recent issue, criticizing other writers "whose pens are mere bread winners": "My dear Mr. Thistle - or Miss Mignonette [i. e. the novelist Jean Middlemass] - for I scarcely know to whom my warmest thanks are due - Thanks is too cold a word to express my grateful feelings to both, and all who have concurred in doing me such honor and kindness. I feel all the more too that such angel visits to me are indeed few and far between. I have been diligently reading and am quite charmed with the kindly feelings that pervade the whole of the 'Bouquet': the graceful and elegant writing, the racy humour so free from all bitterness or illnature [...]".
The "Bouquet" was a literary magazine run by aristocratic women based on the far side of Regent's Park. Only subscribers were allowed to contribute, and each had to choose the name of a flower to sign her work: Jean Middlemass was "Mignonette", Lady Hester Browne "Bluebell", and the Knatchbull sisters "Kingcups". The young Christina Rossetti contributed Italian verses under the name of "Calta".
With collector's note to backing paper. A fine, well-preserved letter.
