C.G. Gordon | Autograph letter signed, to Sir Samuel Baker, 8 January 1884

Charles G. Gordon

Autograph letter signed, to Sir Samuel Baker

summarising his key meeting with the influential journalist W.T. Stead ("...Today, came a Mr Stead & invaded me. I told him what I had to say about Soudan. He is editor Pall Mall Gazette. This is all I mean to say...") and making arrangements for travel and meeting, 2 pages, 8vo, Southampton, 8 January 1884

[with:] W.T. Stead, autograph letter signed, to Miss Augusta Gordon, on the death of General Gordon and his own response to the event in the Pall Mall Gazette ("...May God bless that cry of faith and hope to many a mourning soul..."), 1 page, 8vo, integral blank, headed stationery of the Pall Mall Gazette, 11 February 1885

GORDON'S UNDERSTATED ACCOUNT OF AN INFLAMMATORY INTERVIEW. Gordon's long and opinionated interview on the situation in the Sudan, published the day after this letter was written, was combined with an editorial by Stead emphatically stating that Gordon was the man to solve the crisis in the country. Other newspapers swiftly followed in the clamour of public opinion, and within weeks Gladstone's government had appointed Gordon to his ill-fated final mission to Khartoum.

PROVENANCE:

Spiro family collection; their sale, part 2, Christie's, New York, 26 February 2004, lot 39