CUNNINGHAM, Allan, letters, autographs, documents, manuscripts


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CUNNINGHAM, Allan (1784-1842). Scottish writer.
Autograph Letter Signed to Mrs Hughes, 1 page 8vo, Belgrave Place, 3 January 1840.
'... This [illness] will not hinder me from finishing the Bust of Ainsworth, with all the haste this moist weather will allow; but it will hinder me from making one of your party to night, for I have in addition to my settled complaint a touch of the Influenza ...'
As a child Allan Cunningham had been apprenticed to his brother James, a sculptor, and one of his earliest employments had been with another sculptor, Bubb, at 26s a week. It would appear from the present letter that at the end of a long and productive literary life he was still engaged on artistic pursuits. One would have supposed that Cunningham refers here to William Harrison Ainsworth (1805-1882), who had already achieved literary success, but there is no reference to any bust in the iconography in Oxford DNB.
[No: 21524]

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