STEVENSON, Robert Louis (1850-1894). Author.
Autograph Letter Signed to Miss [Mary] Carmichael, 1 page 8vo with integral blank and envelope postmarked 14 October 1885. Giving her permission to set to music and to publish twenty songs.

'... Please receive by this my authority to set and publish twenty of my songs; which authority you had better communicate to Mr Longman. As to remuneration to myself it is left in your discretion.'

This was a particularly fruitful period in Stevenson's career. He had just published A Child's Garden of Verses - which is probably the subject of the present letter - and was shortly to follow it with Mannheim, Kidnapped, and The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. The ill health that was to bring his life to an untimely end made this industry all the more remarkable.
Mary Carmichael was a prolific composer of songs, as well as an accompanist.
Together with the copy of a memorandum presumably by Mary Carmichael 'Copy of the interview with Mr R.L. Stevenson', 1½ pages 4to, explaining the background to the matter, and quoting Stevenson's comments and replies to her questions as well as his remarks on his now chronic ill-health.
Mary Carmichael seems not to have been noticed by any of Stevenson's major biographers, and she is not mentioned in the index to The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson, ed. Bradford A. Booth and Ernest Mehew (1994-1995).
Provenance: Carmichael family papers.
[No: 22440]