Dryden, John

Agreeing to visit her, despite being "an old decrepit Man, who can entertain you with no discourse which is worthy of your good sence & who can onely be a trouble to you in all the time He stays at Cotterstocke," and explaining his travel plans, 1 page, 4to, integral autograph address leaf [Titchmarsh], 1 October 1698; damp damage, fold tears and seal tears professionally repaired. Red morocco-backed folder. 

Roger W. Barrett, lawyer, of Chicago (Simon Finch, Catalogue 35, 1998, item 57) — Christie's, New York, 2000, lot 60. acquisition: Purchased at the foregoing sale through Bernard Quaritch

Letters of John Dryden, ed. Ward (1942), no. 52; CELM DrJ 343

This letter was written when Dryden was staying with relatives in Titchmarsh, Northamptonshire, and working on his final masterpiece, Fables Ancient and Modern. Elizabeth Steward was a second cousin who lived in the village of Cotterstock, some eight miles north of Titchmarsh. In this letter Dryden accepts what appear to have been persistent invitations and asks Steward to send her coach to collect him so he can spend a week at her home. The visit was evidently a success as after this visit Dryden and Steward became regular correspondents (twenty-one letters by Dryden to Steward survive from October 1698 to the poet's death in May 1700).

Letters by Dryden are rare. Only fifty-five original letters are known to survive, and no other letter has appeared at auction for twenty years.