THACKERAY, William Makepeace (1811-1863). Novelist.
Autograph Letter Signed to Lady Elizabeth [Thackeray] in his sloping hand, 1½ pages small 8vo with integral blank, Liverpool, 29 October [1852]. Thackeray's farewell letter on the eve of his departure on the Canada sailing to Boston.
Lady Elizabeth Thackeray, formerly Lady Elizabeth Margaret Carnegie (1798?-1886), was the daughter of the seventh earl of Northesk, and had married the author's kinsman Frederick Rennell Thackeray (1775-1860) in 1825. Her husband was a distinguished officer in the Royal Engineers and was to become a full general in 1854. See The Letters and Private Papers, ed. Gordon N. Ray, 1946, vol. III, page 7, and page 105 where this letter is published. The envelope referred to by Ray with the postmarks 'LIVERPOOL, OC 30 1852, NO 1852 and Lady Elizabeth's address in Devonshire Place [London] is no longer present.

'I had not time at the last to come and bid you farewell and write a line here of God bless you to you & yours - and good luck to all Thackerays by land or by water [a reference to the Book of Common Prayer]. I hear the very best accounts of my young ones; a happy day for their Father it will be when he sees their honest faces again. I could not bear to go to Paris though - and they did not wish it as they told friends of mine. Farwell - Prosper all of you. I send you a hearty greeting and a hurried shake of the hand.'

[No: 25284]