Works of Charles and Mary Lamb. VI-VII. Letters
Charles Lamb to Thomas Allsop, [17 January 1825]
DEAR Allsop—I
acknowledge with thanks the receipt of a draft on Messrs. Wms. for £81: 11: 3 which I haste to cash in the present alarming
state of the money market. Hurst and
Robinson gone. I have imagined a
chorus of ill-used authors singing on the occasion:
What should we when Booksellers break? We should rejoice da Capo. |
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We regret exceedly. Mrs. Allsop’s being unwell. Mary or both will come and see her soon. The
frost is cruel, and we have both colds. I take Pills again, which battle with
your wine & victory hovers doubtful. By the bye, tho’ not disinclined
to presents I remember our bargain to take a dozen at sale price and must
demur. With once again thanks and best loves to Mrs. A.
Turn over—Yours,
Ann Allsop [née Dean] (d. 1877 c.)
The wife of Thomas Allsop, biographer of Coleridge, whom she married in 1824; she was a
society hostess, not the actress Fanny Alsop, daughter of Dorothy Jordan.
Thomas Allsop (1795-1880)
English silk merchant and stockbroker who was the friend and biographer of Coleridge
(1836) and a member of Charles Lamb's circle.
Thomas Hurst (1770 c.-1842)
Originally a bookseller in Leeds, he began working in London late in the eighteenth
century; in 1804 he partnered with the firm of T. N. Longman. He died in the
Charterhouse.
Mary Anne Lamb (1764-1847)
Sister of Charles Lamb with whom she wrote Tales from Shakespeare (1807). She lived with
her brother, having killed their mother in a temporary fit of insanity.
George Ogle Robinson (1837 fl.)
London bookseller at one time in partnership with Thomas Hurst; they suffered bankruptcy
in the crash of 1825-26.
