Lot 196

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Description:

Letter by the Author of the Play at Ford’s Theatre on the Night of Lincoln’s Assassination

[LINCOLN ASSASSINATION.] Tom Taylor, Autograph Letter Signed, to Unknown, August 14, 1867, London, England. On “Local Government Act Office, 8, Richmond Terrace, Whitehall, S.W.” letterhead. 2 pp., 4.625ʺ x 7.125ʺ. Two dark foxing spots; some repairs to edge and fold tears, all with minimal effect on text.

Prominent English playwright Tom Taylor is most famous in the United States as the author of Our American Cousin, the play performed at Ford’s Theatre on April 14, 1865, and interrupted by the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.

In this letter to an unknown correspondent, Taylor seeks information on paintings by Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792). Two years earlier, Taylor and coauthor Charles Robert Leslie had written Life and Times of Sir Joshua Reynolds, a two-volume biography of the eighteenth-century English painter who specialized in portraits. In 1760, Reynolds painted a portrait of Charles Brandling (1733-1802), who inherited a considerable fortune, managed his family’s coal mines, and served in Parliament from 1784 to 1797.

Complete Transcript:
Aug. 14, ’67
Sir,
May I hope that you will be good enough to send me a list and brief description of any portraits or pictures by Sir Joshua Reynolds in your possession – for insertion in a catalogue of his works which I hope to publish shortly?
I have been led to suppose that you have a portrait of Mr Charles Brandling & there may be others, of which as yet I have no information.
With apologies for troubling you,
I have the honor to be Sir
Your most obedient servant
Tom Taylor

Tom Taylor (1817-1880) was born in northeast England and graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge. He was elected a fellow of the college in 1842 and received his Master’s degree in the following year. He soon moved to London, where he was a professor of English language and literature at University College, London; studied to be a barrister; and began his career as a writer. He gained admission to the bar of the Middle Temple in 1846. In the 1850s, he served on the Board of Health until its abolition, when he transferred to the Home Office, from which he retired in 1876. As a writer, he contributed to several newspapers as an art critic and edited several volumes. He regularly contributed to Punch. As a playwright, he wrote approximately 100 plays, including Our American Cousin (1858), the play which Abraham Lincoln attended on the night he was assassinated in Washington, D.C.

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

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