Egerton MS 3709 A

CORRESPONDENCE (35 letters) of the Rev. George Crabbe (b. 1754, d. 1832), poet, with Mary Leadbeater née Shackleton (b. 1758, d. 1826), Irish Quakeress and author; 7 Nov. 1816-13 June 1826. Twenty-six letters, including the ten from Crabbe, were printed with extensive omissions and many other inaccuracies in The Leadbeater Papers, 1862, ii, pp. 335-403: Crabbe's postscript (ibid., p. 364) to his letter at f. 23 is wanting in the MS. Ff. 48, 77b contain respectively autograph drafts [1822?] by George Downes (b. 1790?, d. 1846), author, of two poems, printed in his Dublin University Prize Poems, 1824, pp. 52, 70, and a postscript by him to Crabbe, 4 Oct. 1826. Also included are:-(1) A letter from John James Lecky (b. 1799, d. 1878), of Ballykealey, co. Carlow, to Mary Leadbeater, 21 Nov. 1820, describing a visit to Crabbe, printed in part in The Leadbeater Papers, i, pp. 409-411. f. 29;-(2) Seven letters from the Rev. George Crabbe, the younger (b. 1785, d. 1857), to Elizabeth Cole, Mary Leadbeater's daughter, about the use of the above correspondence in his Life (1834) of his father, 3 May 1833-23 Oct. 1834. ff. 79-91. This Life prints (in chapters ix and x) correspondence between Crabbe and Mrs Leadbeater, partly from the present MS., including material not printed in The Leadbeater Papers. Paper; ff. i+92. Quarto. 1816-1834. The signatures of letters at ff. 2, 6, 8 are wanting. Sotheby's sale-cat., 22 June 1953, lot 165. Bound with Egerton MSS. 3689, 3709 B. From the Farnborough Fund.